A Missouri ruling is likely to end a contentious nine-year dispute between a local activist who claims that Husch Blackwell LLP, an AmLaw 100 firm — used the legal system to squelch his speech rights, according to Bloomberg Law.

Reporter Samson Habte explains that the court’s April 23 opinion highlights the difficulty of proving two types of tort claim — malicious prosecution and abuse of process — that disgruntled litigants could try to use to turn the tables on opposing parties and their lawyers.

The dispute started when John T. Impey ran for a school board seat  and campaigned against a $3 million bond proposal that L.J. Hart & Co. and its owner, Larry Joe Hart, underwrote. Husch Blackwell brought defamation and tortious interference lawsuit against Impey on Hart’s behalf.

The firm obtained a preliminary injunction that prohibited Impey from repeating some accusations against Hart; but when the campaign ended — and the bond initiative failed — Husch Blackwell advised Hart to drop the defamation case.

Read the Bloomberg article.

In a blog post, John McFarland of Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody discusses a lawsuit over a petroleum lease dispute that led to a claim under Texas’ Anti-SLAPP statute.

He explains that a SLAPP is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” a suit intended to censor or intimidate critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

The case involves the dispute over whether a petroleum company’s oil and gas lease had expired. When the property owner filed a suit for trespass, the production company filed counterclaims for breach of the lease. The property owner filed a motion to dismiss the counterclaims under the anti-SLAPP statute.

An appellate court found that the property owner had waived its right to protection under the anti-SLAPP statute because it agreed in the lease not to sue before giving prior notice and an opportunity to cure.

Read the article.

One of a court’s most frequent tasks is interpreting ambiguous contracts created by the use of ambiguous language in contracts; however, by the time a court is deciding the issue, costly litigation may have taken years, write Richard Raysman and Elliot Magruder for Holland & Knight.

In a post for the firm’s Ditigal Technology & E-Commerce Blog, they discuss a recent case in which parties to a software development and license agreement confronted this unfortunate truth, and both left unsatisfied.

In Apacheta Corp. v. Lincare, Inc., Apacheta sued for breach of contract in claiming that Lincare’s termination violated the right-to-cure provision because Lincare neither provided notice of breach nor a cure period.

Read the article.

DePuy Orthopaedics and Johnson & Johnson will get a new trial after the previous one in 2016 ended with the companies having to pay $151 million in damages to five plaintiffs with alleged hip replacement injuries, reports the SE Texas Record.

The Fifth Circuit found that plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier’s “deceptions furnish independent grounds for a new trial” that centered on Pinnacle artificial hips and that the trial court allowed the Houston lawyer to introduce “inflammatory character evidence.”

David Yates reports that Lanier told the Record he thought the opinion was “interesting” and that the legal reasoning upholding the various actions against Depuy and J&J are strong and important and will help all future cases.

Lanier said he thought the court misunderstood the issues of monetary representations about the doctors. He added that he plans to seek a retrial.

Read the Record‘s article.

Last week, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit against the Russian Federation and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for a “brazen attack on American Democracy” in the 2016 presidential election.

The lawsuit accuses Russian intelligence of hacking into the DNC’s computer system and stealing information to use to its advantage, including interfering in the 2016 presidential election. WikiLeaks, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump campaign are also named as defendants.

In a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing, Dallas attorney David Coale of Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst says the lawsuit has a lot of interesting points, but doesn’t think it will survive long-term judicial scrutiny.

“It’s flashy, but it’s hard to imagine it going very far. Civil cases are often stayed while criminal investigations are ongoing – like Mueller’s – and the damages are not obvious. But the lawsuit does force everyone to keep the DNC in the loop while everything else unfolds.”

A federal judge’s ruling means Facebook could face billions of dollars in damages if the court finds the company violated Illinois residents’ privacy rights with its facial tagging feature, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Reporter Ally Marotti explains that the potential penalty stems from a federal lawsuit filed in Illinois in 2015 that alleges the social media giant violated a state law protecting residents’ biometric information, such as data from facial, fingerprint and iris scans. Illinois has one of the strictest biometric privacy laws in the nation.

Facebook has argued that if its collection of biometric information did not harm individuals, they do not have grounds to sue under Illinois’ biometrics law. But the judge in the case determined that an alleged invasion of privacy was injury enough to allow users to sue.

Read the Tribune article.

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge has denied a law firm’s request to be added as an administrator of the NFL’s estimated $1 billion concussion settlement.

“U.S. District Judge Anita Brody rejected an attempt from the Locks Law Firm to join the process that compensates former players for head injuries they sustained during their careers. The firm had claimed that the process was going too slowly,” according to the AP report.

Nearly 400 claims that could pay out more than $416 million have already been approved.

Read the AP report.

