Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The 11 transactions for the week ending June 27 included deals involving heavy construction, data security, robotics, renewable power assets, Rare Earth materials and offshore aviation services. They were together valued at $46 billion — with the heavy number provided by an inaugural $25 billion debt offering by the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
At the request of multiple firms and dealmakers over 10 months, The Texas Lawbook is now introducing funding league tables alongside our existing Corporate Deal Tracker rankings. Readers can find the firm and individual dealmaker funding rankings in this story, along with updated 2025 CDT rankings for M&A and CapM that hadn’t yet been shared beyond The Lawbook‘s the Sunday CDT newsletter.
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.
In this edition of P.S., now former State Bar President Santos Vargas announced that his term’s fundraising campaign, Stand with Santos, raised more than $600,000 through pro bono commitments and direct contributions benefitting the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. During his last meeting as president, Vargas also recognized several leaders and organizations with presidential citations.
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.
In a case where three Jane Does alleged Dallas developer Bill Hutchinson sexually assaulted them, a jury agreed with two of the women Thursday night after 11 hours of deliberation. The two women who prevailed alleged that Hutchinson raped them. The third plaintiff alleged Hutchinson groped her, a claim the jury rejected.
The jury awarded the prevailing women a combined $860,000 in damages, but the plaintiffs were seeking an award of $79.8 million.
The Texas Business Court’s second year is off to a faster start than its first, and the expansion of its jurisdictional reach through House Bill 40 appears to be contributing to the uptick in its caseload. This analysis takes a look at the numbers, with a focus on the Eleventh and Third Divisions.
In a major legal victory Wednesday for leaders of Gateway Church, a federal judge in Sherman dismissed a lawsuit brought by members of the church who claim its leaders misused hundreds of thousands of dollars of their tithes.
Almost a year after the deadly flash flood on the Guadalupe River that killed more than two dozen campers and staff, Camp Mystic has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas.
The case has been assigned to Bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Lopez. First-day documents were filed by Martin Sosland, a Dallas partner with Vartabedian Katz Hester & Haynes.
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