In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a divided Fifth Circuit panel revives an excessive force lawsuit against a Lake Worth officer stemming from a 2021 fatal shooting, with the judges sharply criticizing each other in their opinions, and a husband and wife in Fort Worth admit guilt in a custom home building scam that defrauded 40 victims out of about $4.8 million.
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.
Comal County District Court
Hyatt Agrees to $1.25M Settlement with Texas Over ‘Hidden Fees’
A lawsuit the state of Texas filed against Hyatt Hotels Corporation in May 2023 has been resolved after the hotel company agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle claims it violated state consumer protection laws in the way it listed room prices.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the settlement in a news release last week, saying “Texas consumers should never be misled by hotel companies attempting to hide fees and charges.”
“Any hotel company or booking site that tries to mislead and take advantage of Texans will be exposed and will pay a heavy penalty for their deception,” the statement reads.
Texas accused Hyatt of listing rooms at rates that were not available to the public and tacking on resort fees, destination fees or amenity fees in addition to the daily room rates that weren’t disclosed until later in the booking process. The state said the practice gave Hyatt a competitive advantage while misleading consumers.
As part of the settlement, Hyatt is required to disclose fees added on to a hotel room’s price.
Comal County Judge Dib Waldrip presided over the case.
Hyatt is represented by Emma Cano, William Davidson and Lamont Jefferson of JeffersonCano.
The case was prosecuted by Jonathan Stone of the attorney general’s office.
The case number is C2023-0884D.
Northern District of Texas
Fort Worth Custom Home Builders Cop to $4.8M Fraud
The husband and wife duo who run custom home building and remodeling company Judge DFW LLC have admitted guilt in what prosecutors called a $4.8 million fraud conspiracy.
Christopher Judge and Raquelle Judge, of Fort Worth, admitted that from August 2020 until January 2023 they took money from customers to build custom homes they never completed. Their victims signed onto the projects after being offered below-market bids by Judge DFW.
In December, Christopher Judge and Raquelle Judge each pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, though Christopher’s charge is punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison and Raquelle’s is punishable by a maximum of five years in prison. They are scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means in May and April, respectively.
Prosecutors alleged Christopher Judge falsely represented himself as an architect as part of the scheme that defrauded more than 40 victims across 24 construction projects in North Texas.
Raquelle Judge is represented by Derek D. Brown of Fort Worth.
Christopher Judge is represented by federal public defenders Joshua Rhodes, Devon Sanders and Rachel Taft.
The federal government is represented by Mark McDonald and Laura Montes of the Department of Justice.
The case number is 4:25-cr-00226.
Westlake Man Sees Insider Trading Case End
A resident of Westlake who was charged with insider trading by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has consented to a final judgment in the case without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.
Bryan Scott McMillan was charged in September 2024 for allegedly making a trade in advance of the November 2022 announcement that Apollo Endosurgery was going to be acquired by Boston Scientific Corp. Prosecutors alleged that minutes prior to the close of the stock market the day before the announcement, McMillan purchased 20,000 shares of Apollo Endosurgery, where his domestic partner worked at the time.
After the announcement, stocks in the company rose about 68 percent, netting McMillan $81,400 in alleged ill-gotten gains.
The final judgment that McMillan consented to requires he pay $81,400 in disgorgement, plus $18,260.76 in prejudgment interest on that sum, and a civil penalty of $122,100. He is also barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for two years.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman entered final judgment Dec. 22. According to the docket, the parties attended mediation before William Royal Ferguson in April that did not result in a settlement, but both sides told the court they walked away with “a better understanding of the opposing party’s positions and specific hindrances to settlement.”
The SEC is represented by its own James P. McDonald, Jacqueline M. Moessner and Patrick Disbennett.
McMillan is represented by Andrew Howell and Thomas J. Krysa of Foley & Lardner.
The case number is 4:24-cv-00919.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Divided Panel Undoes Qualified Immunity Ruling for Lake Worth Officer
An excessive force claim lodged against a Lake Worth Police Department officer who shot and killed a man in September 2021 has been revived by a divided three-judge panel.
The opinion that revived the claims Juanita Ramirez brought on behalf of her son, Estevan Ramirez, was reissued Dec. 30, but had originally issued Dec. 10. Ramirez filed notice of appeal with the Fifth Circuit in August 2024, appealing a ruling from U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman that found Jonathan Granado’s use of force was reasonable and that he was therefore entitled to qualified immunity from the suit.
Granado shot Ramirez following a chase that reached speeds of 120 mph and ended when the Volkswagen Jetta carrying Ramirez and three others struck a curb and came to a stop. In the eight seconds that followed, Ramirez and others got out of the car and ran in different directions. Ramirez was holding a gun and a cell phone, Granado said “he’s got a gun, he’s got a gun!” before firing one shot in his direction.
