Dallas-based trial law boutique Deans & Lyons, LLP announced the promotion of trial attorney Christopher J. Simmons to partner in the Dallas office.

In a release, the firm said Simmons has represented plaintiffs and defendants in complex commercial litigation throughout Texas and across the nation. His experience includes securing favorable verdicts and settlements in a wide array of cases ranging from breach of contract, fraud, deceptive trade practices, and breach of fiduciary duties to products liability, catastrophic personal injury, and wrongful death cases. He also has represented clients in various employment matters, including enforcement of non-competition/non-solicitation agreements, as well as discrimination and employment claims before both federal and state regulatory commissions.

In addition to his litigation experience, Simmons has advised clients on corporate governance matters, contract negotiations, regulatory compliance, business strategies, and entity formation. He also has conducted corporate investigations.

“Chris is an extremely talented, accomplished and focused young lawyer who has earned the trust of his clients and respect from fellow attorneys,” says firm co-founder Michael Lyons. “His promotion to Partner is well-deserved.”

Simmons earned his law degree from Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in 2008 and his undergraduate degree, with honors, from Texas A&M University in 2004.

He has been recognized on The National Trial Lawyers: Top 40 Under 40 list for 2015 and has been selected to the Texas Rising Stars list of the state’s top young lawyers for the past two years. Mr. Simmons is an active member of the Dallas Bar Association and Dallas Association of Young Lawyers, receiving the group’s Outstanding Committee Chair Award in 2013.

Deans & Lyons, LLP has offices in Dallas and Houston.

Zapproved Inc. has made available for download a new publication called The Word from the Top: New Rules Amendments are a “Big Deal.” This resource covers the latest opinions and trends in preservation case law.

“As we enter 2016, it marks the beginning of a new era in the federal civil judiciary with the implementation of the revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on December 1, 2015,” the company says. “This was the culmination of a five-year process that showed unprecedented engagement from all parties in the civil justice system.”

Download to learn more about these most recent preservation cases:

• United States v. Vaughn
• Warren v. AmChem Prods
• West v. Talton
• Cook v. Tarbert Logging, Inc
• … and more

Download the resource.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has prompted Dow Chemical to settle a class action lawsuit and pay out $835 million, reports CNN.

“The case involved an allegation that Dow and other makers of a chemical known as urethane had conspired to fix prices between 1999 and 2004,” the report says. “Other defendants in the case settled with the plaintiffs but the case against Dow went to a jury trial.”

Dow was facing a $1.1 billion judgment in a price fixing case, and the company was appealing the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court. But now Dow Chemical says it no longer thinks it could win its appeal without Scalia on the bench.

Read the article.

Photo by Marc Nozell

A federal judge questioned the Obama administration’s “good faith” in helping keep former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails secret for six years and said he may end up issuing a subpoena to force her to turn over her entire account to the government, The Washington Times reports.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said he will grant limited discovery to Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that has sued to get a look at Clinton’s emails.

“That could give the group — and the broader public — answers as to who approved Mrs. Clinton’s unique arrangement, who else in government knew about it and why they shielded it for so long,” the report says. “It also could force Mrs. Clinton to answer questions about how she sorted through her account and decided which messages she didn’t want to turn over to the government.”

Read the article.

Volkswagen has been given until March 24 to present an acceptable fix for bringing nearly 600,000 diesel cars into compliance with clean air laws, reports DW Akademie.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer told the car maker at a court hearing in San Francisco on Thursday that he has a “sense of urgency” about seeing a resolution.

The company has already admitted to using software that covers up the fact that some of their cars emit up to 40 times legally allowable emissions in vehicles sold since 2009.

Read the article.

Some contracts, including insurance and reinsurance contracts, include provisions providing that the successful party’s damage award will include all costs of the suit or arbitration, including attorney fees, writes Larry P. Schiffer in Squire Patton Boggs’ Insurance and Reinsurance Law Blog.

“This type of clause modifies the traditional default American Rule of costs and fees, in which each litigant pays its own attorney fees, win or lose,” he explains. “What happens when this type of contract clause bumps up against the Federal Arbitration Act (‘FAA’) and the ability of a party to petition a court to seek to vacate an arbitration award? Is the prevailing party entitled to costs and attorney fees defending the vacatur proceeding?”

He describes a recent ruling in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in which the court was asked to review a district court order confirming an arbitration award and awarding costs and attorney fees to the prevailing party.

Read the article.

Zapproved Inc., a developer of cloud-based software for corporate legal departments, has announced a strong performance for 2015 that saw continued market adoption of Zapproved’s Legal Hold Pro. The company’s leading litigation hold management software currently oversees more than half a million employees on active litigation holds, said in a release.

