Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
A long-running dispute over a landowner’s actions at a 150-year-old historic African-American cemetery south of Dallas remains unresolved after a judge ruled the case a mistrial on Friday. An Ellis County jury was unable to agree whether a landowner and his company were negligent in their actions at St. Mary Cemetery located in rural Ellis County.
The Dallas-based litigation boutique celebrated two trial victories in the past week to welcome their new cohorts, Samuel Stricklin and Tricia DeLeon of Bracewell & Giuliani.
Bill Brewer and his team of lawyers are having a busy summer.
Exactly 1,536 days ago, a 49-year-old owner of a popular Addison pizza shop sexually assaulted an 18-year-old waitress in a nearby Addison hotel. The attacker caused the teenager to suffer severe emotional and physical anguish and gave her herpes.
Testimony began Wednesday in the long-simmering St. Mary Cemetery dispute in which plaintiffs allege a landowner desecrated a portion of the historic African-American cemetery in rural Ellis County in order to carve out more cropland.
Minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage Friday, lawyers across Texas say their phones starting ringing with business clients asking a simple question: What do they need to do now? The unanimous answer, according to legal experts, is they need to do a lot and they need to do it fast or possibly pay the consequences. The good news for Texas businesses is that the changes they need to make are neither complicated nor expensive.
Attorneys representing royalty owners in the explosion of litigation against energy companies are encouraged by a recent Texas Supreme Court ruling that interpreted a drilling lease as clearly excluding post-production costs from royalties. In a closely watched lease dispute, a sharply divided court agreed with the family that Chesapeake entities had improperly deducted post-production costs from royalties paid on gas wells located on 948 mineral acres in the Barnett Shale.
The Supreme Court of Texas issued a potentially precedent-setting decision that may have significant future implications for both workers at Texas businesses and the employers.
Patent holders asserting their rights in front of U.S. District Judge Gilstrap likely will applaud a new rule that allows cases to move forward with some discovery and claim construction before having patent validity issues addressed by the court. This article provides a complete analysis.
Polsinelli partner Leane Capps scored a huge victory last week for two major college sports conferences when a federal judge in Tennessee rejected claims by 10 former college basketball and football players who argue they deserve compensation for the use of their images and likenesses. Capps represents the two Irvin-based leagues in two separate but very similar cases - one in Tennessee and the second in California. Billions of dollars are at stake in the litigation.
Dallas trial lawyer Warren Burns’ four-year-long contentious antitrust and commodities litigation against two London-based energy companies and a handful of their officials has resulted in a $16.5 million settlement. The lawsuit accused Parnon Energy Inc., Arcadia Petroleum Ltd and a handful of specific individuals of artificially manipulating the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI) and oil futures.
The $69 million final judgment, secured Tuesday, was for JPMorgan Chase Bank. The win was the end – or at the very least, a significant jump toward the finish line – of a 13-year legal battle with Plano-based DataTreasury Corp.
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