In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit finds that a lawsuit challenging admissions practices at the University of Texas at Austin is not moot, a fake immigration lawyer faces prison time, and the Western District of Texas announces a high-profile indictment.
The Litigation Roundup is a weekly feature highlighting the work Texas lawyers are doing inside and outside the state. Have a development we should include next week? Please let us know at tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net.
Southern District of Texas
Phony Immigration Lawyer Faces Up to 5 Years Prison
A Houston man will be sentenced in September for duping clients into thinking he was a licensed immigration attorney who could help them obtain U.S. citizenship or legal immigration status.
Jesus Carlos Silva, 58, entered a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, on July 9 and will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. on Sept. 22.
Prosecutors allege that, between March 2022 and December 2024, Silva “pretended to be an attorney affiliated with a Houston-based law firm” and charged his victims “thousands of dollars per person for his assistance with their immigration cases.” The government alleges more than 100 victims living in Houston, Chicago, Louisiana and Florida were defrauded by Silva’s scheme to the tune of at least $1.45 million.
The indictment and plea agreement do not identify the law firm Silva purported to be affiliated with and do not name the alleged coconspirators Silva is accused of partnering with to further the scheme to defraud immigrants.
Silva is represented by federal public defender Tatiana Obando.
The case was prosecuted by Department of Justice lawyers Jessica Feinstein, Bradley Gray and Rodolfo Ramirez.
The case number is 4:24-cv-00639.
Western District of Texas
CEO Indicted in UT Austin Arena Bid Rigging Scheme
A former top executive for several professional sports teams was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Austin that accused him of bid-rigging to secure the construction contract for Moody Center, the new, $388 million dollar sports and entertainment arena at the University of Texas at Austin.
The indictment, returned last Wednesday, said Timothy J. Leiweke, the 68-year-old co-founder of Oak View Group, a global sports-and-entertainment construction and management firm, struck a deal with a rival construction company that agreed not to bid on the Moody Center project, leaving OVG as the sole bidder. In exchange, the indictment said, OVG promised to steer lucrative subcontracts to the rival firm.
Moody Center opened on the UT campus in 2022. It’s the home court of the university’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, and the “state-of-the-art” facility hosts about 150 music concerts and other entertainment events a year.
Leiweke resigned as OVG’s CEO after his criminal indictment was announced in the Western District of Texas.
A spokesperson for Leiweke said in a statement sent to numerous news outlets that the former sports mogul had “done nothing wrong and will vigorously defend himself and his well-deserved reputation for fairness and integrity.”
According to published reports, Leiweke was president of the National Basketball Association’s Denver Nuggets from 1991 to 1995. He left to become CEO of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, whose holdings included the LA Kings of the National Hockey League and the LA Galaxy, a Major League Soccer club. In 2013, he was hired as president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the Canadian company that owns Toronto’s Major League Baseball and NHL franchises.
He and a partner started OVG in 2015.
A copy of the indictment was not available via PACER as of Monday afternoon, nor were case and counsel information.
Southern District of New York
Houston-Based Waste Management Settles Investor Class Action
On July 10, the lead plaintiffs representing investors who allege Waste Management made false and misleading statements related to the completion of its acquisition of Advanced Disposal Services asked a judge to approve a $30 million settlement to resolve the class action.
The class filed suit against Waste Management in June 2022, alleging the company concealed its knowledge that the Department of Justice, which was conducting an antitrust review, had “serious concerns” about the deal as early as February 2020, which caused Waste Management’s notes “to trade at artificially inflated prices.”
According to court documents, the parties participated in an unsuccessful mediation session in July 2024 but tried again in April, and on May 8 they accepted the mediator’s proposal to settle the litigation for $30 million in cash.
“The settlement constitutes an excellent recovery for the class,” the parties told U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield. The class also asked Judge Schofield to approve the proposed notice to the class, appoint a claims administrator and set a settlement hearing for final approval.
Waste Management is represented by Brendan Quigley, David D. Sterling, Amy P. Hefley and James Beha II of Baker Botts and John B. Strasburger of Bissinger, Oshman, Williams & Strasburger.
The investors are represented by Andrea Farah, Desiree Cummings, Jonathan Zweig, Noam Mandel, Samuel Rudman and Alyssa Plascoff of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd.
The case number is 1:22-cv-04838.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
UT Austin Admissions Dispute Isn’t Moot
A unanimous three-judge panel on Friday determined Students for Fair Admissions still has a live controversy in its challenge to the admissions policies of the University of Texas at Austin because its admissions officers are allowed “unrestricted access” to applicants’ racial data during the admissions process.
The university had argued that when it revised its policies in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard to exclude race as a factor in admissions, it mooted the challenge from SFFA in this case. Other universities like Yale, Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the panel noted in its 14-page opinion, “erected firewalls that prevent admissions officers from learning applicants’ race” during the admissions process.
U.S. District Judge Robert L. Pitman had sided with UT and dismissed the lawsuit as moot, entering final judgment July 15, 2024. SFFA argued that allowing admissions officers access to racial data during the decisionmaking process either constituted a per se violation of the Equal Protection Clause and title VI or that the university’s “facially race-neutral policy is a subterfuge for continuing race discrimination.”
