When  you prepare, review and/or sign settlement agreements you sometimes pay less attention than you should to the details of those “standard” releases, writes Charles Sartain in Gray Reed’s Energy & the Law blog.

He explains that Acme Energy Services, d/b/a Big Dog Drilling v. Staley et al. provide the lesson: Beware the boilerplate; before signing, consider what you actually are trying to accomplish.

“Lake Hills contracted to provide materials and services on oil and gas leases owned by Heritage. Big Dog and other subcontractors provided work and materials and invoiced Lake Hills,” Sartain explains. “Heritage stopped paying Lake Hills and Lake Hills stopped paying the subs, who then recorded statutory mineral property liens against Heritage, its leases, and the well. Each subcontractor sued Heritage to foreclose and for personal liability.”

He lists the five rules the court considered in the case and discusses the ruling.

Read the article.

Zapproved has published “A How-To Guide for Managing Discoverable Data” and made it available for downloading at no charge.

“Your organization’s data has value, but — even with the low unit cost of storage — you can’t afford the cost, or the risks, of storing it all forever,” the company says on its website. “On the other hand, you can’t delete all of your data without running afoul of regulatory and litigation-based retention requirements. Information governance is the key to bridging the gap between these two extremes.”

The guide breaks down the five key components that information governance shares with ediscovery and explains why the quality of your ediscovery depends on the quality of information governance. It covers data organization and management, record retention and its flip side, defensible deletion, data access and security, and the extraction and use of critical business data.

Download the guide.

The former general counsel of ExlService Holdings says in a lawsuit that she suffered from gender stereotyping in her job, illustrated by an order from the CEO that she serve cake to the company’s junior male employees at a company anniversary.

The Washington Post reports on the complaint, which says the CEO at that anniversary event singled out then-GC Nancy Saltzman as one of the “ladies” in the room, despite the fact that she was the most senior female executive at the company. The complaint says Saltzman was humiliated.

The complaint says the event was an example of gender stereotyping. The Post‘s Deanna Paul writes: “According to the complaint, [the CEO] ‘took steps to exclude her from career and advancement opportunities, subjected her to enhanced scrutiny, and micromanaged her’ in a manner her male equals were not.”

She complained to other executives about stereotyping, but she later was fired.

Read the Washington Post article.

The trial involving Hurricane Harvey-related claims from Houston-area property owners who were flooded by the water release from two U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs will begin on May 6, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

“We’re pleased that we can finally present the evidence to claim fair compensation for the residents whose property was flooded because of the government’s failures,” said Daniel Charest of Burns Charest LLP, co-lead counsel for the residents. “The Corps of Engineers knew its reservoirs and management plans would result in the flooding of private property, which is exactly what happened in August 2017.”

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 homes and businesses flooded near government-run dams to the west of Houston. The plaintiffs allege the actions of the Corps of Engineers and its design of the reservoirs led to the flooding of their private property, resulting in an unlawful “taking” of land under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Addicks and Barker reservoirs were built in the 1940s and 1950s. Over the years, the government allowed developers to build thousands of homes and businesses on land that the Corps knew was at risk of flooding, according to plaintiffs. During Harvey’s rains, some of these properties flooded from reservoir overflow, and others flooded when the Corps chose to release water to protect the dams.

The two-week bench trial is before the Court of Federal Claims but will take place in the federal courthouse in downtown Houston.

Facing an onslaught of lawsuits and a criminal investigation, Boeing announced the appointment of a newly created czar to oversee all legal matters arising from two deadly crashes of 737 MAX jetliners, reports The Seattle Times.

J. Michael Luttig, 64, a former federal appeals court judge who has served as Boeing’s general counsel since 2006, is now the new counselor and senior adviser to Boeing Chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg and the company’s board of directors, according to the Times Steve Miletich.

Dozens of lawsuits seeking monetary damages have been filed against Boeing in U.S. courts, alleging negligence on the part of the company. Statements indicate Boeing plans to take an aggressive stance in responding to civil allegations and any potential criminal accusations.

Read the Seattle Times article.

Bloomberg Law reports that a lawyer and his client didn’t pay more than $1 million in sanctions imposed by an Illinois judge for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit they’re appealing, prompting the judge to approve a bond to pay the sanctions that must be posted no later than May 9.

Bloomberg’s Stephen Joyce writes that Judge Margaret Ann Brennan imposed sanctions totaling $1,061,623 against Marshall Spiegel and his lawyer, John Xydakis, in a case involving a condominium association. Spiegel and Xydakis had engaged in harassing behavior, the judge found.

Two adverse decisions and a November 2015 notice that their claim against  condo board member was not well grounded didn’t Spiegel and Xydakis from producing more filings and launching new lawsuits.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Bloomberg Law reports that the former chair of Dentons government contracts practice group claims that the firm owes her more than $390,000, but the firm has fired back, saying she owes the firm almost $2 million in client fees.

Jessica Abrahams, now at Drinker Biddle & Reath, claims Dentons breached a contract that guaranteed she’d have the funds in her capital account returned to her if she left the firm.

