Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In his corner office in downtown Houston, history hangs from every wall.
You don’t just see the maps. Centuries call out, empires rise (and fall) with each step you take in Joseph Ahmad’s office, where the past is still very much alive.
The collection of maps bleeds out into the hallways of the skyscraper floors that the law firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing occupies, jockeying for wall space alongside other works of art.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a divided Fifth Circuit panel revives an excessive force lawsuit against a Lake Worth officer stemming from a 2021 fatal shooting, with the judges sharply criticizing each other in their opinions, and a husband and wife in Fort Worth admit guilt in a custom home building scam that defrauded 40 victims out of about $4.8 million.
Billions of dollars were awarded by juries in Texas last year in personal injury and patent infringement trials. The largest damage awards were doled out in Bexar and Harris counties.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Reid Collins & Tsai senior founding partner William Reid discusses his new book, Fighting Bullies: A Case for a Career in Plaintiffs’ Law.
In late November, Reid led a team in South Carolina that secured a $112.3 million jury verdict for their client. He is also part of the team representing the court-appointed litigation trustee in the GWG Holdings bankruptcy. Reid and the firm have also has represented Elon Musk's X Corp. in litigation.
Reid recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook to discuss his career and more. (Photo by Dave Cross)
Jury duty is no piece of cake. But at least it comes with one in the court of U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III of the Eastern District of Texas.
An avid baker, Judge Mazzant likes to treat juries in his Sherman court to a homemade coffee cake. He shares with The Texas Lawbook his recipe, and his thoughts behind the kindly gesture.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Marathon Oil takes a $46.5 million hit on appeal, an Austin doctor agrees to pay $13.6 million to settle five False Claims Act cases and a few Paycheck Protection Program fraud cases are adjudicated as well.
Dallas-based Dean Omar Branham Shirley on Monday secured a $1.5 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson and other defendants in a jury trial in Baltimore, a figure which includes a whopping $1 billion in punitive damages assessed only against Johnson & Johnson.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a group of wildfire survivors, represented by Susman Godfrey, are awarded $62 million in damages by a jury in Oregon, federal indictments against the former executives of Dallas-based Tricolor are unsealed and the founder and CEO of an aerospace company in McKinney is accused by former executives he hired of firing them after they refused to commit a $1 million “theft.”
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