In the News

The idea that the public had lost trust and confidence in the justice system greatly concerned the chief justices in state courts across the U.S., said Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht.

Litigation funders charged their clients more than 60% a year in interest on loans against mass tort cases and earned even more on loans to plaintiffs who had already agreed to settle their cases, a new study involving thousands of actual case files found.

Throughout Texas, wrongful death suits alleging COVID-19 exposure are being filed – perhaps a sign of things to come. While virus-related lawsuits aren’t commonplace yet, a Houston attorney is warning employers to prepare for a wave of wrongful death litigation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans late last week indicted 11 individuals in connection with a scam to create crashes between cars and 18-wheelers and cash in on insurance payments. The indictment, handed down by U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana Peter Strasser is for alleged “staged” accidents with tractor-trailers going back to 2017.

It will take a few years before we know the extent of the effectiveness of laws approved in 15 states, and executive actions in 23 more, shielding health care providers and businesses from Covid lawsuits, says Cary Silverman, partner with Shook, Hardy & Bacon, and expert in product liability and tort law, and civil justice reform.

Texas is again the place to file patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. Businesses and individuals filed 747 patent complaints in Texas during the first six months of 2020 — double the number from a year earlier and twice as many as any other state so far this year.

Settle, if possible. Don’t take shortcuts on safety.  Obviously, avoid truck accidents involving children by any means. And hope that somehow, some way, sensible tort reform is on its way into American courtrooms. Those are some of the suggestions from the American Transportation Research Institute’s (ATRI) new research that confirms that large verdicts against trucking fleets—so-called “nuclear verdicts”—are increasing dramatically, both in number and in size of awards.

Lawyers’ filings that accuse Texas judges of being biased for taking campaign contributions from opposing counsel rarely succeed. Quite the opposite: Sometimes the accusations anger the judges, who sanction or refer the accusing lawyer for attorney discipline. So why do lawyers keep filing these arguments?

Stores, restaurants and other businesses that serve the public are caught in a bind over rules requiring customers to wear masks as protection against COVID-19. They must enforce the rules to prevent employees and customers from getting sick, but the Americans with Disabilities Act and state equivalents could expose them to litigation by people who say they have health conditions that prevent them from wearing masks.

The next hot button issue in the second round of stimulus legislation isn’t about payroll or unemployment checks. Instead, the parameters of proposed liability protections for businesses have taken center stage in the latest draft of the bill currently under review at the White House.