Removal Waiver Front and Center in En Banc Fifth Circuit Arguments 

The en banc Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was told in oral arguments Wednesday morning that it should overrule a 45-year-old binding precedent on waiver of the right to removal and find that a dispute between a Houston personal injury law firm and its former associate belongs in federal court.

The en banc oral arguments came in a dispute between Abraham Watkins Nichols Agosto Aziz & Stogner and former associate Edward Festeryga, who the firm alleges tried to take its clients with him when he left. The whole court agreed to hear the dispute after Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan — who sat on the panel that sided with the law firm and affirmed a ruling that sent the case back to state court — called for the move in a July 2024 concurring opinion that said the crux of the court’s 1980 holding in In re Weaver was “incorrect.”