So you are a party to a new civil litigation case, which means you have either sued someone or just been sued. Your lawyer sends you an email that the Court has just set your case for a non-jury trial for a date in the future. In the same email, your lawyer asks if you
Texas Does Not Recognize Self-Publication Defamation
The Texas Supreme Court has rejected the theory of defamation by compelled self-publication. Say what? you ask? Compelled self-publication occurs most often in the employment context, where a terminated employee is compelled to inform subsequent potential employers why the employee was terminated from the employee’s last job. As the theory goes, if an employer
Why do juries matter?
I have been writing on this blog about how Dallas County juries have shifted over the years from pro-defense to pro-plaintiff, or at least to a point where most prospective jurors in Dallas County don’t necessarily consider lawsuits a bad thing. In the era of tort reform, this attitude among prospective jurors in Dallas
What happens now with overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act?
Late last month a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction against implementation of the Obama Administration’s new overtime rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The new rules were supposed to go into effect on December 1, 2016, and would have resulted in substantially more employees becoming eligible for overtime under the FLSA.
Dallas County Juries, part III
Previously I posted about Dallas County juries here and here. Last week a federal jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $1.041 billion to six plaintiffs who received defectively-designed hip implants. Of the total verdict, $32 million was for compensatory damages, and the rest was for punitive damages. The federal jury that ordered Johnson
Loose Lips Sink Ships
Loose lips sink ships!
The Texas Fifth Court of Appeals at Dallas recently held that a settlement party’s loose talk about settlement terms violated the confidentiality provision of a settlement agreement and excused the other party from making the remaining settlement payments. Opinion
The
October Showers Bring … Mud Problems?
While perhaps fun for kids, unusually heavy rain can cause problems for commercial property landlords, including flooding, mudslides, and mud buildup.
According to visitdallas.com, October ties with April for the second wettest month in Dallas (not surprisingly, May is first). October averages 3.5 inches
Dallas County Does Not Trust Corporate America
According to Bloom Strategic Consulting, Dallas County juries distrust corporate America, believe that litigation is an effective way to police corporate abuse, and in general agree that juries award the right amount of damages.
Yesterday I came across this report published by Bloom Strategic Consulting, which I found fascinating. Bloom asked approximately 1,000 prospective
For once and for all, who are the beneficiaries under Texas’ Wrongful Death Statute?
I look this up every time it comes up. For once and for all, the beneficiaries under Texas’s Wrongful Death Statute are the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased. This includes adopted children and common law spouses, but does not include same-sex spouses (yet). The class of plaintiffs also includes so-called “illegitimate” biological