Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
A jury of 12 sat through six days of trial and deliberated for about eight hours before determining the Baehr family was entitled to $3.1 million in damages. The toxic mold that infested their Austin home also sickened the family of six and prompted Kristina Baehr to launch her own firm to help others in the same situation.
Is Michael Clayton a lawyer movie? It’s a fair question, given that the main character isn’t really a lawyer. He operates in the dark corners of the legal profession, trying not to get too dirty, until he reaches a point where he can no longer look at himself in the mirror. Played by George Clooney, Michael Clayton isn’t the kind of movie to supply an unequivocal happy ending. Having settled accounts, Michael climbs into the back of a New York City cab, hands the driver some money and tells him to drive — anywhere. The credits roll over Clooney’s pensive face.
Last Friday, police in Marion, Kansas, seized the computers, file servers and personal cellphones of journalists at the local newspaper, the Marion County Record. According to a search warrant, officers believed there was probable cause that newspaper personnel had used equipment seized by officers to commit identity theft. Journalism is not a crime. Reporters and editors are not criminals. The First Amendment guarantees it. This common view of freedom of the press in America appears to have escaped the attention lately of at least one police department in Kansas. And one in Texas, too.
The defendants in a breach of contract dispute had argued that Dallas County District Court Judge Ashley Wysocki’s appointment of her campaign treasurer, James Stanton, as receiver in the case mandated her recusal. Judge Wysocki and Regional Presiding Judge Ray Wheless disagreed.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a Houston jury awards a woman $1.2B in a revenge porn case she brought against her ex-boyfriend, the state of Texas is facing another lawsuit over a new law set to go into effect Sept. 1, and McCathern teams up with civil rights lawyer Ben Crump in a suit against Harris County over its treatment of jailed individuals.
Lawyers for the court-appointed receiver in the R. Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme case have asked a federal judge to order Trustmark National Bank to fork over the $100 million it agreed to pay earlier this year in its settlement with victims of the fraud.
Trustmark, according to documents, has declined to pay the receiver the $100 million because Stanford, who is in federal prison serving a 110-year sentence, has objected to the settlement agreement claiming that his conviction was unconstitutional and that the receivership should be dissolved on subject matter jurisdictional issues.
A Dallas-area pain management clinic, American Pain and Wellness, argues that the arbitrator of a dispute with a former employee over payment and reimbursement “intentionally” failed to disclose details about his education and religious preferences that amount to evident partiality and dooms the award. Fort Worth lawyer John Chalk of Whitaker Chalk served as the arbitrator.
The Ticket’s parent company is accusing Jacob Kemp and Daniel McDowell, the former hosts of popular sports talk radio show The Hang Zone, of violating a noncompete agreement by launching a new podcast after leaving the station in July.
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