Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In this week’s edition of Litigation Roundup, a settlement nears in a patent dispute over Formula One racing safety technology, a Texas lawyer takes his fight with a California wine entrepreneur to the Texas Supreme Court and a former NFL Pro Bowl cornerback blames a Houston-area clinic for a failed drug test.
In the 10 weeks since the chief judge of WDTX stunned the patent litigation bar by ordering that new patent infringement lawsuits filed in Waco be evenly divided among the district's 11 federal trial judges instead of assigned solely to Judge Alan Albright, new cases have dropped significantly. New research shows the WDTX is still getting the most new patent lawsuits. Judge Albright still got five times more new cases than any other Western District judge. But IP law experts say the raw data is deceiving and that more data points are needed, including two nine-digit-dollar verdicts during the past three weeks.
In a list of orders issued Friday morning, the state’s high court decided the case without hearing oral argument, agreeing with the plaintiff and defendant in an underlying lawsuit over an automobile crash that Harris County District Judge Dedra Davis abused her discretion in ordering the remote trial. Three prominent trial lawyer groups filed amicus briefs in the case arguing the order was unconstitutional.
The court is being asked to determine whether claims arising out of a resident’s fall on the facility’s sidewalk is a premises liability claim or a health care liability claim requiring an expert report.
Former NBA All-Star Jermaine O’Neal filed a lawsuit in Dallas County District Court on Monday against the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on behalf of his company Drive Nation. The lawsuit alleges O’Neal put $14 million of his own money to finance the construction of the sports complex based on promises from airport officials that the surrounding land would be developed.
With almost two dozen truly diverse deals reported, it could have been difficult to pluck up a narrative thread for the week. But among them were three EV deals — that's right, three — whose transactional histories seemed worth a closer look. The CDT Roundup has that, along with its usual parade of Texas lawyers who counseled on all those deals.
In this week’s edition of Litigation Roundup, the San Antonio Spurs beat back a lawsuit alleging it infringed two ticket sales technology patents, the SEC pursues a Texas duo in a $12 million Ponzi scheme suit, and the Texas Supreme Court gears up to hear a case involving the intersection of public information and attorney-client privilege.
For more than four decades, Tony Mauro has been a reporter with the U.S. Supreme Court as his beat. He's covered 22 justices — from William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O'Connor to John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson. He was there in 1986 when the Supreme Court upheld laws criminalizing sodomy and in 2003 when the justices, in Lawrence v. Texas ruled such laws unconstitutional. Mauro revolutionized how journalists wrote about the Supreme Court, holding the justices accountable for the gender and ethnicity of their clerks and doing his best to bring transparency to a branch of government that long-cherished its anonymity. Mauro, who has been a correspondent for The Texas Lawbook since 2020, has some great stories to tell. But he is a great story himself.
The marquee cases of the U.S. Supreme Court term that begins Monday touch on issues such as affirmative action, voting rights, immigration and LGBTQ and First Amendment rights. a second tier of lesser-known cases set for October and November are also worth a look for Texas lawyers and for aficionados of Supreme Court business cases. More cases will be granted review and scheduled for argument soon. Some of the cases will be a test of the high court’s relationship with the Fifth Circuit.
"It's shaping up to be another big term,” says Scott Keller of Lehotsky Keller in Austin and Washington.
In a federal lawsuit filed in the Western District of Texas Wednesday afternoon, gun maker Daniel Defense, communications company Motorola Solutions and Schneider Electric, which made and installed door locks at Robb Elementary, all were named as defendants. The suit is seeking unspecified damages to include punitive damages.
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