Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The Texas Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of a special tax the state started levying against small manufacturers of discount cigarettes in 2013. At the urging of Big Tobacco, the state instituted a $0.55 per pack charge to cigarette makers not involved in the $17.3 billion settlement in 1998. This story has all the details in the dispute.
Sutherland Asbill & Brennan enlisted David Baay, a partner and co-head of the energy litigation section of the firm's Houston office, to develop a mobile app specific to Texas. The app, called Texas openCourts, launched in late 2015 and allows users to locate state and federal courts, learn about the background of judges and access local federal court rules. “I wanted something that would be the most useful,” Baay said. “Quickly, court information came to mind.”
The vibrant Texas economy drives business disputes into federal court and ultimately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. This article identifies ten recent cases from the Fifth Circuit that will likely influence commercial litigation in the year ahead. The specific areas of law include forum selection, federal jurisdiction over class actions, arbitration, civil procedure, and the substantive fields of antitrust and trademark.
The federal appeals court decision is a likely landmark in the modern law of antitrust conspiracy. The opinion unhesitatingly applies longstanding rules about “per se” antitrust liability instead of engaging in the more complex economic analysis that has dominated in recent years.
Half of Texas lawyers donate their services to needy clients, but it isn't enough, Justice Eva Guzman told a Texas Access to Justice luncheon Monday. The value of this work was estimated to be more than $500 million in 2013. Guzman and Chief Justice Nathan Hecht also presented three Texas legislators, state Reps. Todd Hunter, Morgan Meyer and Kenneth Sheets, with its Legislative Hero Award.
This week, three judges on the Dallas Court of Appeals are expected to be chosen to hear the appeal of Energy Trans Partners' $500 million judgment against pipeline competitor Enterprise. Legal experts say could be the biggest and most important business dispute between two Texas companies since Pennzoil clobbered Texaco in the mid-1980s for $10 billion. Both companies have beefed up their legal teams with high-priced legal talent to do battle once again.
Victims of pyramid schemes, in the context of a large multi-level marketing program, cannot bring a class action, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled. The decision could have a significant impact because multi-level marketing programs (Amway, Herbalife, etc.) are widespread in the modern economy, and the details of their operations affect millions of people involved with those businesses.
The legal battle between four Texas eye doctors and Wal-Mart has found its way to the Supreme Court of Texas over the issue of exemplary damages in private attorney general actions. The eventual decision by the state’s highest court could produce a precedent that lawyers claim would cause a surge in lawsuits seeking big-dollar damages under state laws usually reserved for regulatory enforcement by governmental authorities, such as the state attorney general. The lawyers are James Ho for WalMart and Russell Post for the eye docs.
A Houston appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lower trial court must consider whether an insurance company breached its duty to a former Superior Offshore International executive when it refused to provide certain coverage the executive claimed was included in the director-and-insurer policy.
A long and expensive dispute over whether Dallas trial lawyer Bill Brewer should be disqualified from a $60 million international lawsuit because his law firm and its Chilean co-counsel hired a former executive from the opposing side reached the state's highest court last week. Former Texas justice Harriet O'Neill and appellate specialists Nina Cortell squared off on whether the defendant's former CFO is a whistleblowing fact witness or a side-switching paralegal whose actions triggered disqualification.
A federal appeals court recently affirmed the August 2014 dismissal of energy investment bank Mueller Chen & Co. from a $46.5 million lawsuit brought by International Energy Ventures Management for a fee dispute that resulted from a deal involving the two companies.
The Texas Supreme Court, using the state constitution and a case involving eyebrow threaders, expanded the rights of Texans to be free of “unreasonably burdensome” economic regulations. In adopting a new standard of review for measuring business regulations, lawyers involved in the case say the court delivered a ruling to match the state’s vaunted reputation as a frontier of economic freedom.
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