Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
A federal jury in Marshall found Samsung willfully infringed three patents owned by semiconductor manufacturer Netlist regarding computer memory modules. The verdict is the latest in a string of wins for Netlist against Samsung.
’Tis the season of law firm partner promotions. Between October and February, dozens of corporate law firms officially announce the associates and counsel that they are promoting to equity and nonequity partners. Most of the announcements are made in December. The Texas Lawbook’s Mark Curriden has the details on the latest announcements.
For some, it may be too soon to talk about it, but business leaders are already weighing in on how their industries might be impacted by the election results. In one of the first survey’s we’ve seen, Endeavor Business Intelligence deployed a short questionnaire to U.S. business leaders on their perceptions of the upcoming change in administrations. There were 160 respondents, not bad for a one-week project; and the answers proved more complex than one might expect. That and the usual review of last week's reported transactions.
Kirkland & Ellis advised ONEOK and Baker Botts advised EnLink on the transaction in which ONEOK acquires the 56 percent of EnLink it doesn't already own. The deal finishes off an $11.6 billion flurry of transactions by the Tulsa-based midstream.
Kirkland & Ellis and Milbank are advising the two of the joint venture, which will involve three midstream assets in the Appalachian Basin including the Hammerhead Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline systems.
A jury had sided with Nissan in March, issuing a take-nothing verdict in the lawsuit brought by Deana A. Rios following the April 2022 death of her husband. In a 46-page opinion issued Thursday and authored by Chief Justice Terry Adams, the panel held Harris County District Judge Fredericka Phillips had abused her discretion by granting Rios a new trial, in part by relying on inadmissible testimony from some of the jurors about deliberations in the case.
Swedish-based electric car supplier Northvolt AB filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas Thursday. The case has been assigned to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Alfredo Perez.
Oral arguments on a motion for summary judgment, pitting Kirkland & Ellis against Susman Godfrey, are believed to be a first for the newly created court.
According to audio of the hearing available on the docket, Judge Isgur told counsel for the insurers about four minutes before he issued an oral ruling from the bench dismissing the subrogation that he wasn’t inclined to adopt his arguments. “I’m not even following a little bit of your argument, just so you know,” he said. “It seems obvious that you’re wrong.”
Not since the frontier days when Texas jurisprudence was being developed from Spanish law has there been a Supreme Court justice as influential as Nathan Hecht. While serving on the court for 35 years as a justice and chief justice, Hecht was a leader in the court’s transition from a plaintiffs-oriented body to one that pleased the business community with skepticism about large jury verdicts in tort cases. He played key roles in writing procedural rules that make litigation more efficient and vigorously advocated for civil legal services funding. As the longest-serving judge in Texas history hangs up his judicial robe due to state-mandated retirement, he recalls elections past and decisions that helped shaped the current court.
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