Ramirez continued to flee and Granado fired six more shots in his direction, hitting him four times in the back of the head and shoulders. Seconds later, according to the opinion, Granado asked another officer whether Ramirez had a gun. Ramirez died at the scene.
The panel heard oral argument in April.
The majority opinion was authored by Judge Dana M. Douglas, who explained there were “genuine disputes of material fact” that should have precluded a summary judgment ruling in the officer’s favor.
“Moments after firing the fatal shots, he turned to Officer Watson and asked: ‘did he have a gun?’ A reasonable jury could find that this contemporaneous question sufficiently disputes Officer Granado’s claim that he saw Ramirez armed before and during the shooting,” the majority held.
Judge James L. Dennis wrote a concurrence only to address the dissent authored by Judge Andrew S. Oldham. Judge Dennis characterized the authority Judge Oldham’s dissent rests on as a “mile-wide string of citations, with scarcely an inch deep of relevance.”
“The dissent’s excerpted narrative, then, rests on disputed facts and omitted context that a jury could find decisive. We may not declare which story is true,” Judge Dennis wrote. “…That leaves the dissent’s citations, which serve as a reminder that one can stack citations to the ceiling, but a tower of distinguishable cases is still no foundation.”
Three-and-a-half pages of Judge Oldham’s eight-page dissent are citations that he listed in support of the position that Granado is entitled to qualified immunity.
“I offered a string cite only to illustrate just how wildly off base the majority opinion is, and to show that courts routinely grant qualified immunity in circumstances that are far less dangerous than those presented here,” Judge Oldham wrote. “And even if it was my job to cite a case, which it is not, I cited two that are materially indistinguishable — and the concurrence all but ignores them.”
Judge Oldham wrote that the majority repeated a mistake the court has made before: denying qualified immunity by “second-guessing whether the facts an officer ‘actually knew’ created a ‘sufficient threat of harm to the officer or others’ to justify deadly force.”
“For the police officers in our circuit who confront armed-and-dangerous felons fleeing drive-by shootings, who have mere seconds to make split-second life-and-death decisions in the middle of the night, and who hope to get home safely to their families and then also survive this court’s frame-by-frame NFL-style instant replay review: Today’s decision will make your already-hard jobs much harder.”
Ramirez is represented by Blerim Elmazi of Dallas and Sharan Elahi of Elahi Law Firm.
Granado is represented by Thomas Brandt and John Husted of Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons.
The case number is 24-10755.
Sanction Upheld for Lawyer Who Leaked Info to Media
A Louisiana lawyer who leaked the name of a Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse to a reporter and to the principal of the high school where the priest served as a chaplain, in violation of a protective order, has lost a bid to undo a $400,000 sanction.
Richard Trahant was serving as counsel in Louisiana state court to several clients who alleged they were victims of sexual abuse and who were also members of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the related bankruptcy proceeding involving the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
A protective order barred disclosure of confidential information revealed during discovery in the bankruptcy case, according to the opinion, but Trahant violated the order by contacting his cousin, who was the principal of a local high school, and asking whether the priest in question was still employed as the school’s chaplain.
Additionally, according to the opinion, Trahant emailed a journalist, included the priest’s name in the subject line and told the reporter to “[k]eep this guy on your radar.”
In subsequent hearings before the bankruptcy court, Trahant admitted to contacting both the principal and the reporter, and the judge found him in contempt for violating the protective order. The judge also assessed a $400,000 sanction for the disclosure, which according to the opinion amounted to about 53 percent of the attorney fees and expenses the Archdiocese and the Committee incurred investigating the breach of the protective order.
On appeal, Trahant argued both that the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction to find him in contempt and to sanction him and that the contempt finding and sanction order was an abuse of discretion.
The panel rejected Trahant’s arguments, explaining that he admitted to the court he knew his cousin would interpret his messages to mean that the priest has been accused of sexual abuse and that he intended for the journalist he contacted to investigate and report on the alleged misconduct.
“In doing so, Trahant communicated confidential information ‘contained in, or derived from’ the protected materials in direct violation of the protective order,” the court held.
Trahant also argued that the priest’s name should be “declassified,” but the panel wrote that contention “does not excuse” Trahant’s failure to seek declassification before disseminating the protected information.
Judges Priscilla Richman, Andrew S. Oldham and Irma Carrillo Ramirez sat on the panel that issued the unanimous 24-page opinion Jan. 2.
Trahant is represented by himself and by solo practitioner Jack Morris and Paul Sterbcow of Lewis, Kullman, Sterbcow & Abramson.
The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors is represented by Omer F. Kuebel III of Troutman Pepper Locke.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans is represented by Mark Mintz, Samantha Oppenheim and Robert Vance of Jones Walker.
The case number is 23-30466.