Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The carrier says the practice known as ‘skiplagging’ — booking a flight with a layover, then abandoning the second leg of the flight — violates airline policies and leaves travelers at risk of having their tickets declared invalid.
Arnold & Itkin and Ahmad Zavitsanos & Mensing are locked in a fight over whether AZA can continue representing Transocean in multidistrict litigation, or if an alleged conflict of interest and an alleged attempt to taint the jury pool mandate the firm’s disqualification. AZA argues there is no basis for disqualification.
Allegations that two Texas lawyers should be held liable for solicitations that occurred in Louisiana and Arkansas put a spotlight on the unique Texas civil barratry law. The plaintiffs argue that the financing and directing of the scheme occurred in Texas. The lawyers say the lawsuit cannot overcome the presumption against extraterritoriality.
While at Vinson & Elkins, Jared Wilkinson handled cases in Delaware’s Court of Chancery. He told The Texas Lawbook that he looks forward to working on Bailey Brauer cases that are assigned to Texas’ new business court divisions.
The CEO of 4M Pharmaceuticals, Mohamed Mokbel, is facing 15 charges related to his alleged role in a Medicare fraud scheme that prosecutors said involved call centers in Egypt and the Philippines, targeted elderly individuals and resulted in a $160 million fraud on the government. Mokbel’s attorneys told jurors Tuesday their client was operating within the bounds of the law with his business plan, which involved payments to a third-party lead generator.
Texas’ new business court and Fifteenth Court of Appeals are now open for business. But how do you get your case into — or out of — those courts? And how do you move your case between divisions within the business court?
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we’ve got updates in legal disputes involving hip hop and rap artists Cardi B and T.I., EOG Resources wins a $15.6 million verdict in a dispute with a Webb County ranch owner, and private equity firm Welsh Carson gets dismissed from an antitrust lawsuit.
In the week since U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur recused himself from all disputes involving Jackson Walker and the U.S. Trustee — related to the firm’s failure to disclose a former bankruptcy partner had a romantic relationship with a sitting bankruptcy judge — they have been officially reassigned to other bankruptcy judges sitting in the Southern District of Texas, court records show.
In 13 days, Arnold & Itkin has filed two motions to disqualify Ahmad Zavitsanos & Mensing from representing Transocean in the multidistrict litigation stemming from alleged injuries suffered by offshore workers during 2020’s Hurricane Zeta. The most recent motion alleges a former law clerk for Arnold & Itkin “improperly took confidential and proprietary information” with her when she went to work for her current employer, AZA.
Plaintiff lawyers Brent Goudarzi and Charla Aldous said the settlement was reached as jury selection began in a Dallas County district court. Their client, a Texas mother of three, was left with a permanent back injury as a result of the 2019 wreck.
In a one-sentence order issued Wednesday, the Texas Supreme Court denied a request from PlainsCapital Bank to move its appeal from the Fifth court of Appeals in Dallas to the newly created Fifteenth Court of Appeals in Austin. The bank had argued the state’s high court should grant the permissive transfer because the case is “extraordinarily important to the business community.”
BP Energy Company has filed a lawsuit in the Texas business courts accusing Dallas oilman Brad Cox of breaching a $270 million guaranty agreement related to a loan given to MLCJR LLC, a business owned by Cox.
It is one of less than a dozen cases filed in the business courts since they opened Sept. 1 and is by far seeking more damages than any of the other cases filed in those courts.
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