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The San Diego Union-Tribune has been tracking the epic class action litigation against Donald Trump and his defunct Trump University, presenting an inside look at the legal maneuvers, the document leaks, the economic and emotional pain suffered by plaintiffs, and the eventual settlement with the future president of the United States.

Reporter Kristina Davis writes that the Trump University lawsuit landed at Zeldes Haeggquist & Eck, a small downtown San Diego law firm, the way so many cases do — with a phone call.

“The class-action lawsuit she filed against Donald Trump and his defunct Trump University became a centerpiece of the presidential campaign, featured in debates and on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ The end result: a $25 million settlement by the president-elect for thousands of former students 6½ years later,” writes Davis.

The attorneys’ big break came when some former Trump University employees leaked playbooks and scripts used by instructors.

Read the Union-Tribune article.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider putting sharp new limits on where patent-infringement lawsuits can be filed, accepting a case that may undercut patent owners’ ability to channel cases to favorable courts, reports Bloomberg.

The case involves an appeal by TC Heartland LLC, an Indiana-based maker of water flavorings that says a Kraft Heinz Co. unit shouldn’t be allowed to sue it in Delaware, reports Greg Stohr.

“A victory for Heartland would also bar most patent owners from pressing cases in the Eastern District of Texas, a patent-friendly jurisdiction where more than a third of all infringement suits are now filed,” Stohr explains. “Heartland’s appeal has support from a group of internet retailers and software companies, as well as the financial-services industry.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Reuters is reporting that a Washington judge has ordered Republican President-elect Donald Trump to give a deposition in a lawsuit against celebrity chef Jose Andres stemming from Trump’s disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants.

Superior Court Judge Jennifer Di Toro on Wednesday directed Trump to testify in New York about Andres’ restaurant deal at Trump’s luxury Washington hotel. She set a time limit of seven hours on the event and ordered that it will take place during the first week of January.

“Trump is suing Andres for $10 million over breach of contract after Andres backed out of a plan to open a restaurant in the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House,” writes Ian Simpson. Andres has said he canceled the project after Trump denounced Mexican immigrants in June 2015 as drug dealers and rapists.

Read the Reuters article.

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Employers who don’t want employees to arbitrate employment-related claims shouldn’t bury the agreement in an employee handbook that includes a disclaimer stating that the handbook is not a contract, advises Business Management Daily.

That’s because a court could conclude that the conflicting language means the arbitration agreement isn’t binding.

The article describes a recent case in which an employer asked the court to send the case to arbitration, arguing that the employee knew about the arbitration requirement that was included in a handbook.

“The court didn’t see it that way. It reasoned that to be binding, the arbitration clause had to demonstrate clear mutual assent,” according to the article.

Read the article.

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General Motors Co. said late Tuesday it has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that has opened GM to potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits related to pre-bankruptcy claims over defective ignition switches, reports The Detroit News.

Reporter Melissa Burden explains that GM was protected from some liabilities prior to its bankruptcy restructuring, but that protection did not extend to post-restructuring after 2009.

“A number of injury, wrongful death and economic loss lawsuits have been filed against GM over its faulty ignition switches and recall of nearly 2.6 million older vehicles in 2014,” she writes. “GM has admitted it knew of the defect for years but did not recall the cars for more than a decade and has paid fines to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Justice.”

Read the Detroit News article.

A lawyer for former National Football League players seeking damages and medical treatment for brain injuries suffered while playing football says the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a legal challenge to a $1 billion settlement from the NFL means players can get the help they need, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

Matthew Matheny, a lawyer with Provost Umphrey LLP in Beaumont, who represented some of the players said:

“We are very pleased that today the United States Supreme Court rejected the appeals of a very few objectors to the NFL concussion settlement. The court’s decision should allow the settlement to become final and effective, meaning that thousands of former players will soon have the opportunity to receive the medical screening, diagnosis and treatment – as well as the compensation – they deserve. We expect the details of the baseline assessment and compensation programs to be forthcoming.”

Exterro has published a white paper titled “Top 10 E-Discovery Cases of 2016,” which reviews the top e-discovery cases of 2016 and their implications for practitioners.

