© 2016 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(Aug. 12) – The longest pending civil lawsuit in the state of Texas is going to go on quite a bit longer.
Lawyers for Dallas firefighters asked Collin County District Judge Angela Tucker to delay the long-awaited and much-anticipated trial against the City of Dallas for two decades of unpaid compensation.
Prominent Houston trial attorney Mike Gallagher, who is one of the lead lawyers for the firefighters, reportedly informed Judge Tucker Thursday that he has a personal situation that makes it impossible for him to start the jury trial, which was scheduled to start next week.
Judge Tucker agreed to the delay. Lawyers familiar with the litigation say that the case is unlikely to go to trial before early next year.
The Collin County case, which was set to start trial Monday, is one of five lawsuits filed by thousands of Dallas police officers and firefighters claiming that they are owed as much as $2 billion in back pay.
The firefighters and officers claim that Dallas officials broke a promise they made in a 1979 ordinance to maintain the percentage pay differential at all levels of the department. The lawsuits argue that the city breached the contract by repeatedly increasing the pay of high-ranking officers but not giving lower-ranked officers the same percentage adjustments.
Lawyers for the city argue that the 1979 resolution was intended as a one-time salary adjustment – not a policy that continued into future years.
The original lawsuits were filed in 1994. The cases were mired in appeals for nearly 16 years. The mayor has claimed that a negative verdict could bankrupt the city of Dallas.
The Dallas firefighters are represented by Gallagher, Lin McCraw, Lee Parsley, Ted Lyon and a slew of other lawyers. Dick Sayles and Leon Carter are defending the city of Dallas.
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