The company’s release continues:

Zapproved saw strong adoption in 2015 among the Fortune 500, the largest U.S. companies based on revenue. Since the beginning of 2015 Zapproved reports a 42 percent increase in employees at Fortune 500s using Legal Hold Pro and now represents 16.7 percent of the total employee population of those enterprises.

“America’s largest corporations are faced with litigation and regulatory investigations constantly and we have provided them with a modern approach to take control of their litigation response,” said Monica Enand, CEO and Founder of Zapproved. “To think that one out of every six employees among Fortune 500s rely on our software for their legal hold needs shows that we have made great inroads in solving this pain point. We aren’t stopping there. Our newest products are bringing much needed innovation to corporate legal departments so they can take much greater control over their e-discovery process in order to lower risk and reduce exorbitant costs.”

Making Important E-Discovery Breakthroughs

Zapproved recently announced it had made a major technological advancement in electronic discovery by processing data at a rate exceeding one terabyte per hour using Digital Discovery Pro™. The impact for corporate legal teams is that they can process and review discovery data instantly for immediate insights to a case or internal investigation. Similarly, Zapproved introduced the first remote collection software for Mac computers and added the ability to collect from Microsoft Office365 OneDrive for Business.

“Zapproved’s ability to innovate and rapidly introduce new product features illustrates our approach to serving our customers,” added Enand. “We have hundreds of extremely loyal customer, illustrated by our negative revenue churn, who are helping guide our product roadmap so we are delivering exactly what they need, when they need it.”

About Zapproved Inc.
Founded in 2008 in Portland, Ore., Zapproved Inc. is a pioneer in developing cloud-based software for corporate legal departments. The Z-Discovery Platform returns power to in-house corporate legal teams and helps them navigate electronic discovery with minimal risk and cost, and it sets new standards for scalability and intuitive design. The company’s flagship product, Legal Hold Pro, is widely adopted by Fortune 500 and Global 2000 corporations and has earned recognition as the Best E-Discovery Legal Hold Product at the 2015 Legaltech News Innovation Awards, in the 2014 and 2015 Best of the National Law Journal and the 2013 and 2014 Best of Legal Times. Zapproved was recognized in the 2014 Inc. 500 as one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. and was named as a “vendor to watch” in the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery.

Donald Trump has a habit of causing controversy, and his remarks on Ted Cruz‘s Presidential eligibility have been no exception, reports Matt Strong on LawNews.com. The Texas senator now faces several lawsuits across the country — in Illinois, Texas, New York and Utah — that are bringing the candidate unwelcome distractions.

“Since January 17, Trump has made inflammatory threats of litigation over Cruz’s Canadian-birth and the question of whether Cruz is a ‘natural born citizen’ five times,” the site reports.

And others have gone so as to frame their challenges as lawsuits. “Of the litany of filed suits, four in particular pass muster, either by creatively suing a state election board, scaring Cruz’s campaign into a response, or originating from lawyers in pursuit of more than political gamesmanship or political frivolity,” Strong wrote.

Read the article.

The trial law firm Gardner Haas PLLC has added experienced commercial litigator Jeremy Camp as a partner.

Camp joins Gardner Haas from Dallas’ Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, formerly Bickel & Brewer, where Gardner Haas’ co-founders Michael Gardner and Eric Haas previously practiced. Camp’s litigation and arbitration practice focuses on a variety of complex commercial matters, including merger and acquisition-related disputes, business torts, hospitality law and environmental litigation.

“Jeremy has extensive litigation and arbitration experience and his forward-thinking philosophy aligns with ours,” says Gardner. “He’s an extremely talented lawyer and we are excited he is joining our team.”

Camp has tried several notable cases before judges and juries, including obtaining a take-nothing judgment in federal court for his client, 3M Co., in a dispute concerning the sale of an $854 million business.

“I have great respect for Michael and Eric and share their vision of solving clients’ problems through exceptional work at a value that the big firms can’t match,” says Camp. “I look forward to adding to the depth of Gardner Haas.”

Camp received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in 2009. He received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006.

A $22 million lawsuit against Beaumont, Texas attorney Wayne Reaud, along with several others, have been dismissed. The plaintiff was an electrician who claimed the defendants committed acts that cost him a business contract with the Beaumont Independent School District, reports SETexasRecord.com.