It’s been a year since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended. That’s why reviewing some of the most defining cases in e-discovery during 2016 is vital when it comes to understanding how courts define these new amendments, according to the company.

This white paper discusses:

• The top 10 most viewed or downloaded cases in 2016 from Exterro’s E-Discovery Case Law Library
• Simplified case briefs with the key case takeaways and issues
• Expert analysis and resources to help solve or prevent the same mistakes made in these cases

Download the white paper.

In-house counsel and company executives who can make decisions need to attend hearings to see what they’re getting for their legal fees, patent judges said conference sponsored by University of California Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Stanford Law School.

In its report on the conference, Bloomberg Law quotes Judge James Donato, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California: “I am amazed that you all don’t show up with more regularity, particularly when you’re looking at a summary judgment motion or have a Markman” hearing on claims construction “or some other significant proceeding where you have spent in all likelihood six figures in legal fees and costs to get that thing ready for me to decide.”

Judge Ron Clark, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, requires the general counsel or a corporate-level decision maker to attend hearings either in person or via phone to understand what’s happening and what the court demands, according to the Bloomberg report.

Read the Bloomberg article.

A lawsuit that accused a Fort Worth lawyer of cheating another lawyer out of his share of legal fees in the $51 million Chesapeake Energy settlement has been dismissed, reports The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

A state district judge in Fort Worth shut down the litigation against Dan McDonald in which attorney Jim Ward was seeking up to a third of the millions in legal fees stemming from the Chesapeake case.

“In May, McDonald announced the settlement of his massive lawsuit against Chesapeake, once the face of the Barnett Shale gas drilling boom. In about 400 lawsuits representing more than 13,000 clients, McDonald accused Chesapeake of deducting higher-than-necessary production costs from royalty checks,” writes reporter Max B. Baker.

Read the Star-Telegram article.

A unanimous panel of the Sixth Circuit recently rejected a manufacturer’s attempt to compel arbitration under an expired contract in Linglong Americas, Inc. v. Horizon Tire, Inc., reports Butler Snow LLP.

Erin Palmer Polly explains that the manufacturer and its distributor entered into a collaboration agreement that contained an arbitration clause.

“The agreement expired and was not renewed, but the manufacturer and its distributor continued to work together and continued to make various representations of continued involvement,” she writes. “Approximately three years after the agreement expired, the parties’ relationship deteriorated and resulted in a federal court lawsuit.  The manufacturer attempted to compel arbitration and pointed to the arbitration provision in the collaboration agreement.”

She points to two important lessons to be learned from the case.

Read the article.

A planned TV show about the late Tejano singing star Selena has hit a legal barrier, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. Her father Abraham Quintanilla Jr. filed a lawsuit in a Texas court to stop the new series based on a book by her husband Chris Perez. Her father argues that only Selena’s estate can authorize the TV show and that because her widowed husband made an agreement for a portion of the estate, he can’t make his own separate deal for a TV show.

Estate planning lawyer Aaron Dobbs of the Sugar Land, Texas, office of Roberts Markel Weinberg Butler Hailey PC, says:

“Family settlement agreements, such as the one outlined by Mr. Quintanilla, are highly favored by Texas courts and generally will be upheld and enforced in a court of law. It appears that Selena’s family agreed on who may use her name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness in the media, and that authority may  lie with the estate or someone other than Mr. Perez. Such a family settlement agreement is a binding contract. So unfortunately for her husband, using Selena’s likeness without authorization may result in liability for breach of contract. He could be liable for damages.

“As with an individual’s property right in a bank account or house, an individual in Texas has a property right in the use of his or her name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness after death. This property right is transferable by contract or through a last will and testament, trust or other testamentary document. If the property right has not been transferred through one of those means, then Texas law dictates who inherits the property right. Of course, this does not necessarily stop family members from fighting over the inheritance and use of a deceased person’s name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness.”

While Wells Fargo’s new chief executive has responded to his company’s recent unauthorized-accounts scandal by saying his “immediate and highest priority is to restore trust in Wells Fargo,” the bank has been taking a different approach with individual customers, reports The New York Times.

