Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Mike McKool and a group of McKool Smith lawyers asked a San Diego federal court jury to order Apple to pay their client $85 million for patent infringement. On Friday, the jury did just that. The Texas Lawbook has details.
A founder of an Irving software company has gone to court to stop his company from making an acquisition – and it’s worked so far. Brian Womack of the Dallas Business Journal has the story.
In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel ruled that a Dallas trial court did not have personal jurisdiction over British chemicals company Venator Materials, four of its executives and four underwriters of Venator’s 2017 IPO, who are all nonresident defendants in the litigation.
The annual Bench Bar Conference for the Northern District of Texas last week was a non-stop crush of candid judicial observations and advice litigators ignore at their risk. Here's a sampling of what attendees heard.
Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA joins 37 other companies suing the railroads that control 90% of the nation’s rail freight traffic.
T. Ray Guy has made his next move after hitting Weil Gotshal's mandatory retirement policy.
Pick your reason, but by the time Barack Obama left after two terms in office, 18 of 52 U.S. District Court seats in Texas were vacant. That's more than a third. Today, only one seat is vacant. Knowing the new judges might be important in the New Year, Mario Nguyen of Locke Lord offers help.
A federal appeals court put plaintiffs’ lawyers on a monetary diet Monday when it affirmed a lower court’s decision to toss a lawsuit that claimed Dr Pepper/Seven Up falsely led consumers in California to believe that Diet Dr Pepper could help them lose weight. The opinion also provided an unexpected vocabulary lesson on the word 'diet.' Natalie Posgate explains.
The ruling is important because a victory for the plaintiffs could have had implications for the drilling rig industry and possibly other blue collar fields because it may have obligated companies to pay workers for the time spent putting on and taking off personal protective gear, Norton Rose Fulbright, the prevailing law firm said.
A Dallas jury has awarded $20 million to the family of Hunter Brown, a 25-year-old Seattle resident who was killed in 2017 by a Greyhound bus as he tried to chase after it when it left him behind at a rest stop. Natalie Posgate spoke to Brown’s parents and their lawyer, Charla Aldous, and tells their story.
(UPDATED to include Texas responses). Litigation rose slightly in most dispute categories in 2019, but respondents in the annual Norton Rose Fulbright litigation survey say they are worried that economic turbulence in 2020 will provoke a rise in lawsuits over the coming year. The Lawbook has details.
The Houston Bar Association has released its bi-annual evaluation of state and federal trial and appellate judges. The best rated judge mustered a “B” grade. Dozens of civil court judges got straight “F’s.” U.S. District Chief Judge Lee Rosenthal got the highest score, while Houston District Court judges Ursula Hall and Dedra Davis received the lowest rating.
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