HOUSTON – A Texas insurance company is holding its ground as the 1st Court of Appeals affirmed a take-nothing decision by a lower court Jan. 31, negating the $13 million sought by a hurricane-damaged city.
AUSTIN – On Feb. 6, Texans for Lawsuit Reform announced the addition of former Texas State Rep. Kenneth Sheets and former Texas Supreme Court General Counsel Lisa Bowlin Hobbs to its outside legal team.
The Supreme Court’s fractured decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) required states to recognize same-sex marriage. Obergefell came less than 30 years after Bowers v. Hardwick,[1] in which the court refused to recognize a right to engage in homosexual sodomy. In changing its mind, the Court effectively amended the U.S. Constitution with its Delphic utterances.
LONGVIEW – Despite progress made in turning around a reputation that has pegged Texas as a popular venue for medical malpractice lawsuits and “not a business friendly environment,” Ruben Martin, founder of East Texans Against Lawsuit Abuse, said in a newsletter entry commemorating ETALA’s 25th anniversary that “junk lawsuits continue to cost us dearly.”
AUSTIN – A documentary filmmaker seeking to obtain the deposition of one of Texas’ most well-known plaintiff’s attorneys was shut down by a district judge Tuesday, as the court refused to unseal testimony linked to an asbestos memo that has been the subject of much controversy for the past two decades.
GALVESTON – In Lieu of disciplinary action, the Texas Supreme Court has accepted a motion for resignation from a former Galveston County judge who has been mired in legal troubles the past several years.
&&& AUSTIN – A federal court suit challenging the legality of the state of Texas’ attempts to diversify its State Bar governing board now has the official support of local Attorney General Ken Paxton.
AUSTIN – With Republicans holding all nine seats on the Texas Supreme Court, there probably will not be a lot of big business spending in that election in the near future, according to the director of research for legal progress at the Center for American Progress.
After Axcess International, Inc. filed an October 2016 motion
for a rehearing, the Texas Supreme Court finally declined to hear the $41
million Baker Botts, LLP malpractice case on November 18. The motion
filed by Axcess argued that they were prematurely dismissed from a lower
appellate court for excessively strict evidentiary standards.
AUSTIN – For the past year, an appeal brought by State Farm Lloyds has been before the Texas Supreme Court, in which the insurer’s allies contend trial lawyers are abusing discovery to force settlements in storm lawsuits.
BEAUMONT – Primarily a Democratic stronghold, Jefferson County voters favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the General Election by the slightest of margins.
AUSTIN — In oral arguments set for this week before the Texas Supreme Court, BP will make another attempt to hold onto an oil and gas lease for a well it shut in more than four years ago.
BEAUMONT – The Ninth Court of Appeals has found a lower court abused its discretion by ordering “overbroad” discovery in a Hurricane Rita lawsuit brought against the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
AUSTIN – National Lloyds will no longer have to fork over its internal management reports to The Mostyn Law Firm, with the Texas Supreme Court recently finding the information being sought by dozens of hail suit plaintiffs was “overbroad.” In the spring of 2012, two hailstorms rocked Hidalgo County, giving rise to thousands of lawsuits against insurance companies.
AUSTIN -- Attorney General Ken Paxton has caught resistance from numerous entities in response to his lawsuit against Texas’ first local law against bag pollution in Brownsville.
HOUSTON – The University of Houston Law Center is again offering its Judge Ruby Kless Sondock Jurists in Residence Program for the 2016-2017 school year and has announced its lineup of jurists for the program.
Three incumbent Republicans running for re-election for their positions on the Texas Supreme Court have received endorsements from the Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC in next month's general election.
A wireless and business technology company has filed for a rehearing in a $41 million malpractice suit against the law firm that represented them in a patent case.