“The bank has sought to kill lawsuits that its customers have filed over the creation of as many as two million sham accounts by moving the cases into private arbitration — a secretive legal process that often favors corporations,” write reporters Michael Corkery and Stacy Cowley.

Customers argue that they couldn’t have agreed to arbitration, considering they didn’t sign up for the accounts in the first place. The bank counters that the agreements in the customers’ original contracts also cover the disputed accounts.

Read the NYT article.

Gabriel Green has joined Buchalter as a shareholder in the Litigation Practice Group in Los Angeles, the firm announced in a news release.

Green’s practice focuses on intellectual property, franchise, real estate, and commercial litigation. He represents corporations and public personalities encountering infringement claims involving musical compositions, video game graphics, sculptural works, jewelry design and literary works. Green’s franchise litigation practice derives from his representation of nationally and internationally renowned franchisors with brands in a range of industries, the release states.

He joins Buchalter from Archer Norris where he was a shareholder.

“Gabe’s practice and expertise are an excellent addition to our growing litigation team, and exactly the type of talent we want here at the Firm,” said Adam Bass, President and Chief Executive Officer of Buchalter. “I’m so pleased to welcome Gabe, and we look forward his practice flourishing.”

Earlier this year, Green was recognized as a Top 10% Lawyer in the U.S. (Intellectual Property Law) by Lawyers of Distinction. He is a member of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers and previously an Editorial Board Member of Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine.

“My practice fits well within Buchalter’s full-service platform,” added Green. “I’m absolutely thrilled at the opportunity to be joining such an excellent group of litigators that provides my clients with a full range of business services and an exceptional experience.”

Green earned his J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law and his B.A. at Pennsylvania State University.

Stacey Lantagne uses a recent Florida case to illustrate the importance of specificity when drafting contracts.

Writing in her ContractsProf Blog, she outlines the history of Boardwalk at Daytona Development, LLC v. Paspalakis, “a case where the court, faced with an ambiguous description of the land at issue in a contract, just threw up its hands in frustration.”

The case involves a settlement agreement in a land dispute. The agreement failed to specify a legal description or street address for the property at issue. That failure came to light when Boardwalk conveyed a parcel — pursuant to the agreement — which the appellees found to be inferior to the one they expected to receive.

Read the article.

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A federal jury in Dallas ordered Johnson & Johnson and one of its subsidiaries to pay more than $1 billion in damages Thursday for “despicable and vile conduct” in selling Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip implants that they knew were seriously defective, reports The Dallas Morning News.

The New Jersey pharmaceutical and medical device maker and its DePuy Orthopaedics subsidiary must pay damages to six California plaintiffs who say they suffered serious chronic and painful medical problems caused by the device.

“The trial was the third in a series of bellwether cases being held by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade,” reports Mark Curriden of Texas Lawbook for The Morning News. “More than 8,900 cases against Johnson & Johnson and DePuy have been filed across the U.S. The lawsuits have been consolidated in what is known as multi-district litigation.”

Read The Morning News article.

Zapproved Inc., a developer of cloud‐based software for corporate legal departments, announced it will present the webinar, “Stories of Bringing E-Discovery In-House,” on Dec. 6, 2016.

In a news release, the company said this special event will offer strategic and practical tips to help corporate legal teams bring more of their e-discovery processes in-house. Guests will hear success stories from experts and learn ways to gain control over their processes, improve efficiency, and reduce risk for their organizations.

The company’s release continues:

Event description

Corporate legal teams are under constant pressure to do more with less. These in-house teams must now lead the charge in implementing initiatives aimed at reducing cost while mitigating risk. To be successful, they often turn to new technologies and electronic discovery processes that allow them to bring legal preservation and e-discovery work in-house.

Join this complimentary webcast that will include stories from three leading in-house legal professionals. They will discuss why and how they decided to move much of their electronic discovery functions inside the company, including preservation, collection, and processing. You will also learn:

• How to prepare for bringing e-discovery in-house
• How to define success and set expectations
• The pitfalls you need to avoid when moving forward

As an attendee, you will receive a series of whitepapers called, “In-House Elevated,” filled with inspiring and educational insights about the journey of bringing more e-discovery work in-house.

