The Texas Supreme Court has turned down a Texas energy company’s bid to shield its executive chairman from testifying in a legal dispute over a natural gas pipeline and processing transaction.
The high court on Monday turned down a petition by Energy Transfer LP and other plaintiffs seeking to block defendants in the case from deposing Energy Transfer’s top corporate officer, Kelcy Warren, who chairs the company’s Board of Directors.
The defendants, including Culberson Midstream Equity LLC, another energy company, argued that “Warren possesses unique or superior personal knowledge of discoverable information” and that the state’s “apex doctrine” should not apply, according to one of Culberson’s court filings opposing the writ of mandamus.
The apex doctrine prevents the deposing of top corporate executives unless they have superior knowledge of the facts relevant to the lawsuit. The defendants argued that Warren participated in at least two private meetings about the natural gas deal in dispute, which Warren initially viewed as “kind of unheard of,” the Culberson court filing states.
The trial court reviewing the breach-of-contract case ordered Warren’s deposition, and a petition to block the order was denied by the state’s Fifth District Court of Appeals. The state Supreme Court denied the petition this week in a one-sentence statement.
The plaintiffs argued that the trial court abused its discretion in ordering Warren to sit down for a deposition, alleging that Energy Transfer’s top corporate officer lacked personal knowledge of relevant information in the case and that the defendants had less intrusive options to proceed with the discovery phase.
The underlying lawsuit argues Culberson and other defendants in the business-to-business dispute were liable for breach of contract, fraud and declaratory judgment over two inter-related 2018 agreements involving gas gathering and processing in West Texas.