Texas

  • November 14, 2024

    5th Circ. Judge Pummels Judicial Integrity Critics

    Fifth Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones co-opted a panel discussion Thursday to denounce the rise in criticism over purported judge shopping, especially in relation to Texas judges who handled a large portion of lawsuits challenging Biden administration policies, and called on legal groups to do more to defend the judiciary's integrity.

  • November 14, 2024

    Split 5th Circ. Axes Student's Bias Suit Over Right-Wing Beliefs

    An equally divided en banc Fifth Circuit on Thursday refused to revive a high school student's race discrimination suit against his Texas school district, finding that most of the bullying the student allegedly experienced was based on his support of President-elect Donald Trump and conservative viewpoints, not his race.

  • November 14, 2024

    Albright Moves Apple Foes' Patent Suit To California

    Waco's U.S. District Judge Alan Albright has decided to send a patent lawsuit lodged in his court against Apple to the tech giant's home of California, calling the "minimal local interest" provided by local tax breaks "strenuously tied to this case at best."

  • November 14, 2024

    Crypto And Private Fund Groups Push SEC On Dealer Rule

    Crypto industry groups and private fund associations tag-teamed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday during a hearing over two cases relating to the agency's expanded definition of securities dealers, telling a Texas federal court that the new rule marked a dramatic overreach by the regulator.

  • November 14, 2024

    Cisco Asks Albright To Ax $65.7M IP Verdict, Seeks New Trial

    Cisco Systems Inc. has asked U.S. District Judge Alan Albright to throw out a Texas jury's verdict holding the technology behemoth liable for infringing a patent related to conference calls, saying Cisco suffered "immense" prejudice at trial and that the jury's $65.7 million damages award is "excessive."

  • November 14, 2024

    Split 5th Circ. Affirms SEC's Kroger Proxy Decision

    A divided Fifth Circuit on Thursday rejected a "purely theoretical" challenge brought by conservative shareholders unhappy that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted the exclusion of a shareholder proposal from Kroger Co.'s 2023 ballot, noting that the case was moot since the company authorized a vote on the proposal anyway.

  • November 14, 2024

    EEOC Says Texas, Think Tank Can't Scrap Bostock Guidance

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged a federal court to shoot down Texas' challenge to workplace harassment guidance the agency issued based on the U.S. Supreme Court's Bostock decision, arguing the state failed to demonstrate that the guidelines had caused them any harm.

  • November 14, 2024

    Red State AGs Sue SEC Over Crypto Policy

    A coalition of 18 Republican attorneys general led by Kentucky sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday for allegedly treading on the states' authority through a "regulatory landgrab" into the cryptocurrency industry.

  • November 14, 2024

    Texas Court Tosses Devon Energy Suit Over NM Rig Injuries

    A Texas appeals panel on Thursday threw out a Louisiana worker's suit against Devon Energy Corp. over injuries he sustained while working at a New Mexico drilling rig, saying the trial court was wrong to find that the company had enough contact with Texas to be "at home" and under the court's jurisdiction.

  • November 14, 2024

    Houston Back Wages Trial Was 'Circus,' Atty Tells Court

    A California attorney who lost his bid for back wages from a Houston commercial litigation firm where he was formerly an associate asked a Texas appeals court to order a new trial, writing that his former law firm's attorneys "turned the trial into a circus" about his personal life.

  • November 14, 2024

    Whole Foods Workers Seek Massive Class In 401(k) Fee Suit

    Former Whole Foods employees have asked a Texas federal judge to turn their suit against the company into a class action, saying they'd like to represent nearly 100,000 current and former employees in litigation accusing the grocery chain of mismanaging its 401(k) plan.

  • November 14, 2024

    Ovintiv Buys Montney Assets For $2.4B, Sells Others For $2B

    Natural gas producer Ovintiv Inc. said Thursday it will purchase certain Montney Basin assets in Canada from Paramount Resources Ltd. in an all-cash deal worth about $2.38 billion, and also announced plans to divest its Uinta Basin assets in a sale to FourPoint Resources Ltd. and its private equity partners for $2 billion, with at least five law firms advising on the deals.

  • November 14, 2024

    Texas Bar Eyes Ban On Lawyers Partnering With Non-Attys

    A proposed ethics opinion from the State Bar of Texas says lawyers practicing in the Lone Star State cannot partner with law firms offering legal services in other jurisdictions if the partnership includes a non-lawyer, even if such arrangements are permitted in the jurisdiction where the law firm is based.

  • November 14, 2024

    Texas Judge Recuses Himself From Microsoft Patent Case

    Chief U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas has recused himself, without stating a reason, from a patent infringement case that German company ParTec AG has lodged against Microsoft over the tech giant's artificial intelligence supercomputer.

  • November 14, 2024

    Diamond Sports' Ch. 11 Plan Gets Nod With Amazon Deal

    Diamond Sports Group received approval for its Chapter 11 plan Thursday from a Texas bankruptcy court, clearing the way for its continued broadcast of 27 professional sports teams and new streaming options through a deal with Amazon.

  • November 14, 2024

    Texas Boutique First To Match Milbank's Year-End Bonus

    Texas-based litigation boutique Vartabedian Hester & Haynes LLP confirmed on Thursday that it will match Milbank LLP's year-end bonus scale, offering its associates BigLaw-level compensation along with an additional special bonus.

