Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the Texas Supreme Court undoes a jury’s $26 million damages award in a fight involving a contract to deliver fracking water in North Dakota and Texas’ attorney general claims victory in a short-lived Oklahoma border dispute.
While Robert Morris, the convicted child sex offender and former pastor of Gateway Church, is sitting in a jail cell in Osage County, Oklahoma, the wake of his crime continues to ripple as the high-stakes litigation involving the megachurch and its elders is spreading and unfolding in courts across North Texas.
Morris, the church, its elders and congregants and Gateway’s insurance company are mired in lawsuits playing out in state and federal courts. Claims range from defamation to dishonesty about the allocation of tithe money to a dispute over retirement payments to Morris.
The Texas Lawbook's Michelle Casady takes you inside the morass of civil litigation.
A San Patricio County jury awarded a woman $198 million in damages stemming from the sexual assault and attempted murder she experienced over a decade ago. The jury deliberated for two hours after the three-day trial Wednesday and found David Strickland liable for assaulting and shooting of Mary Kristene Chapa. They awarded $100 million in exemplary damages.
A jury in the Third Division of the new Texas Business Court in Austin late Tuesday returned a verdict of at least $50 million in favor of ES3 Minerals, and in support of its claim that several former employees conspired to steal proprietary information and software to start their own competing businesses.
Caroline M. Hill, a 21-year-old student at Vanderbilt University, is seeking access to the books and records for the Lyda Hunt-Margaret Trust. Her lawsuit alleges she is a contingent beneficiary of the trust, which should contain at least $15 million but has instead been “looted” and “dissolved.” Disputes involving members of the Hill family and the trusts that hold the family’s fortune are not new.
Jurors in Harris County found a man was not liable for the death of a woman who had run into the road to pick up tools that had fallen off a tow truck. The jury deliberated for three hours following an eight-day trial that was spread over two weeks before it returned its verdict last week.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Chris Porter discusses what he loves about being a trial lawyer, his early dreams of being a restaurateur and how the door closing on his football career opened other opportunities.
When the Texas Business Court opened its doors in September 2024, following years of discussing its potential promise, there was a flood of excitement from the business and legal community. Cases streamed into the new court in greater-than-expected numbers, especially in Houston and Dallas. But filing a case and trying it are two very different things.
The jury returned its verdict March 5, finding Downhole Well Solutions' tools infringed three patents held by Impulse and that the infringement was willful. The jury rejected arguments that the patents were invalid. Impulse’s lead lawyer, John Keville of Sheppard, told The Lawbook the jury awarded the damages he requested “to the penny.”
An Austin jury found last week that the rideshare platform Lyft infringed one of Quartz Auto Technologies’ patents and awarded the company $1.05 million. Lyft, accused of infringing five patents, is calling the verdict a win.
Dallas-based Dean Omar Branham Shirley, which has brought several cases against pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson across the country, commenced its jury trial in Spokane, Washington, Monday morning. Jurors heard from the parties over whether the alleged asbestos in J&J’s baby powder caused Verna Richards’ life-ending mesothelioma cancer.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a divided panel of the Fifth Circuit sides with Susman Godfrey and undoes the dismissal of a qui tam False Claims Act suit against Lockheed Martin, and a former financial advisor is convicted of defrauding three NBA players, including two who played for Dallas and Houston.
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