Dali Wireless, a maker of wireless systems designed to help improve cellular communications inside buildings, has prevailed over its much larger rival after a multiyear battle over both companies’ patents.

A federal jury in Dallas awarded California-based Dali $9 million, finding that rival CommScope infringed on two Dali patents. The same jury found Dali infringed on five older CommScope patents and awarded CommScope $1.98 million.

“We are very proud of our trial team,” said attorney Cris Leffler of the Seattle office of Dorsey & Whitney LLP, who represented Dali at trial. “The difference in the awards underscores the advantage of Dali Wireless’ innovative technology over CommScope’s older technology.”

In a release, Mark Strachan of the Dallas office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, who also represented Dali Wireless stated, “Dali Wireless honored us by trusting us with this important challenge. We are very pleased that the jury recognized and protected the value of Dali Wireless’ intellectual property. If this were a football game, then Dali Wireless scored a touchdown and a field goal, and CommScope had only a field goal. As time ran out, Dali Wireless walked away with the trophy.”

Dali Wireless is represented by Cris Leffler, Stefan Szpajda, Madeline Hepler, Ryan Meyer, and David Tseng from the Seattle office of Dorsey & Whitney, LLP and by Mark Strachan and Dick Sayles from the Dallas office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

The dispute between the two tech companies dates to 2015, when Dallas Fort Worth International Airport chose Dali over North Carolina-based CommScope to install distributed antenna systems (DAS) in airport buildings. Considered a leading innovator in the field, Dali holds over 450 patents on its technology.

DAS uses a base station and remote units positioned throughout a building to receive and amplify cellphone signals and provide better cell service.

Following the DFW contract award, CommScope filed suit, claiming Dali had infringed on its patents. Dali countersued, claiming CommScope likewise had infringed.

The case is CommScope Technologies LLC v. Dali Wireless, Inc. No. 3:16-cv-477, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Chief Judge Barbara Lynn presiding.

When arbitration awards resolving contract claims are not based on the actual provisions of the relevant contracts, but rather on an individual arbitrator’s personal sense of “justice” and “public policy,” they can be successfully challenged, and vacated by the courts, points out Robert J. Kaler in a post for Holland & Knight.

He discusses a case in which an arbitration award purported to remedy an alleged breach of and “failure of consideration” for the owner’s underlying network operator agreement with the plaintiff’s subsidiary by rewriting that agreement so as to materially change its financial requirements.

A court subsequently vacated the award, finding that the arbitrator exceeded his powers by voiding the guaranty of the parent company while re-writing the terms of the operating agreement.

Read the article.

A Pepper Hamilton client alert discusses a Delaware case in which the court held that the sellers of a target corporation retained the right to assert attorney-client privilege over pre-merger communications with the target corporation’s counsel because the parties included a provision in the merger agreement that explicitly precluded the buyer from using the communications in a post-closing dispute with the sellers.

“The court’s opinion serves as an important reminder to sell-side counsel to negotiate for these provisions to ensure that privileged pre-merger communications between the target’s counsel and the sellers cannot be used against them in any future disputes,” the authors explain.

Read the article.

As concern mounts over health risks from so-called “forever chemicals,” environmental trial lawyers at Dallas-based Fears Nachawati Law Firm are investigating water contamination cases on behalf of states, counties and cities across the nation.

In a release, the firm said groundwater contamination from fluorine-based PFAS compounds has been reported at hundreds of sites across the U.S., threatening the drinking water of millions of Americans. Industrial chemicals including PFAS, PFOA and PFC have been widely used by corporations to make nonstick and stain-resistant consumer and industrial products. They are also found in fire-retardant foam, which has led to large-scale groundwater contamination at military sites.

Environmental trial lawyers at Fears Nachawati are actively involved in litigation seeking to hold industrial manufacturers accountable for groundwater contamination.

“Sadly, we’ve seen the regulations move in the wrong direction when it comes to protecting Americans from this serious health threat,” said environmental trial lawyer Bryan Fears, co-founder of Fears Nachawati. “Instead of increasing oversight and forcing polluters to take action and clean up these sites, regulators are loosening deadlines and sending the wrong signals to polluters. We all have a collective responsibility to get to the bottom of the cause of weakened environmental standards. This is about the future of our children’s drinking water.”