Speakers

• Jack Thompson, Sr. Manager, eDiscovery & Legal Operations, Sanofi US
• Becki Bottemiller, Specialist, Paralegal, Portland General Electric
• Wendy Riggs, Senior Manager, eDiscovery and Litigation Operations, Twitter, Inc.
• Jennifer Bantelman, Sr. Director of Product Management, Zapproved, Inc.

Who should attend

Corporate counsel, e-discovery managers, legal operations, paralegals, litigation support professionals

Register for the webinar

Register for Stories of Bringing E-Discovery In-house
Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Time: 1pm ET | 10am PT
Cost: FREE

Practical Law will present a webinar discussion of the key issues and best practices surrounding social media in litigation. The webinar will be Wednesday, Dec. 7, beginning at 1 p.m. EST.

Samantha V. Ettari, E-Discovery Counsel at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, will be the presenter. Lauren M. Sobel, Senior Legal Editor, Practical Law Litigation will be the moderator.

Topics will include:

• The duty to preserve evidence, including social media.
• Social media in discovery.
• Service of process through social media.
• Authenticating social media.
• Social media at trial.

A short Q&A session will follow.

CLE credit is available in multiple states.

Register for the webinar.

Bailey Brauer PLLC of Dallas was named to BTI Consulting Group’s 2017 ranking of U.S. law firms that corporate lawyers never want to face in court.

Founded in 2013 by former big firm lawyers Clayton Bailey and Alex Brauer, the firm has represented major corporations, family-owned businesses and high-net-worth individuals in a variety of business disputes by relying on years of expertise trying and appealing cases and negotiating favorable settlements.

“It’s a point of pride to be on this impressive list,” says Bailey, who is experienced in state and federal trials and appeals. “General counsel call on Bailey Brauer because we provide the experience and quality they expect while keeping a close eye on the bottom line.”

In a release, the firm said:

One of the country’s leading business research firms, BTI Consulting produces its annual review of the U.S. legal market by conducting independent confidential interviews with more than 300 corporate counsel from the world’s largest corporations over a one-year period.

“It’s gratifying to know that in-house lawyers are recognizing the level of work we deliver at Bailey Brauer,” says Mr. Brauer, a trial and appellate lawyer who has helped clients win cases in state and federal courts nationwide. “Our firm is proof that bigger isn’t always better.”

Bailey Brauer’s impressive list of courtroom victories during the past six months includes helping a nationwide food provider defeat a price-fixing claim for more than $500 million; prevailing against a major corporation that sought an injunction against its former employee; and winning a breach of contract claim for a poultry producer after a contractor violated animal welfare standards.

The firm currently is headed to trial in Dallas on behalf of an investment fund in a multimillion-dollar federal fraud case against a group of out-of-state defendants.

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Some senators considering Kethledge’s 2008 nomination questioned his lack of judicial experience, but now he’s on Trump’s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly Feb. 13.

“Kethledge’s notable opinions at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit include a ruling in favor of a Tea Party group and against the Internal Revenue Service,” writes reporter Patrick Gregory. “The judge has written that he likes to see candidness and civility in appellate briefs.”

Read the article.

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A federal judge in Dallas has ordered the attorneys general of two Northeastern states to come to Texas next month to be deposed in a lawsuit brought by Exxon Mobil, according to a report posted by Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

The company has accused Massachusetts AG Maura Healey and New York AG Eric Schneiderman of unlawfully using their powers to investigate whether the oil giant misled investors and the public by downplaying the impact of global warming. The company is seeking an injunction barring the attorneys general from demanding internal documents relating to climate change research and investor communications stretching back decades, according to the Androvett report.

“These investigations could have a potentially catastrophic effect on Exxon, based on the documents and information that have been made public so far,” says attorney Chris Hamilton of Dallas’ Standly Hamilton. “However, allowing a company that is the subject of investigations to take depositions of elected state officials regarding their motivations is highly unusual and problematic. What would happen if a criminal defendant sought the deposition of a district attorney regarding the motivation for prosecuting a case? The precedent for a court to allow this type of tactic is concerning.”

The judge’s order advised the officials to reserve Dec.13 for giving testimony in Dallas.