Dentons responded in a statement that when Abrahams left, “Dentons was owed more than $1.8 million from her clients and those fees and costs largely remain outstanding today.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

A Miami-based personal injury attorney, a prostate cancer survivor, sued his health-care insurance provider in April, accusing it of wrongfully denying him and potentially thousands of other men coverage for a lifesaving prostate cancer treatment.

Richard Cole has had a hard time finding a judge to hear his case, if only because they all keep recusing themselves, reports The Washington Post.

Then one judge, who also felt he had to recuse himself and who was a prostate cancer survivor himself, made it clear how he felt about the case. In his recusal order, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. wrote “To deny a patient this treatment, if it is available, is immoral and barbaric.”

Read the Post article.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has agreed to hear a case to consider whether the rule of capture applies to hydraulic fracking, reports The Hydraulic Fracking Blog of Norton Rose Fulbright.

The case involves landowners’ trespass and conversion claims against an energy company based on hydraulic fracking activities. The plaintiffs  compared the energy company’s fracking activity to slant drilling, claiming that the proppants of hydraulic fracturing “serve the same purpose as a drill bit invading the land.”

Read the article.

Lex Machina will present a present a webinar on the company’s latest research on contracts litigation.

The 30-minute event will begin at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday, May 7, 2019.

Lex Machine legal data expert Karen Chadwick, the author of the report, and Abena Mainoo, partner at Cleary Gottlieb, will discuss the latest findings and trends on top law firm and party data, timing metrics, case resolutions, damages awards, and more.

The webcast will cover:

• Case Filings
• Case Timing to Key Milestones
• Top Districts and Judges
• Most Active Parties
• Top Law Firms
• Case Resolutions and Findings
• Damages Awards

Register for the webinar.

A recent Delaware Court of Chancery ruling is a stark reminder that courts will enforce the terms of a merger agreement as written, and that the failure to comply with seemingly ministerial formalities can have severe consequences, according to a post on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.

The authors, partners at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, discuss Vintage Rodeo Parent, LLC v. Rent-A-Center, Inc., which involves a proposed merger. The agreement included a prescribed “end date,” means for extensions, and a reverse termination fee of $126.5 million.

The article expands on key takeways from the ruling, including the need for struct compliance with notice provisions, the lack of implied duty to warn a counterparty of its mistake, the discoverability of text messages, and enforceability of reverse termination fees.

Read the article.

The vice president of legal affairs & litigation counsel of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc. sued her employer, claiming executives shrugged off her complaints of sexual harassment as “a byproduct of being an attractive woman who works at a company with a French culture.”

The New York Post reports that plaintiff Andowah Newton claims her harasser — a “senior level management employee” whom she doesn’t name — frequently ogled her and once said, “You are so pretty. And that beautiful smile, I just can’t get enough of it.” He also made unwanted physical contact with her, she said.

The company’s response to her initial complaints is laughable, court documents say, because “none of the individual actors in this matter is, in fact, French.”

Read the New York Post article.

Bill Boyce, a justice on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston for 11 years, has joined Alexander Dubose & Jefferson in the firm’s Houston office.

In addition to his experience on the bench, he practiced law for 18 years as an associate and partner at Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

While in private practice he argued more than 60 cases in appellate courts throughout Texas and across the country, including the United States Supreme Court.  He has been board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Civil Appellate Law since 1994 and has served on the board’s appellate exam drafting committee.  He has been selected as Appellate Judge of the Year by the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists.

Read more about Boyce.

Hanzo and Duane Morris, LLP will present a joint webinar, “The Impact of Meritless Claims on Multidistrict Litigation And How Social Media Investigations Can Help,” on May 16, 2019 at 1 pm ET. The event will include a discussion about multidistrict litigation, the challenge of meritless claims, and strategic insights about how social media investigations can help.

Multidistrict litigation (MDL), came into being in 1968 with the intent to make it more efficient for parties to litigate complex cases where there is a common question of fact that are pending in different districts. Since then, MDLs have surged to more than 50 percent of all federal civil cases, of which product liability cases now comprise the vast majority of MDLs. Aside from being great for plaintiff’s counsel, however, it’s questionable whether they are good for anyone else, Hanzo says in a news release.

“Unfortunately, what was originally intended to streamline processes has turned into a magnet for meritless claims, where around a third of the MDL claims turn out to be unsupportable. Adding to the injury, these are often discovered at the settlement stage,” according to Hanzo.

In this webinar, industry leaders Sean Burke, partner, and Ryan O’Neil, both of Duane Morris, and Evan Gumz of Hanzo will discuss the problem meritless claims pose to the multidistrict litigation process and explore proactive solutions to help identify frivolous claims early in the process.