The plaintiff, Calvin Gary Walker, proprietor of Walker’s Electric, had alleged that the defendants worked to end his professional relationship with BISD, insinuating the respondents wrongfully made light of his 2011 federal indictment for fraud. Walker’s claims against the Beaumont attorney and his newspaper were based on two articles published in The Examiner.

Reaud argued that defamation claims based on the articles were frivolous.

Read the article.

A survey report released today by public relations firm Greentarget demonstrates that while senior legal officers acknowledge the importance of communications with stakeholders during high-profile lawsuits, the majority have outdated strategies or no strategies at all to direct communications outside of court.

This lack of preparation leads to an overly conservative approach defined by decisions and actions that are often impulsive and governed by the fear of negative media attention. Ironically, these instincts can compound the likelihood of reputational damage.

This vicious cycle – an increasing number of high-profile lawsuits, deficient planning, conservative approaches, and the resulting potential negative attention – is exacerbated by the lack of accountability at most organizations, Greentarget writes in a release. The majority of respondents said that they are not ultimately responsible for communications strategy outside of court. They stated that other senior leaders in their organizations have final authority and that their CEOs were either actively involved throughout litigation or at least engaged major decisions.

The vast majority of the 73 survey respondents, about three-quarters of whom are in senior legal roles for organizations with at least $500 million in annual revenue, said they have contended with at least one high-profile lawsuit in the past year.

“Most lawyers and their clients can predict what lawsuits would be most damaging to their organizations, and they should take some level of control and prepare for what’s to come,” said Larry Larsen, senior vice president of Greentarget and head of the firm’s Crisis & Litigation Communications Group. “Companies that give forethought to potential legal situations will have more effective and timely responses. In today’s world of immediate and unending news coverage, premediated statements made at the onset of crises can save companies from substantial reputational harm and years of damage control.”

The Highlights

Relentless litigation: In the last 12 months, 82 percent of respondents have been involved in at least one high-profile litigation action.

Unprepared and unaccountable: 62 percent of respondents have no crisis team identified and no plans in place, or have plans in place that have not been updated since their creation. Furthermore, only 37 percent said they were ultimately responsible for litigation communications in high-profile situations.

The boss is watching: 86 percent of respondents felt the external communications surrounding a high-profile litigation were somewhat or very important to the organization. Sixty-one percent indicated that their CEO is either actively involved throughout the process, or at least actively involved in the major decisions during the case.

A fear of critical press: Respondents said concern about negative media coverage and media attention that might negatively affect cases were by far the greatest impediments to more aggressive communications.

The seemingly careful route: 58 percent of respondents agreed that their organizations tend to act more conservatively than necessary when communicating externally about litigation matters

“Through our work with the world’s leading law firms, we see every day how smart, deliberate communications can influence and support successful legal outcomes,” said Aaron Schoenherr, founding partner of Greentarget. “While an organization’s legal strategy should take the lead, much more can be done to get communications and legal working together more effectively. That’s an important conversation and one we’re uniquely positioned to lead.”

Read a summary of the report.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater has entered a judgment of $9.6 million for medical products manufacturer ThermoTek Inc. after a jury found that a competitor fraudulently obtained the company’s business information for a series of physical therapy machines.

ThermoTek is the Flower Mound, Texas-based manufacturer of VascuTherm2, Vascutherm4 and other products that are used in the treatment of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and other medical conditions.

In 2010, ThermoTek was sued by a distributor, which alleged faulty manufacture.

ThermoTek’s lawyers from the Dallas-based law firm Rose•Walker managed to move the case to Dallas, where Judge Fitzwater dismissed a number of the original claims. The attorneys then brought a counterclaim, alleging plaintiffs fraudulently obtained ThermoTek’s business information in order to design and sell their own products. During the litigation, some of the plaintiffs were sanctioned for failing to produce documents.

Read more details about the case.

David J. Beck of Houston, partner in Beck Redden LLP, was recently honored by the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas with the Luther (Luke) H. Soules III Award. Each year, the Litigation Section of the State Bar recognizes attorneys who embody excellence in the practice of law and exemplary service to the Bar through outstanding professionalism and community impact.

Attorneys who earn the Luke Soules Award must meet the following criteria:

• Demonstrated commitment to equal justice under law
• Conduct promoting the rule of law
• Outstanding examples of professionalism
• Community impact as a result of the practice of law
• One or more significant contributions as a result of legal representation

Read more about the honor.

Wells Fargo has agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement to resolve a long-running mortgage dispute with the U.S. government, a move that slashes the bank’s 2015 profit by $134 million, reports The Charlotte News & Observer.