Called “forever chemicals” because they never fully degrade, polyfluorocarbons (PFC) are a group of synthetic chemicals that include PFAS and PFOA that have been in use since the 1940s, the firm said. The compounds have been found in drinking water used by 110 million people across the nation and is estimated to be in the bloodstreams of 98 percent of Americans. The compounds have been linked to immune system problems and cancer. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration reported the discovery of PFAS compounds in grocery store meats, milk and seafood as well as in off-the-shelf products such as chocolate cake.

“When corporations fail to accept responsibility for the damage they’ve caused and when regulators decline to protect our most precious resources, it’s up to state and local governments and the American people to demand action,” said Fears Nachawati co-founder Majed Nachawati.

President Donald Trump’s fondness for the U.S. Supreme Court could be tested by a series of legal disputes targeting him personally – from his taxes and businesses to his 2016 election campaign – that ultimately may be decided by the justices, according to a Reuters report.

Reuters reporters Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley write that some legal experts speculate that “as the focus of some of the major legal challenges shifts from his policies to Trump himself, there could be disappointments in store for him, … in particular if the Supreme Court stoutly defends the ability of Congress to pursue investigations of the president.”

J.W. Verret, an expert in corporate and securities law at George Mason University in Virginia, told the reporters that conservative justices “won’t feel any loyalty to Trump, but will instead support strong separation of powers” as delineated in the U.S. Constitution.

Read the Reuters article.

The Dallas-based law firm Fears Nachawati has been retained by the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners in Maryland to pursue a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors over their role in the epidemic of addiction to these painkillers, the firm said in a release.

Representing the southern Maryland county is a legal consortium that features Matthew McCarley and Jonathan Novak of Fears Nachawati, along with attorneys from Ferrer, Poirot & Wansbrough in Dallas; Motley Rice in Washington, D.C.; and The Kane Law Group and McNamee, Hosea, Jernigan, Kim Greenan & Lynch in Maryland.

Just southeast of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Calvert County has seen its public resources overburdened by the societal, health and public safety demands created by the reckless proliferation of prescription opioids, plaintiffs say.

“The opioid epidemic has continued at a horrifying pace, taking a tremendous human toll and creating intense financial and social services pressures on local governments such as Calvert County,” said McCarley. “There is no single, simple solution, but recovery cannot begin until those who knowingly created the problem are held responsible for their actions.”

Fears Nachawati currently represents 61 counties, cities and hospital systems in Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico and North Dakota in lawsuits seeking to hold 30 of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors liable for their role in the opioid addiction crisis that resulted from deceptive and illegal marketing schemes.

“While we fight to recover some of the financial costs related to the public health emergency caused by the overuse of prescription opioids, this is also about stopping these illegal and unethical practices,” said Novak.

A former partner at Jones Day’s Silicon Valley office who accused the law firm of forcing her out after she raised concerns about its “boys’ club” culture has dropped her lawsuit in exchange for a return of capital she put into the firm, reports Bloomberg Law.

“Wendy Moore’s suit claimed the firm’s leadership retaliated against her after she voiced misgivings about its culture, pay transparency, and treatment of female attorneys,” writes Bloomberg’s Mike Leonard. “The complaint described Jones Day as a ‘fraternity’ where women are marginalized and objectified while male lawyers attend business meetings at strip clubs and sporting events.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Image by Sean P. Anderson

Courthouse News Service reports that a Connecticut judge has slapped conspiracy theorist and defamation suit defendant Alex Jones with sanctions after he posted a 20-minute tirade against plaintiff’s attorney.

The video rant came after files turned over by the defense were found to contain images of child pornography.

In the video, Jones pounded on a photo of Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the families suing Jones for defamation over his statements that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax. “You’re trying to set me up with child porn, I’ll get your ass,” Jones said, as he beat on the Mattei photo.

