Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The Texas Indigent Defense Commission has approved more than $1.8 million in targeted grants aimed at strengthening indigent defense systems across the state as counties grapple with a growing attorney shortage, particularly in rural counties. The number of lawyers handling indigent defense cases in rural Texas declined 29 percent between 2014 and 2024, TIDC Executive Director Scott Ehlers said.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Texas Instruments is dealt a blow by the Texas Business Court in its quest to get an injunction against a competitor and a half dozen amicus briefs have been filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by parties in favor of preserving a Texas gun restriction penal code.
Steve Tyndall has joined A&O Shearman as a partner in the M&A and private equity practice in Austin. Tyndall, who spent the last four years at Morrison Foerster, said that the firm’s international footprint and expanding Texas offices were meaningful in his decision to join A&O Shearman.
The CDT Roundup saw nine deals announced during the week ended Aug. 22, with a combined reported value of about $2.8 billion — the lightest dollar figure since late January. The week prior had 15 deals with a value of nearly $7 billion, and a year ago at this time, the Roundup was reporting 23 deals worth more than $15.2 billion.
The rare week ended without an M&A megadeal.
After deliberating for four hours Friday evening, a New Orleans jury awarded $10 million in damages finding that talc powder manufactured and sold by Johnson & Johnson “was a substantial cause of Lynne Roy’s mesothelioma.” The jury set J&J’s share at $1.2 million. The jury, which issued its verdict Friday at 9:47 p.m. after a three-week trial, found that J&J and five other defendants made products, including talc powder, that led to the 2020 death of the prominent Louisiana real estate agent’s death at the age of 76.
A Texas Business Court jury in Dallas deliberated for just 90 minutes late Friday night before ordering FiberWave and one of its subcontractors to pay AT&T $8 million for breaching its contractual duty to indemnify the telecom giant. The litigation started when FiberWave, a former sales partner, sued AT&T for $50 million in unpaid commissions.
A Texas appellate court Friday slashed more than $43 million in exemplary damages awarded against Alex Jones, holding that the trial judge erred by letting the parents of a student murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to amend their petition post-verdict in order to avoid the state’s cap on exemplary damages.
The court concluded that the doctrine — which, in essence, bars civil courts from deciding cases that call into question a church’s doctrine, internal decisions and governance — applied to completely end Cindy Clemishire’s claims against Gateway Church and its elders.
Federal securities regulators have accused three former top executives of Tricolor Holdings of a multiyear scheme to mislead investors about the subprime auto lender's financial health by double-pledging hundreds of millions of dollars in auto loans and disguising delinquent or worthless loans as legitimate collateral.
President Donald Trump said he planned to nominate two candidates to federal district court judgeships in Texas, part of a broader slate of judicial picks he announced.
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