The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

Appellate tease

For V&E’s Tom Leatherbury, the Mantra is ‘Texas – So Many First Amendment Violations, So Little Time.’

In First Amendment decisions like the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent injunction stopping enforcement of a Texas law governing social media platforms, and other free-speech challenges for years, Vinson & Elkins senior partner Tom Leatherbury has been front and center. Leatherbury, widely regarded as a leading media and appellate lawyer in the state and who founded a media law clinic at SMU, tells The Texas Lawbook that First Amendment challenges never seem to end.

Fifth Circuit Panel Rebukes Houston District Court Judge Yet Again

For the third time in five years, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has rebuked a federal district court judge in Houston for denying a plaintiff discovery before summary judgment. “This is the third time we have been asked to consider whether a particular district court can deny discovery rights protected by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure because, in the district court’s view, that discovery is unnecessary,” the three-judge panel declared in a per curiam opinion. “We have twice held no. Today we so hold a third time.”

Houston Appeals Court Reverses Multimillion-Dollar Arbitration Award

Houston’s 14th Court of Appeals has reversed a $7 million arbitration award in an attorney-fees dispute because the arbitrator failed to disclose he had been an expert witness in litigation involving the party who selected a list of arbitrators. The court found the nondisclosure constituted “evident partiality” under Texas law.

Texas Supreme Court Gives Plaintiffs Another Shot at a Chick-fil-A at the San Antonio Airport

Plaintiffs, objecting to the San Antonio City Council’s rejection of the restaurant chain’s location inside a San Antonio International Airport concourse, sued under a state law the Texas Legislature specially passed missed a point – the law was not retroactive. But the council’s action came well before the Legislature’s. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court to allow repleading to establish jurisdictional facts – and maybe give the plaintiffs another bite at a chicken sandwich.

Southwest Airlines Brings Its Baggage to the Supreme Court

At issue is a decades-long dispute over the meaning of a clause in the FAA. Lawyers for the Dallas-based airline go before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to assert that its baggage loaders and supervisors can be required to undergo arbitration when they file employment complaints.

AZA Associate Sets Precedent in Fifth Circuit for Sexual Harassment Victims 

Kelsi Stayart White set new precedent as an associate with the Houston-based AZA firm in the Fifth Circuit when a three-judge panel this month found for her client, a former Houston female firefighter. The unanimous holding broadens sexual harassment protection in part by allowing her complaint to proceed after she discovered an intimate video taken from her laptop had been circulating among her firehouse colleagues for nine years.

A Special Deal Too Good to Be True. And Was.

From the Texas Supreme Court: A client supposedly in Europe wants help with a debt collection and contacts a Houston lawyer by email, promising a $10,000 retainer. A bad scenario got worse. More than $380,000 wired by the lawyer to Japan: Gone. Plus: Two more cases from the SCOTX docket: SandRidge Energy Inc. v. Barfield and Baby Dolls Topless Saloons Inc. v. Gilbert Sotero.

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