In the News

The number of criminal cases pending before Harris County courts stands at more than 94,000.

Forty-six percent of these cases are considered backlogged — defined as misdemeanors pending more than six months and felonies older than one year — beyond which the likelihood of conviction plummets as investigators retire, victims withdraw and witnesses’ memories fade.

A Florida doctor and a medical consultant pleaded guilty this week to federal charges arising from a scheme to pressure hundreds of women to get their pelvic mesh implants removed. The effort was intended to increase the value of personal injury claims against the manufacturers of the medical devices.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, with his snowballing legal troubles and slim margin of victory in his 2018 re-election, has instilled new fervor in challengers from both parties — but especially Democrats hoping to seize on what they see as a prime opening.

Attorneys in the fast-growing wildfire litigation industry are racing to recruit victims of fires ravaging parts of Northern California, and they’re promising to take on a familiar target: PG&E. In July, the company disclosed that its equipment may have sparked two fires this year, including the Dixie Fire, the largest single-origin fire in California history, which to date has engulfed nearly 1,400 square miles, destroying 1,282 structures and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Eric Dick has filed hundreds of lawsuits against insurers over the years, but now it seems the storm attorney is reluctant to actually litigate some of those cases, as another motion to show cause has been filed in another one of Dick’s suits.

Just last week, The Record reported that a trial court granted a motion for sanctions in one of Dick’s Hurricane Harvey suits against the Texas Fair Plan Association, finding that the plaintiff, his expert witnesses and his counsel had prevented essential discovery from taking place.

A new record for nuclear verdicts against a trucking company may have been set with a $1 billion verdict handed down Tuesday by a Florida jury. But more than 90% of the verdict was against a trucking company that apparently no longer exists and had not participated in the proceedings for at least two years.

Our regular readers will recall our extensive coverage of the patent troll problems in the Western District of Texas, but it’s fair to say patent trolls find fertile ground in courts across the Lone Star State. And the continued flow of patent troll cases in the Eastern District has grabbed the attention of a high-profile Metroplex resident, too. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Mark Cuban.

Nuclear verdicts have jumped over 300% in the past decade, according to an analysis in JD Supra, and the average verdict size for a lawsuit involving a truck collision has increased from $2.3 million to $22.3 million.

The judge overseeing federal opioid litigation capped the contingency fees available to private lawyers representing state and local governments at 15% of a proposed $26 billion settlement fund, saying any more would be unreasonable. He included a potential exception for lawyers who “present evidence of exceptional work, extraordinary risk, and insufficient compensation.”