Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In this week’s edition of litigation roundup, Targa Channelview files its opening brief with the Texas Supreme Court in a long-running $129 million fight with Vitol Americas, Maersk says its not responsible for cargo lost at sea and a former Abraham Watkins’ associate accused of taking files and clients from the firm fires back with an anti-SLAPP dismissal bid.
In orders issued Friday morning, the Texas Supreme Court granted a request from Houston Baseball Partners to drop its claims against Comcast and NBC. That means the case now pits current owner Jim Crane against the man who sold him the team, Drayton McLane.
Justices consider Texas A&M University’s governmental immunity claim in case involving single-vehicle crash by a deputy sheriff at a recently altered intersection. The deputy wants an opportunity to replead his premises liability case.
Ask any fraud prosecutor what their bread-and-butter criminal statute is, and you’ll surely hear about mail fraud or wire fraud. Taken together, they account for a significant percentage of fraud prosecutions at the federal level. Both statutes are broad and malleable, requiring a fraudulent scheme to obtain money or property, a criminal intention to defraud someone and either a mailing or interstate wire transmission. And, properly drafted, just about every type of economic crime can be cabined into a charge of mail or wire fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court is revisiting the scope of property rights protected under the mail and wire fraud statutes this term in Ciminelli v. United States.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a short-lived trademark infringement suit over the name of a Dallas restaurant settles, a trade secrets dispute marches toward a jury trial in Fort Bend County and a judge in Midland gets chided for a procedural misstep in granting a change of venue request.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled Monday that a class action lawsuit pending against Southwest Airlines and the Boeing Company should be dismissed because the plaintiffs suffered no actual damages. Southwest CLO Mark Shaw told The Texas Lawbook the decision is a major win for the airline and he praised three Southwest in-house counsel and lawyers at Norton Rose Fulbright.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found the insulated power structure of an agency meant to protect racehorses facially unconstitutional, Oncor was found liable for a tree trimmer’s injuries and a closely watched insurance case is teed up before the Texas Supreme Court.
The German car manufacturers had argued that Gov. Greg Abbott shouldn’t be allowed to hand-pick two justices from lower courts to replace the two Texas Supreme Court justices who recused themselves from deciding the lawsuit Texas is bringing against them.
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