Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
For a quarter of a century, Karen Mitchell has served as the Northern District of Texas clerk of court, making her the longest-serving clerk of court in the country. The last 25 years have been filled with life-changing events in history, but former judges who know her said one thing has remained constant: her positive attitude.
Treasure recovered off the coast of the Bahamas is being fought over in a legal tug-of-war, with the plaintiffs asking Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to award $2.5 million in treasure it claims it is owed and punitive damages that would bring the total damages award to $8.5 million. The parties concluded the two-week-long bench trial Thursday afternoon, turning the case over to the court to decide.
In its request for a stay or a continuance, 3M argued nine weeks between trials wasn’t enough time to prepare, that its lead attorney had timely filed a vacation letter that, under local rules, should have protected her from the July 13 trial setting, and that it only learned the identities of 20 of the 30 plaintiffs in the case on March 27.
Andy Ryan and his team at Ryan Law Partners are joining the national litigation boutique and bolstering its trial group in Texas.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann’s Mary Goodrich Nix looks back on her early years as a trial lawyer. She also shares advice she would give to young lawyers and discusses trends she sees impacting the practice.
Lawyers for five Ukrainian citizens who were injured or killed in Russian drone and missile attacks that allegedly used semiconductors and other technology made by American tech companies, including Texas Instruments, failed to state a legal cause of action in their federal lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The judge is allowing the lawyers for the Ukrainians 28 days to refile their complaint to address his concerns about causation.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater issued a 21-page decision that the Ukrainians’ claims are not preempted by federal law but that their case is dismissed because the lawsuit failed to show that the “defendant’s conduct is the cause in fact of a plaintiff’s injury” and that the defendant’s “act or omission was a substantial factor in bringing about the injuries, and without it, the harm would not have occurred.”
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, jurors in East Texas find Samsung infringed another patent, and Texas touts a nearly $34 million settlement with AstraZeneca in a qui tam case where The Lanier Firm and McKool Smith represented the relators.
Texas Instruments turned to the Texas Business Court last month to sue a former employee and his new employer, GlobalFoundries, for allegedly stealing trade secrets. The Texas Lawbook was in Fort Worth Monday morning for the temporary injunction hearing, but the courtroom was sealed shortly after Vartabedian Katz Hester & Haynes partner Marc Katz began his opening statements for Texas Instruments.
Texas law has always been fond of a good boundary line, and few are trickier than the one between the bedroom and the boardroom. Texas’ economy is bursting with family-run companies, spousal co-ownerships and mom-and-pop empires, and the line between marriage and management can get blurry. The law, however, needs that line to stay crystal clear.
A jury in Dallas County, after hearing nearly a week of testimony, determined a man who suffered severe and life-altering injuries after coming into contact with an Oncor utility line was a trespasser and was not entitled to any damages for his injuries.
Reinforcing a ruling from the Dallas court of appeals, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday determined that a grocer’s failure to investigate its suspicions that a landlord had leased its property to a competitor means it must forfeit a $20.8 million jury award.
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was published in 1966, which suggests that the 60th anniversary is good time to revisit it. The novel was a subject of discussion in our Legal Philosophy seminar at Texas A&M University School of Law earlier this semester, and we found some of the seminar participants’ observations worth sharing: such as whether there are important, inherent differences between urban and rural justice systems.
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