In the News

In Texas, one of just a few states that maintains a system of partisan judicial selection all the way up through its high courts, judges are at the mercy of the political winds. They are required to run as partisans but expected to rule impartially. They are forced to raise money from the same lawyers who will appear before them in court. And in their down-ballot, low-information races, their fates tend to track with the candidates at the top of the ticket.

A Texas appeals court overturned a decision by a Harris County civil judge who cut off testimony mid-way through trial and then abruptly issued a ruling after complaining he wanted the parties involved to “hurry up.”

“The bribery of a judge may be the worst break of the public’s trust in government,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick of the Southern District of Texas, in a statement. “Rudy Delgado used his position to enrich himself. He didn’t just tip the scales of justice, he knocked it over with a wad of cash and didn’t look back. Delgado’s actions unfairly tarnish all his former colleagues.”

Activist groups lobbying municipalities nationwide to file lawsuits against utilities as part of a two-decade climate litigation campaign have changed tactics and are now targeting energy manufacturers, a shift that poses significant repercussions for business, industry and consumers.

For more than a decade, Texas lawyers have filed thousands of lawsuits against insurers every time a severe weather event impacts the state. To calm the surge in storm-related litigation, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1774, affording insurance companies a chance to resolve a disputed claim by requiring policyholders to give insurers notice 60 days prior to filing a lawsuit.

Jeff Albright, CEO of Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of Louisiana, believes auto insurance premiums in Louisiana are among the highest in the country because there are double the amount of claims in Louisiana than any other state. “The reason for our high insurance premiums in Louisiana is very clear,” Albright said. “We claim that we are injured in car accidents twice as often as the national average. If we make twice as many claims we will pay more for insurance.”

A proposed opioid “negotiation class” that would include more than 24,000 U.S. cities and counties is a waste of judicial resources unlikely to achieve its stated goal of hammering out a global settlement, say critics, including a former Connecticut official who was directly involved in negotiations with the opioid industry.

Non lawyers, namely doctors and finance companies, are steering the litigation for accident claims. In the past, plaintiff attorneys were the only ones behind the wheel and put aside money in a “war chest” to fund the risk of their contingency cases, says Ben Dyches, an attorney in Utah who specializes in defending doctors from malpractice suits.

You’ve probably heard about the proposal by plaintiffs’ lawyers representing more than 1,800 city and county governments suing pharmaceutical companies, drug wholesalers and drugstore chains for sparking an epidemic of drug abuse. Defendants have balked. For one thing, they deny that they illegally marketed or sold opioid products, which are tightly regulated by the federal government, and contend that illegal heroin and fentanyl, and not their prescription pharmaceuticals, are to blame for the rash of drug overdoses. For another, defendants are worried about the practical obstacles to global peace. Any settlement with plaintiffs in the consolidated litigation would just attract more claims.

Oklahoma’s more than 670 cities and counties, which have absorbed most of the emergency and health-care costs of the opioid epidemic, received just $12.5 million to divvy up. The agreement gave about $60 million to private lawyers hired to work on the case. Two months later, Hunter announced an $85 million settlement with a second defendant, Teva Pharmaceutical. Oklahoma’s governor, lawmakers and mayors were not about to make the same mistake twice.