  • November 14, 2024

    The Onion Buys Alex Jones' Infowars At Ch. 7 Auction

    Satirical news website The Onion has purchased Alex Jones' Infowars at a Chapter 7 bankruptcy auction, according to a Thursday announcement by the firm representing Sandy Hook shooting survivors who won a $1.4 billion defamation award over his claims the massacre was a hoax.

  • November 13, 2024

    Nvidia, Microsoft Rip Antitrust Suit And Its 'Imaginary' Cartel

    Nvidia and Microsoft have urged a Texas federal judge to toss a startup's suit alleging that they engaged in an anticompetitive conspiracy to fix prices for graphic processing units used in powering artificial intelligence, with Nvidia saying the startup's "low patent quality" is just as likely to have caused purported injuries.

  • November 13, 2024

    Tempur Sealy Has 'Keys' To Merger, Mattress Firm CEO Says

    Mattress Firm's CEO told a Houston judge Wednesday that he has not had any involvement in Tempur Sealy's post-acquisition agreements with mattress suppliers, testifying that Tempur's board chairman and CEO is the one "driving" the deal.

  • November 13, 2024

    Texas Court OKs Med Mal Death Suit, Expert Report

    A Texas appellate court has declined to dismiss a medical malpractice suit accusing an emergency medical clinic of failing to diagnose a man's heart disease which caused his fatal cardiac arrest, saying the plaintiffs' medical expert's mandatory report satisfies state guidelines.

  • November 13, 2024

    Google Says $20M Thermostat IP Verdict Was 'Manufactured'

    Google is making its argument to the full Federal Circuit that a $20 million verdict the tech giant was hit with in the Western District of Texas was "manufactured" by an expert hired by a competing smart-home energy startup.

  • November 13, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Judges Frown On Custom Emoji Patent

    A patent covering the development of customizable emojis died at the Federal Circuit on Wednesday, after judges there rejected an appeal of an administrative board ruling that knocked out all of the patent's claims.  

  • November 13, 2024

    Short-Term Rental Owners 'Unreasonable,' Dallas Tells Court

    A Dallas short-term rental advocacy organization loves to focus on property rights, but it never considered the rights of neighbors who want safe neighborhoods and don't want to live next to an active business, a city attorney told a Fifth Court of Appeals panel during oral arguments Wednesday.

  • November 13, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Won't Send Microchip Patent Suit To NY

    The Federal Circuit on Wednesday denied a bid from a Chicago tech manufacturer to transfer a Texas case brought by an ex-Microsoft executive's private equity-funded patent litigation outfit, saying the manufacturer didn't show that the lower court erred in refusing to ship the case to New York.

  • November 13, 2024

    Frontier Stockholders Vote In Favor Of $20B Verizon Deal

    Frontier Communications stockholders approved the company's planned $20 billion sale to Verizon Communications Inc. on Wednesday, despite prior pushback from select investors and recommendations from top proxy advisory firms to abstain.

Expert Analysis

  • Why High Court Social Media Ruling Will Be Hotly Debated

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    In deciding the NetChoice cases that challenged Florida and Texas content moderation laws, what the U.S. Supreme Court justices said about social media platforms — and the First Amendment — will have implications and raise questions for nearly all online operators, say Jacob Canter and Joanna Rosen Forster at Crowell & Moring.

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • Opinion

    It's Time For Nationwide Race-Based Hair Protections

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    While 24 states have passed laws that prohibit race-based hair discrimination, this type of bias persists in workplaces and schools, so a robust federal law is necessary to ensure widespread protection, says Samone Ijoma and Erica Roberts at Sanford Heisler.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Supreme Court's ALJ Ruling Carries Implications Beyond SEC

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    In its recent Jarkesy opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the types of cases that can be tried before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house administrative law judges, setting the stage for challenges to the constitutionality of ALJs across other agencies, say Robert Robertson and Kimberley Church at Dechert.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Various Paths For Labor And Employment Law

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    Labor and employment law leans heavily on federal agency guidance, so the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to toss out Chevron deference will ripple through this area, with future workplace policies possibly taking shape through strategic litigation, informal guidance, state-level regulation and more, says Alexander MacDonald at Littler.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • When Patents As Loan Collateral Can Cost You Standing

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Intellectual Tech v. Zebra Technologies shines a light on loan default provisions' implications for patent infringement litigation, as a default may inadvertently strip a patent owner of constitutional standing to sue over a patent pledged as collateral, say Joseph Marinelli and Suet L. Lee at Irwin IP.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Roundup

    After Chevron

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    Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard in June, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 37 different rulemaking and litigation areas.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • Series

    Skiing And Surfing Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I’ve learned while riding waves in the ocean and slopes in the mountains have translated to my legal career — developing strong mentor relationships, remaining calm in difficult situations, and being prepared and able to move to a backup plan when needed, says Brian Claassen at Knobbe Martens.

  • Air Ambulance Ruling Severely Undermines No Surprises Act

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    A Texas federal court's recent decision in Guardian Flight v. Health Care Service — that the No Surprises Act lacks a judicial remedy when a health insurer refuses to pay the amount established through an independent review — likely throws a huge monkey wrench into the elaborate protections the NSA was enacted to provide, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.

  • Justices' Removal Ruling Presents Hurdles, But Offers Clarity

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Campos-Chaves v. Garland and two other consolidated cases endorses a multistep notice practice that could impair noncitizens' access to adequate judicial notice, but its resolution of a longstanding circuit split also provides much-needed clarity, says Devin Connolly at Reeves Immigration Law Group.

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