Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
A federal jury in Austin slapped Facebook and Instagram and its parent, Meta Platforms with a $174.5 million verdict Wednesday, finding that the social media giant infringed on patented technology developed by messaging app maker Voxer. The case is a win for law firms Quinn Emanual and Mann Tindel Thompson.
In his four-page judgment, Judge Juan Renteria stated that the plaintiffs “voluntarily remitted a substantial amount of the exemplary damages.”
In this week’s edition of Litigation Roundup, a team from Vinson & Elkins gets a win for the Sabine-Neches Navigation District in a case of first impression involving the Water Resources Development Act, a bus manufacturer is hit with a wrongful death lawsuit over the death of a 6-year-old girl and a Taiwanese pipe maker escapes a wrongful death suit.
Lawyers for Houston-based Apache Corp. failed to convince a federal judge to toss out a proposed securities class action claiming that company leaders misled investors about an announcement in 2016 of “transformational discovery” of a West Texas shale play called Alpine High. A magistrate in Houston has recommended that the case move forward because the plaintiffs’ complaint is sufficiently detailed and specific in its allegations that company officials knew the information they made public in 2016 was “materially false.”
A Harris County jury recently determined that Matthew Smith, former general counsel to Microvast, had breached his fiduciary duty to his client, and owed it the cost of a laptop computer it purchased for him. The jurors rejected Smith’s argument that he was entitled to $3.4 million based on an oral agreement for stock options.
Mark Lanier, who hired Ken Starr to join his law firm in 2018, recalled helping his mentor navigate his departure from Baylor amid a scandal, Starr’s role as ‘principal architect’ of the firm’s appellate strategy in the $2.5 billion Johnson & Johnson talc powder case and other memories from their nearly 40-year relationship.
On appeal, Targa Channelview argued the award rested on a faulty interpretation of the contract between the parties related to a crude oil storage and processing facility. Both Vitol and Targa had an impressive list of legal leaders representing the companies on appeal.
In this week’s edition of Litigation Roundup, a team from Bracewell gets a win for the John M. O’Quinn Foundation in a 12-year dispute with the famed lawyer’s former companion, Texas attorneys are named to take the lead in a multidistrict litigation over contaminated infant formula and the Fifth Circuit affirms $51 million in fees and costs for the Stanford Ponzi case receiver.
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