Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Mercedes-Benz is asking the Texas Supreme Court to declare that signed written contracts are sacrosanct and override all extra-contractual statements, even if those extra-contractual promises amount to felony fraud, directly contradict Legislative policy and cause severe financial harm to a Texas business. The Texas Lawbook has details.
A Kansas federal judge Friday approved what may be the largest agricultural settlement in U.S. history. It marks the end of a four-year legal battle in which farmers alleged Syngenta released genetically modified corn into the marketplace, causing major disruptions in the corn trade between the U.S. and China. A Dallas attorney took part in the deal.
An online travel agency has sued eight major hotel chains claiming an agreement to suspend competitive bidding on each other's branded online search terms damaged its business. It's a complex allegation of anticompetitive behavior and Lawbook litigation writer Natalie Posgate explains it.
SCOTX heard oral arguments last week over efforts by the Dallas Morning News to dismiss a libel suit against them. Owners of a now-defunct compounding pharmacy claim a 2016 article in The News falsely suggested they were under federal investigation. That claim of falsehood is complicated by a federal raid on their offices the very day they argued in court.
Two recent rulings for $178.5 million have ended what had been one of the longest running cases in the nation. The downside of the case, filed nearly three decades ago, is that only about 70 of the original 2300 plaintiffs have lived to see its end. The Lawbook's Litigation Writer Natalie Posgate has the bittersweet details.
Texas-based 1776 Energy Partners has settled for nearly $5 million a legal malpractice claim against a San Antonio law firm after one of its lawyers botched a lawsuit so badly that they were forced to settle as defendants a suit the company had pursued as the plaintiff.
When Houston Astros owner Jim Crane and another investor bought a new aircraft for $19.85 million in 2010, they apparently expected it to be...well, new. When they discovered two years later it had been equipped with a used left engine with a troubled history, they sued. Now the SCOTX is weighing whether the evidence supports their $8M verdict.
This week, the Texas Supreme Court is handling a business v. business case that could either reinstate one of the largest punitive damage verdicts in the court's history or be the death of exemplary damages in many types of civil disputes in Texas. It features some of the best lawyers in Texas, including two former chief justices. The Texas Lawbook has details.
An appellate court ruled Thursday that the arbitrability of a $15 million legal dispute between Houston-based Apache Corp. and Fort Worth-based Wagner Oil Company will have to be debated in front of an arbitrator in Houston, not a trial court in Fort Worth as WOC had hoped.
IMF Bentham Limited, the parent company of U.S.-based commercial litigation funder Bentham IMF, announced on Friday the launch of a new $500 million fund focused on U.S. litigation finance investments.
It started with a Chapter 11 bankruptcy tied to an Austin affiliate of the Forest Park hospital. It ended with a revelation in a separate case in Dallas of multiple potentially illegal transfers of millions of dollars during the bankruptcy proceeding. The bankruptcy case has now reopened to determine whether a Dallas private equity manager, the recipient of these millions, should be held in contempt and hit with six-figure sanctions. The Lawbook has the story.
Texas-based companies are facing fewer and fewer lawsuits and the lawsuits they are facing are costing them less, according to a new survey of corporate general counsel by Norton Rose Fulbright. But corporate in-house counsel in the state are increasingly worried about cybersecurity attacks and data breaches. The Texas Lawbook has the details.
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