Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
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.
Commil USA v. Cisco Systems is definitely not the run-of-the-mill dry, unemotional patent infringement case. But any litigation that is known as the “Bodacious Bar-B-Q case” must be fascinating. The U.S. Supreme Court officially memorialized the case in the annals of legal history last week. Now the induced infringement case is headed back to East Texas for a third jury trial. More than $100 million will be at stake. This article examines the history of the case and the Supreme Court's decision.
In 2005, a Chicago man filed a lawsuit against Plano-based Wellness International, a maker of nutritional products. For a decade, the case alleging fraud bounced around. Nearly every court that review the case tossed it for lack of evidence. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court may have finally ended the litigation by issuing a precedent-setting decision stating that federal bankruptcy judges are able to decide legal issues outside of their normal authority if the parties in the case consent. This article examines the decision and the history behind it.
Texas legislators are on the verge of passing a new law that could encourage out-of-state insurance companies to sue Texas property owners for making coverage claims regarding damage caused by severe weather. Business leaders opposing the legislation, which legal experts say places expensive and time-consuming burdens on business and individual property owners who want to legally challenge their insurance carriers for wrongly denying their claims, flooded state legislators with letters, emails and phone calls this week in an effort to kill the proposed law, which is expected to come up for a final vote before the legislative session ends Tuesday.
Can a ballpoint pen change the fate in your case? Two Dallas Greenberg Traurig lawyers proved to a local jury last week that it can indeed – especially if the pen is really a hidden camera.
Lawsuits over contract disputes and regulatory battles with the government are larger litigation threats to Texas-based businesses – especially oil and gas companies – than are class action litigation from consumers and employees, according to a new study by the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.
A district judge heard closing arguments Thursday in Dallas from lawyers for the State of Texas and advocacy group Children’s Rights on how she should provide federal oversight to reform Texas’s long-term foster care system. Thursday morning’s closings were the denouement of a two-week bench trial that occurred in December after lawyers from Children’s Rights in New York, Yetter Coleman in Houston and Haynes and Boone in Dallas partnered up to bring a class-action lawsuit against the State of Texas to advocate for the more than 12,000 foster children in the state’s long-term foster care system.
Diane Lettelier, senior managing counsel for the Plano-based retailer, told Senators Thursday that the company is so frequently targeted by unfounded patent lawsuits and threatening demand letters concerning its use of technology that it now shies away from using technology marketed by small tech firms. Adopting new technology makes the company a target for so-called patent trolls, she said.
A Houston jury ruled Thursday that Energy Transfer Partners breached its contract with competitor Enterprise Products Partners by failing to properly maintain a natural gas pipeline being used by the two energy midstream giants. The Harris County District Court jury awarded Enterprise $3.7 million.
A Texas district judge ordered a waste management service provider to pay $1.5 million, including more than $500,000 in attorney fees and a $20,000 sanction, to electric delivery giant Oncor after a lengthy breach of contract battle between Oncor and metal recycler, GLM DFW Inc.
The IRS levied a record-setting $3.2 billion tax bill Wednesday against Dallas entrepreneur and philanthropist Sam Wyly and the estate of his brother, Charles Wyly. The IRS claims Sam Wyly owes $2 billion in back taxes, penalties and interest from income generated from trusts that the brothers established in the Isle of Man more than two decades ago. "The IRS figures are baloney,” Sam Wyly told The Texas Lawbook. “We believe the IRS figures are so absurd as to undermine the credibility of the IRS."
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