Pit Bull Trial Lawyer Transforms into ‘TinMan’ on Appalachian Trek

With the cornucopia of high-profile cases Mike Lynn has tried and won in his career, many know him as a pit bull trial lawyer who fights vigorously for his clients. But after spending three months hiking the Appalachian Trail, Lynn returned to the office this past week with a new identity: “TinMan.” Mr. TinMan recalls the life lessons he learned on his 700-mile trek, full of summit climbs, endless rainfall and good people – but no blisters, thank God.

August 13, 2015 Natalie Posgate

New Patent Infringement Lawsuits in East Texas Shatter Records

Patent holders flooded East Texas federal courts with an unprecedented number of new infringement lawsuits during the first six months of 2015. There were more lawsuits alleging patent violations filed in the EDT during the second quarter of the year than in all the other federal courts across the country combined. This article looks at the numbers and the reasons behind the record filings.

August 13, 2015 Jeff Bounds

XTO and BofA Score Mandamus Win in Derivative Royalty Trust Lawsuit

XTO Energy and Bank of America scored a win this week in a Dallas appellate court when a three-judge panel ruled that a trial court abused its discretion by allowing a derivative action lawsuit to continue with an investor of XTO’s publicly-traded royalty trust.

July 31, 2015 Natalie Posgate

Norton Rose Fulbright Scores $400 Million Litigation Win for Tesoro

If the lawsuits were baseball games, shareholders and their lawyers trying to stop two San Antonio-based oil and gas pipeline and storage companies from merging were blown out in the first inning. Tesoro GC Charles Parrish hired Norton Rose Fulbright partner Gerry Pecht to defeat the securities litigation. He won the case before the first court hearing. Here's the story how.

July 28, 2015 Mark Curriden

Judge Sparks: Patent Expiration Doesn’t Mean Trademarks Do, Too

A Marble Falls maker of machine parts for the oil patch lost a closely watched trademark dispute against a rival firm when a federal judge Austin refused to invalidate the defendant’s trademark protections even thought the company’s patent on the product expired years earlier. Legal experts say Judge Spark’s ruling is one of the clearest and most straightforward court decision to state that judges must consider the validity of trademarks and patents separately, even when they involve the same product.

July 23, 2015 Jeff Bounds

U.S. Labor Dept. Proposed Rules could Impact Millions of Workers

The DOL issued two substantial pronouncements recently, including a proposed rule increasing the minimum salary to be paid for someone to be exempt and an administrative interpretation that most independent contractor are actually company employees. A huge amount of money is at stake. Employers already experiencing a significant upswing in FLSA cases will witness an acceleration of that trend. The cases, which are typically brought on a class (collective action) base, often involve hundreds or more employees with aggregate claims in the millions.

July 21, 2015 Mark Curriden

St. Mary Cemetery Trial Ends in Hung 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.

July 20, 2015 Mark Curriden

Courtroom Success Attracts Big Firm Partners to Gruber Hurst

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.

July 16, 2015 Brooks Igo

Brewer Firm Continues Success in TX Voting Rights Act Cases

Bill Brewer and his team of lawyers are having a busy summer.

July 16, 2015 Natalie Posgate

Addison Pizzeria Owner Ordered to Pay $21.4 Million to Sexual Assault Victim – Corrected

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.

July 10, 2015 Natalie Posgate

St. Mary Cemetery Lawsuit Goes to Trial

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.

July 8, 2015 Mark Curriden

Businesses & GCs Need to Address Same-Sex Marriage Decision Quickly

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.

June 29, 2015 Mark Curriden