“The court has no doubt that Alex Jones was accusing plaintiffs counsel of planting child pornography,” Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said.

CNN reports that, under the sanction, the defense will be denied the opportunity to pursue special motions to dismiss moving forward in the lawsuit. The court will also award attorneys fees and filing fees to the Sandy Hook families’ lawyers related to the issue that Jones went off about in his broadcast: child pornography that Jones’ team inadvertently turned over to the plaintiffs.

Read the Courthouse News article.

A post on the Provost Umphrey website describes the role of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in investigating a workplace accident — and the role that a lawyer can play in finding where fault lies and obtaining fair redress for the victim.

The post cites a hypothetical construction accident in which a large piece of equipment injured a worker.

One of the first questions to ask is: What caused the accident? “That’s an important question because the answer can determine who’s liable for the worker’s injuries and can be made to pay for his medical expenses, lost wages, even lost earning capacity,” writes the author of the post.

“OSHA serves an incredibly important purpose,” he adds. “Because of it, workers are safer and accidents fewer. But while workers benefit from the services OSHA provides, they are still in need of help. The results of an OSHA investigation can be used to get the victims of workplace accidents the compensation and help they need. But it doesn’t fall to OSHA to make that happen.”

Read the article.

Reuters reports that a federal appeals court has determined that Amazon is not liable for facilitating the sale of a defective product manufactured by another company.

It’s the second time in just three weeks that courts have found Amazon not be liable for the defective products of their suppliers.

Reuters’ Alison Frankel reports that the 6th Circuit held in Fox v. Amazon that Amazon cannot be held responsible under state product liability law because it was not the seller of the defective product – even though the product was advertised on Amazon’s platform and Amazon shipped and collected payment for it.

Read the Reuters article.

In a class action complaint filed last week, the plaintiffs’ firm Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman alleges that several New Jersey and Texas law firms committed procedural violations and overcharged clients in about 1,450 mesh cases brought in New Jersey state courts, reports Reuters.

Alison Frankel of Reuters explains:

According to the complaint, the law firms – including Nagel Rice, the Potts Law Firm, Bailey Cowan Heckaman, Annie McAdams and Junell & Associates – failed to sign clients to retainer agreements or purported to bind clients to contracts that don’t comply with New Jersey laws and ethics rules. The complaint, filed in Superior Court in Bergen County, New Jersey, asserts claims for malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment.

Read the Reuters article.

A week after the West Virginia Supreme Court unanimously upheld the property rights of landowners battling one natural gas giant, the same court tossed out a challenge filed by another group of landowners against a different natural gas company, reports Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

The article, published on the website of the ABA Journal, is the product of a partnership with the Gazette-Mail, a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.

The court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that threw out a collection of lawsuits alleging dust, traffic and noise from gas operations were creating a nuisance for nearby landowners.

“In the property rights case last week, the justices set a clear legal standard that natural gas companies can’t trespass on a person’s land, without permission, to tap into gas reserves from neighboring tracts,” writes Ward. “In Monday’s case, the justices didn’t articulate a new legal precedent.”

Read the ABA Journal article.

Above the Law reports that Pepper Hamilton is potentially in some hot water for failing to produce documents pursuant to a court order.

“The discovery kerfuffle comes as a result of Doe v. Baylor University, a Title IX lawsuit in which students allege the University did not do enough about their allegations of sexual assault, and created an environment which allowed sexual attacks to flourish,” explains senior editor Kathryn Rubino.

The firm is opposing an order to produce some documents responsive to discovery requests. The judge cited the firm’s “untimely objections” to complying with discovery and pointed to multiple discovery issues over the last two years of the litigation when he said sanctions are on the table.

Read the Above the Law article.

For the first time in John Roberts’ 14 years as chief justice of the United States, he will likely be the deciding vote on several final, tense cases — a total of 24 over the next two weeks, according to CNN.

“Two of the most politically charged cases awaiting resolution, testing 2020 census questions and partisan gerrymanders, could lead to decisions favoring Republican Party interests and reinforce the partisan character of a court comprising five GOP appointees and four Democratic ones,” writes CNN’s Joan Biskupic.

