Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Hung juries, in general, are infrequent. One study estimates they occur in about 6 percent of all cases that go to trial. When it happens, it’s usually in state criminal cases where someone’s life or freedom is at stake, not in highly technical disputes over a patent.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the Fifth Circuit undoes class certification in an investor suit against Anadarko, Roku beats back a $318 million patent infringement claim in Waco, and a Houston appellate court brings an end to a heart surgeon’s defamation lawsuit against ProPublica and the Houston Chronicle.
Charla Aldous and co-counsel won the verdict in a three-week trial over the 2019 death of Hernan Murillo at a Frito-Lay Inc. construction site in Irving.
Charla Aldous and other lawyers for the family of an electrician killed in a construction accident at a Frito-Lay facility in Irving are asking for more than $100 million. Defense lawyers say $6 million is more appropriate.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a man who alleges he was shorted two ounces of beer by Cinemark files a class action lawsuit against the movie chain, an East Texas jury hits Samsung with a $142 million patent infringement verdict in a damages redo trial, and a new SEC trading surveillance initiative draws a constitutional challenge.
In lieu of closing arguments, the company and the U.S. government agreed to file post-trial briefs with Chief Judge David C. Godbey of the Northern District of Texas, who presided over the weeklong tax dispute trial stemming from ExxonMobil’s natural-gas mining venture with Qatar.
The ruling is likely to result in more discrimination cases about job changes surviving defense challenges and moving forward to trial.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously revived the lawsuit that the U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals had dismissed with a one-paragraph ruling. Daniel Charest of Burns Charest, who is the lead trial attorney for the landowners, was confident about the outcome of the case when he was present for oral arguments in January and heard what he viewed as an important admission from Texas Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson, who was arguing for the state.
In a bench trial before Chief Judge David C. Godbey of the Northern District of Texas, the oil giant claims the government erred by rejecting, for tax purposes, its “partnership” with the government of Qatar in a huge natural gas project.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a group of state attorneys general rally behind Texas’ first assistant AG in a disciplinary suit brought by the state bar, AT&T goes with Gibson Dunn in its U.S. Supreme Court appeal over an employee class action alleging violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the city of Dallas faces trial in a civil property rights dispute.
The Texas Supreme Court has proposed the first set of procedural rules that will apply in the business court, bringing clearer focus to the business court vision. Commercial trial lawyers should now be better positioned to advise their clients on the particulars of this new forum.
An Oncor Electric Delivery Co. driver was negligent in the 2021 crash, jurors decided. Their damages award was about half of what the plaintiffs requested in trial, but was still more than Oncor offered ahead of trial, Zehl & Associates lawyer Matt Greenberg told The Texas Lawbook.
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