Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Melsheimer, who is the managing partner at the Dallas office, is poised to take on a new role, helping to lead the firm’s 450-person litigation team. In an interview with The Texas Lawbook, Melsheimer shares his philosophy for leadership and ways the firm is breaking the mold.
The general counsel at First Reserve, the GC at Forum Energy Technology and the associate GC at SilverBow Resources all scored big courtroom victories for their companies last year and have been selected by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook as finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Jerry Jones gets a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman claiming to be his daughter dismissed after the plaintiff’s failed attempt to amend the claims, the ExxonMobil Oil Corporation gets its win in a coverage dispute with AIG affirmed by a Dallas appellate court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit calls out a federal judge in McAllen for denying a motion to dismiss a retaliation lawsuit with “no analysis period.”
U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer of the Northern District of Texas said a John Doe auditor’s argument that the case should be heard in Texas is “unpersuasive.” The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s disciplinary proceedings.
This week a three-justice panel of the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas ordered Dallas County District Judge Staci Williams to hold a hearing on a motion to dismiss pending before her that was brought under the Texas Citizens Participation Act. The state’s anti-SLAPP law requires that a hearing on a motion to dismiss take place within 60 days, but Judge Williams’ staff told the relators in this case — who tried six times to get a hearing set — that, while it does its best to accommodate requests for hearings, its docket is “jammed packed” and “there is no way to SQUEEZE your motion into the requested docket.”
A three-judge panel including the chief judge issued a rare reversal of a trial verdict on the grounds of improper jury argument. Two Texas lawyers who resorted to name calling, including one who threw a tissue box at opposing counsel, “employed nearly every category of what we have previously held to be improper closing argument,” the judges wrote.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Yelp prevails against the Texas attorney general’s office in a suit that accused the website of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a Dallas-area law firm represents an insurance company accusing nearly 50 defendants of RICO violations related to New York workers’ compensation benefits, and a split Texas Supreme Court issues a ruling clarifying the tolling period in a healthcare liability claim.
The high-profile South by Southwest Conference in Austin is commemorating International Women’s Day with the debut of “An Army of Women,” a documentary that follows the journey of 15 sexual assault survivors taking on the City of Austin and Travis County District Attorney’s Office for the mishandling of their cases, and the historic settlement that followed. Natalie Posgate and Bruce Tomaso spoke with the survivors’ lawyers, Jenny Ecklund and Elizabeth Myers of Thompson Coburn, before premiere day about the filming process, what they hope people take away from the documentary and how this case changed their lives.
Pictured: one of the plaintiffs, Marina, featured in the documentary. Courtesy of Julie Lunde Lillesæter/Differ Media
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