“The deal involves civil fraud claims brought in 2012 against the San Francisco-based bank, which the government had accused of ‘reckless’ underwriting practices that led to thousands of federally-insured loans defaulting,” according to the report. “The government said Wells Fargo’s false certifications that the loans met requirements for federal insurance resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance payouts.”

Read the article.

Lincare, a major provider of in-home respiratory care and other services, will pay $238,900 in civil monetary penalties for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), federal authorities announced Wednesday, according to a report by Home Health Care News.

“This marks only the second time that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has imposed civil monetary penalties for a HIPAA violation. The penalty was challenged but now has been upheld by an administrate law judge (ALJ),” the report says.

The breach involved a Lincare branch in Wynne, Arkansas, doing business as United Medical. Faith Shaw worked as a manager there from 2005 until 2009. Shaw had stored records of 278 patients in her car, which she left behind when she moved out of her marital home in 2008. Her husband reported finding those records to the OCR.

Read the article.

A Minnesota jury has awarded former general counsel Chet Taylor $600,000 from the Feltl & Co. securities firm for defaming him by implying in a 2014 public statement that Taylor lost his job as a result of an enforcement action by a securities regulator, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

In his 2014 lawsuit, Taylor claimed that he left Feltl & Co. in good standing in 2012.

The report says that Feltl, following the jury verdict, also agreed to pay an additional $250,000 to avoid trying a subsequent punitive damages claim.

Read the article.

Myanna Dellinger of the University of South Dakota School of Law has posted a discussion of a recent case in which a judge faulted Uber with presenting its drivers with a contract that was “likely, frankly, to engender confusion.”

Dellinger wrote about the case in the ContractsProf Blog.

The underlying case is a class action lawsuit against Uber for allegedly misclassifying its drivers as “independent contractors” instead of regular “employees.”

“Whether this is an example of deliberate strong-arming or intimidating the drivers into not joining the lawsuit or simply unusually poor contract drafting may never be known. Judge Chen did, however, order Uber to stop communicating with drivers covered by the class action suit and barred the company from imposing the new contract on those drivers,” Delinger writes.

Read the article.

Dallas-based technology law firm, Munck Wilson Mandala LLP  announces the addition of Shain Khoshbin as a partner in the firm’s Litigation Group.

Khoshbin focuses his practice on business disputes and commercial litigation, the firm said in a release. He has represented companies, partnerships, and entrepreneurs across the country on both sides of the docket. Khoshbin has worked with matters including hospitality management/franchising; intellectual property and unfair competition; and breaches of trust, fiduciary duties and complex contractual relationships.

“We are thrilled to have Shain return to the firm. He is a well-respected advocate who, over the course of his career, has built an impressive practice and has become a ‘go-to attorney’ for clients needing seasoned complex litigation counsel,” said William A. Munck, managing partner of Munck Wilson Mandala. “Shain adds substantial experience to our talented group of commercial litigators and trial attorneys. This is a very exciting time for our firm.”

“I have known Shain for over 20 years, and he excels at complex commercial litigation, “ said  Jamil Alibhai, Chairman of the firm’s Litigation Section. “He is a strong addition to Munck Wilson Mandala’s trial team.”

Khoshbin has been honored by Texas Super Lawyers for business litigation every year since 2007. He has been featured in the Super Lawyers Corporate Counsel and Business editions annually since 2008 and honored among the Super Lawyers Top 100 attorneys in Dallas/Fort Worth for 2011 and 2012. He is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, Life Member of The Million Dollar Advocates Forum and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and Lifetime Charter Member of Rue Ratings’ “Best Attorneys of America.”

The New York Supreme Court ruled that the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods applied in a contract case in which the plaintiff claimed that the defendant had delivered a nonconforming product that caused $1.7 million in damages plus interest and costs to the plaintiff.

David Zaslowsky and Grant Hanessian of Baker & McKenzie wrote about the case on Lexology.com.

The court denied the majority of the defendant’s dismissal motion, finding the CISG “automatically” applies “when a transaction involves a sale of goods between parties whose places of business are in different countries and those countries are parties to the CISG.”

The case also involved the statute of limitations and the borrowing statute.

Read the article.

Sometimes rescission of a property purchase is better than suing for damages, which could limited to the difference between the price paid and the value of the property received, advises Khanh Tran on the blog of Continuing Education of the Bar ● California.

Although rescission makes particular sense when recouping the purchase price is more important than living in the house, it’s not always available, he writes. He advises checking to see if certain common grounds for rescission in the real property sales context apply.

Those grounds include mutual consent, mistake, fraud, failure of consideration, illegality and prejudice to public interest.

Read the article.