The discussion will include:

– The prevalence of meritless claims and their impact on the MDLs
– The problem with discovering meritless claims at the settlement stage
– Legal reform and possible solutions proposed by the subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules
– Bellwether trials
– How social media investigations can help

Speakers

– Sean Burke, Partner, Duane Morris, LLP
– Ryan O’Neil, Associate, Duane Morris, LLP
– Evan Gumz, Senior Account Executive, EDiscovery, Hanzo

Register for the webinar.

A Texas Supreme Court ruling in Texas Outfitters Limited v. Nicholson explains why there is no bright-line rule delineating the duty of the executive right holder in resolving disputes among the mineral interest family, according to Gray Reed & McGraw.

The article in the firm’s Energy & the Law blog explains that the case presented an opportunity for the court to apply the guidelines outlined in an earlier ruling to a different scenario: whether the executive breached the duty by refusing to lease.

The ruling in “Outfitters reinforces the message that surface protection is not the only goal an executive is allowed to pursue – especially if a co-owner has leased.”

Read the article.

Bloomberg Law reports that an importer-exporter who says two former partners and their attorneys at McGuireWoods LLP used dirty tricks to strip their joint venture of its assets has accused the law firm of sitting on the records he needs to prove it.

The complaint claims McGuireWoods won’t give Andrew J.C. Kunian any of the legal work it did setting up a deal to export natural gas from Texas to Chile on behalf of two companies he co-owned with Francis Smollon and Colin Williams.

Bloomberg’s Mike Leonard writes: “According to the Delaware complaint, Smollon and Williams ‘orchestrated Kunian’s freeze-out with the full knowledge, cooperation, substantial aid, and assistance of’ McGuireWoods.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The 5th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a 2016 jury verdict and 2017 trial court judgment that ultimately awarded $9.5 million to a Dallas-based health care company, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

In a majority opinion, the appellate court found that BlueCross BlueShield of Louisiana failed to properly reimburse Encompass Office Solutions for in-office medical procedures, and distributed a defamatory letter to physicians with false information regarding the company and its services. That letter threatened to terminate the network contracts of doctors who continued to work with Encompass.

Subsequent to the opinion in the case, the court has denied a motion for rehearing.

A trial team from Thompson & Knight LLP represented Encompass throughout the district court hearings and before the 5th Circuit.

“This case has a lengthy history spanning several years, and we’re pleased that finally Encompass will be properly compensated for the services it provided and the damages the company has incurred,” said Jennifer Rudenick Ecklund, a trial partner at Thompson & Knight who argued the case before the trial court and 5th Circuit. The judgment remains subject to the awarding of interest and legal fees to Encompass.

Other members of the Thompson & Knight trial team included William L. Banowsky, Andrew C. Cookingham, Greg W. Curry, Richard B. Phillips, Jr. and Reed Randel.

Encompass provides mobile ambulatory surgery services that allow doctors to safely perform surgeries in their offices. Encompass’s business is primarily focused on women’s health, allowing patients to have sensitive gynecological procedures done in the comfort and safety of the doctor’s offices while providing the necessary anesthesia care. This method reduces the infection risks associated with hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, and provides both doctors and patients with a more efficient and cost-effective means of delivering medically necessary surgical care.

Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP will present a free webinar, “Ensuring Copyright Protection in a Changing Legal Landscape,” featuring Fitch Even attorneys Alisa C. Simmons and Kerianne A. Strachan.

The event will be on Thursday, May 2, 2019, at 9 am PDT / 10 am MDT / 11 am CDT / 12 noon EDT. It also will be available as an on-demand webinar after presentation.

The recent Supreme Court decision in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, established that a copyright owner may not file an infringement suit until the U.S. Copyright Office has acted on the copyright owner’s application to register its copyright in the work. Moving quickly to register copyrights is now an important step in safeguarding your rights.

During this webinar, presenters will share insights on the following:
• The practical effects of the Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com decision and other benefits of early registration
• Strategies for protecting copyright rights in work product produced by employees
• Strategies for obtaining and maintaining necessary permissions to use third-party materials in advertisements and promotions
• Recent updates enacted by Congress to benefit music publishers through the Music Modernization Act

Register for the webinar.

Apple and Qualcomm have dueled on three continents over the division of billions of dollars of smartphone profits and even how much consumers pay for their phones but as a trial on the issue began Tuesday, the two companies said they had essentially made up.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The companies, one the maker of iPhones and the other one of the largest providers of mobile chips, said they had agreed to dismiss all litigation between them worldwide. They added that they had reached a six-year agreement for Cupertino’s Apple to pay royalties on Qualcomm’s patents, which was effective as of April 1.

Read the SF Chronicle article.

The outcome of a three-day class action trial accusing the nutritional supplement marketer ViSalus of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act hinged on the testimony of the named plaintiff, reports Reuters.

Jurors heard Lori Wakefield testify about four automated calls from ViSalus on her home phone line, according to Reuters’ Alison Frankel.

Jurors believed Wakefield and found that the calls violated the TCPA, and that the class Wakefield represents had received a grand total of 1.85 million improper robocalls. Their verdict exposes ViSalus to statutory damages of about $925 million, which could be trebled.

Read the Reuters article.