In the News

The Texas Attorney General’s Office recently ruled that Hidalgo County must release a settlement agreement on a construction defect lawsuit. While public entities filing construction defect lawsuits are certainly not uncommon in Texas, the case in question may be unique because a sitting member of Congress is entitled to a cut.

Of all the various tactics used by oil and gas industry opponents to block its activities, one of the most noteworthy has been the incessant, decades-long stream of class-action lawsuits in Louisiana. Unfortunately, that cottage industry has been successful in depressing the state’s oil and gas sector and in enriching plaintiffs’ firms while failing miserably in its’ stated objective of raising funds to help with the pressing problem of the ongoing loss of lands and wetlands throughout the Mississippi River delta region.

After a scathing report from a short seller questioning litigation finance company Burford Capital Ltd.’s accounting practices caused shares of the industry’s largest player to plunge more than 45% on Wednesday, others in the still young industry were seeking to head off any further fallout.

Short-seller Muddy Waters targeted Burford Capital Ltd., driving the litigation-finance company’s stock down as much as 66% and piling pressure on fund manager Neil Woodford, a big Burford shareholder. London-listed Burford overstates the returns it earns on its investments and has questionable financial reporting and governance, Muddy Waters, the research firm founded by Carson Block, said in a report on its website Wednesday.

As attention nationwide turns increasingly to inclusivity and representation in the highest branches of government, the Texas Supreme Court has actually become less diverse over the last decade. Advocates and former judges are looking to this vacancy with hope that that will change. Appointments are a powerful tool for addressing disparities in the court’s makeup and elevating diverse voices in a field that remains largely white and male.

Clark, Love & Hutson, the self-proclaimed leaders in vaginal mesh litigation, has been hit with another lawsuit alleging the firm “blew” the statute of limitations for possibly “thousands” of clients. Seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages, Pamela Johnson filed the suit in federal court earlier this week.

To avoid the expense and stress of going to court, Americans are turning to arbitration to settle workplace, and other, disputes. Free enterprise depends on businesses, employees, and consumers to be able to resolve disputes quickly and fairly. Plaintiffs’ lawyers, who file lawsuits for a living, are trying to convince Congress to take that option away.

“These injunctions are beginning to take a toll on the federal court system—preventing legal questions from percolating through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every case a national emergency for the courts and for the Executive Branch,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurrence in the travel ban case.

In New York there’s been an explosion of lawsuits filed against restaurants, malls, wineries, and colleges saying they discriminate against people with disabilities. Most of them end with secret settlements so we never know how much the defendants pay to make the case go away. Until now. News10NBC obtained a settlement document the lawyers don’t want you to see.

“The proposed negotiating class, and perhaps this very litigation, threatens the sovereignty of the States like nothing else in recent history,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wrote. “It seeks to represent not a single political subdivision asserting parens patriae standing, but all of them. In other words, this motion seeks to permit the class to stand in the shoes of the States — nothing short of usurpation.”