The panel determined that while the challenge to the old policy was moot, SFA has a right to seek relief from the new policy.
“SFFA seeks declaratory relief that UT’s revised admissions procedures are still unlawful and requests a permanent injunction prohibiting anyone in UT’s admissions office from receiving or having access to racial checkbox data or aggregate reports on race during the admissions process,” the opinion reads. “UT admits that it is continuing those practices. SFFA therefore has not secured ‘all the relief [it] might have won’ and maintains ‘a concrete interest’ in the outcome of the litigation. Its claims remain live as to UT’s revised policy.”
Judges Jerry E. Smith, James E. Graves Jr. and Stuart Kyle Duncan sat on the panel.
UT Austin is represented by Matthew Powers, William Christian and Marianne W. Nitsch of Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody.
SFA is represented by Cameron Norris, Steven Begakis, John Connolly and Thomas McCarthy of Consovoy McCarthy.
The case number is 24-50631.
Apple Gets Win Over NLRB
Apple Inc. recently saw a National Labor Relations Board ruling against it overturned on appeal after a three-judge panel determined there was a lack of “substantial evidence” to support NLRB findings that the tech giant had violated the National Labor Relations Act by “coercively” interrogating an employee and by removing union literature from a company breakroom.
According to the 25-page opinion issued July 7, a union representing Apple employees who worked at a store in New York City filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB in May 2022, alleging that there had been unlawful interrogation of employees regarding their support for unions and that the company also violated the NLRA by removing the pro-union literature from the breakroom.
The interrogation claim stemmed from a conversation between Jordan Vasquez and senior manager Stephanie Gladden. Gladden, who according to the opinion routinely spoke with employees on the sales floor at the beginning of her shift, asked Vasquez about a meeting he had with human resources.
Vasquez told her he spoke with HR about securing higher pay for Apple employees, and Gladden asked whether “he had spoken with other employees about higher pay.” Vasquez said he had, and Gladden then inquired about his thoughts on unionization efforts at the company.
According to the opinion, Vasquez said his name had been linked to union activity “but that he did not want to be associated with something he was not involved in.” In Gladden’s retelling of the conversation, it was Vasquez who first raised the topic of unions, and she also provided unrefuted testimony that she told Vasquez he had a right to discuss unionization with other employees.
The Fifth Circuit found there wasn’t enough evidence to support the finding that the conversation constituted coercion.
“Taken as a whole, the circumstances do not support a finding of coercive interrogation — and the Board identifies no authority that compels the opposite result,” the panel held. “The Board selectively invokes precedent focused on isolated factors, but none sustain a finding of coercion when viewed in full context.”
As for the literature-related claim, the panel found that Apple had relied on its solicitation and distribution policy in removing the materials from the breakroom. The policy does not allow for employees to leave written materials unattended in the breakroom.
Judges Don R. Willett, Priscilla Richman and Dana M. Douglas sat on the panel.
Judge Douglas authored a concurring opinion explaining that she would have reversed the Board’s finding that Apple “unlawfully removed and discriminated against union literature based solely on Apple’s consistent enforcement of its non-solicitation policy.”
“Although Apple argued before the Board that both its general housekeeping policy and non-solicitation policy were the impetus for the flyers’ removal, the record points overwhelmingly to the non-solicitation policy as the managers’ motivation for confiscating the flyers,” she wrote.
Apple is represented by Micheal E. Kenneally and Harry Johnson III of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and Alfred Harper III, Arrissa Meyer and Amanda Ploof of Littler Mendelson.
The NLRB is represented by its own Ruth Burdick, Elizabeth Heaney, Joel Heller and Timothy L. Watson.
The case number is 24-60242.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Samsung Can’t Move Texas Patent Suit to California
U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap was vindicated recently when a federal appellate court agreed Samsung cannot move Mullen Industries’ patent infringement lawsuit against it to the Northern District of California.
Mullen had sued Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electronics America in the Eastern District of Texas in January 2024, alleging it infringed eight patents covering geolocation technology.
In a per curiam opinion issued July 9, the panel wrote that Samsung failed to show “a clear and indisputable right to transfer” and that Judge Gilstrap’s ruling was not “a clear abuse of discretion.”
“The burden for establishing transfer was on Samsung. And Samsung dedicated a perfunctory sentence in its transfer motion to assert venue over [Samsung Electronics America] in NDCA was proper,” the panel wrote.
The panel wrote that Judge Gilstrap had “plausibly found that EDTX — where SEA maintains significant relevant operations and where at least one of the accused protects was tested — is home to potential witnesses and sources of proof.”
“While Samsung contends that the court should have given more weight to potential witnesses and sources of proof in, or closer to, NDCA, we cannot say the district court’s conclusion that Samsung failed to show NDCA was clearly more convenient was a clear abuse of discretion.”
Judges Jimmie V. Reyna, Robert Mayer and Raymond T. Chen sat on the panel.
Samsung is represented by Evan Mann and Ginger D. Anders of Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Mullen is represented by Peter F. Snell, Hannah Edge, Brad M. Scheller and Robert Sweeney of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo.
The case number is 2025-129.
Bruce Tomaso contributed to this report.
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