Read the CNN article.

A recent decision by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Pro Done, Inc. v. Basham, provides an illustration of the benefits in a private equity deal of an independent covenant not to sue in addition to a release agreement, writes Glenn D. West in Weil, Gotshal & Manges’ Global Private Equity Watch.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed the trial court and held that there was “no reason why we should treat parties who suffer damages as a result of a breach of an express promise not to sue differently from those who suffer damages for a breach of other types of contractual terms.”

Read the article.

The Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s grant of a motion to compel individual arbitration in a case that “tests the outer limits of what constitutes a ‘reasonably conspicuous’ provision” in an online contract, according to Ballard Spahr.

The article says Holl v. United Parcel Service, Inc. “contrasts with prior Ninth Circuit rulings, arguably involving less extreme facts, which denied motions to enforce online arbitration clauses. Holl, however, was decided on a petition for mandamus, a remedy that requires the petitioner to establish clearly and indisputably that ‘extraordinary circumstances’ exist to overturn the district court’s decision.”

The class action complaint in Holl alleged that UPS systematically overcharged its retail customers.

Companies with online terms of use that include an arbitration clause must still exercise great care in designing the website so that users become contractually bound to arbitrate, the firm advises.

Read the article.

Boeing has assembled a deeply connected defense team to respond to a federal criminal investigation related to the 737 MAX, reports The Seattle Times.

One of the members of the defense team represented Vice President Mike Pence in the Russian interference investigation, another has served as the nation’s deputy attorney general, and a third played a central role in the Russian probe and the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, according to Times reporter Steve Miletich.

Federal prosecutors are using a grand jury in Washington, D.C., to examine the design and certification process of the 737 MAX, after one crash on Oct. 29 off Indonesia and another in Ethiopia on March 10 killed 346 people and led to worldwide grounding of the plane.

Read the Seattle Times article.

West Mermis, PLLC, a Houston-based law firm, secured a take-nothing defense verdict for its client, a national highway construction contractor, in South Texas. Plaintiffs’ counsel asked the jury to award $40 million to the decedent’s family. Following a two-week trial, the jury rendered a complete defense verdict.

According to the firm, the lawsuit arose out of a two-vehicle accident that occurred within a road construction project in Duval County, Texas. Vincent Vargas’ vehicle rear-ended an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer within the construction contractor’s highway construction zone. Vargas suffered fatal injuries as a result of the accident, and his parents filed a lawsuit against the construction contractor.

At trial, West Mermis highlighted the safety measures the construction contractor utilized during the road construction and the professionalism with which it performed its work, the firm said on its website. The defense team, led by Lawrence J. West and assisted by Francis D. McWilliams, emphasized to the jury that the evidence did not support the plaintiffs’ allegations.

Read details of the case.

Bloomberg Law reports that a federal judge has ruled that Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. may have discriminated against an in-house attorney who had portions of both legs amputated after developing vascular disease.

The case now will go to a jury trial.

Nationwide pointed to Kevin Greenwood’s documented performance problems, but there’s evidence a non-disabled attorney with similar performance deficiencies wasn’t discharged, the court said, and there’s also evidence the other attorney was given more than a year to do better while Greenwood only got a few months before and a few weeks after receiving accommodations to improve his performance.

Greenwood testified that a reason he was behind in one of Nationwide’s performance criteria was because it took him longer to get to and from court following his leg amputations, the court said.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Ninth Circuit Judge William A. Fletcher had some harsh words for lawyers from DLA Piper and Munger Tolles & Olson when he told them that he had “serious concerns with the integrity of your brief.”

Above the Law reports on the case, adding that Fletcher told the lawyers: “There are statements and representations that we view as inaccurate and misleading to an unusual degree.”

The appellate court took issue with the lawyers’ brief in a case in which their client, BNSF Railway Co., sued the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community over shipping crude oil through reservation land. The judge said the firms glossed over or tried to hide key context in the firms’ referrals to some prior cases.

Read the Above the Law article.