The growing scandal involving women who were paid during the 2016 presidential race to keep them quiet about their alleged affairs with Donald Trump has turned a harsh spotlight on Beverly Hills lawyer Keith M. Davidson.

The Los Angeles Times reports that two of those women once represented by Davidson have wound up firing Davidson and hiring new lawyers to get their nondisclosure deals voided.

Reporter Michael Finnegan writes: “Affable and streetwise, he operates on the fringe of entertainment law. His niche is extracting money from celebrities for clients threatening to release sex tapes or share embarrassing stories with the media.”

Now Davidson faces lawsuits alleging extortion.

Read the LA Times article.

Image by Sean P. Anderson

The parents of children who died in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., have accused conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and InfoWars of defamation and seek damages in excess of $1 million, reports the Austin Statesman.

Plaintiffs in two lawsuits filed in Austin, Texas, allege that Jones and his media organization spread false information related to the tragedy, according to reporter Mark D. Wilson.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “The lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the parents by constantly calling them ‘crisis actors’ and insisting the shooting was a ‘false flag’ operation; they also claim Jones’ accusations have led to death threats against the Sandy Hook families by Jones’ followers.”

Read the Statesman article.

A jury has awarded internet security software company VirnetX $502.6 million, finding Apple Inc. willfully infringed on four patents used for VPN on Demand and Facetime in Apple products.

The finding that Apple willfully infringed on four VirnetX communications patents could lead to higher damages. The liability and damages verdict was returned on April 10 at the end of a seven-day trial, and the willful infringement finding was returned the following day. It is the third jury verdict in the past two years that lawyers with East Texas-based firm Ward, Smith & Hill, PLLC, have secured for VirnetX in its long-running legal battle with Apple.

Judge Robert W. Schroeder III heard the case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. The dispute involved U.S. Patent Nos. 6,502,135; 7,490,151; 7,418,504; and 7,921,211.

VirnetX was represented at trial by Ward, Smith & Hill name partner Johnny Ward and Caldwell Cassady & Curry attorneys Brad Caldwell, Jason Cassady, Austin Curry and Chris Stewart.

In September 2016, Ward played a key role in securing a $302 million patent infringement verdict for VirnetX. Seven months prior to that verdict, Ward and attorney Claire Abernathy Henry assisted with a $625.6 million patent verdict win against Apple, the firm said in a release.

The case is VirnetX Inc. et al v. Apple Inc., case 6:12-cv-00855, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

A recent Superior Court of Pennsylvania ruling in a case concerning hydraulic fracturing runs counter to a ruling in a similar case by the Texas Supreme Court, reports John B. McFarland in Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody’s Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog.

The Pennsylvania court held that “hydraulic fracturing may constitute an actionable trespass where subsurface fractures, fracturing fluid and proppant cross boundary lines and extend into the subsurface estate of an adjoining property for which the operator does not have a mineral lease, resulting in the extraction of natural gas from beneath the adjoining landowner’s property.”

In doing so, McFarland explains, the court rejected the reasoning of the Texas Supreme Court when that court held that the rule of capture prevented any such cause of action.

Read the article.

Image by Bjørn Erik Pedersen

MarketWatch is reporting that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. could collect the largest damage award ever against a global public accounting firm when a federal judge decides what to award the agency after a verdict against PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The judge in the case has already ruled that PwC had been professionally negligent in not detecting the criminal fraud that led to the failure of Colonial Bank Group in 2009, according to reporter Francine McKenna.

The FDIC has asked Judge Barbara Rothstein to award it $625 million in compensation for the bank’s alleged net losses from a fraud with mortgage originator Taylor Bean and Whitaker, which also failed in 2009.

Even PwC’s estimate of damages based on the judge’s decision, per court filings, of $306 million would result in the largest-ever final judgment or jury verdict for accounting malpractice, MarketWatch reports.

Read the MarketWatch article.

Image by Ben Sutherland

Irelsie Alvarez said she and fellow jurors wanted to send JPMorgan Chase & Co. a message with their startling $8 billion verdict in a Dallas probate case — an award that’s destined to be reduced to no more than $90 million, reports Bloomberg.

The trial was in late 2017, but lawyers for the bank company were back in court on Thursday, saying the defendant is entitled to a take-nothing verdict.

The widow of deceased American Airlines executive Max Hopper sued the bank for allegedly mismanaging the estate of her late husband.

Alvarez, a 26-year-old insurance agent, said she took the suggestion of lawyers for Hopper’s family that a big damage award was needed “in order to prevent this from happening again.”

Reporter Tom Korosec writes that the jury award was the largest of 2017 and the ninth-largest in U.S. history.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Image by Mike Mozart

The Minneapolis  Star Tribune is reporting that Target Corp. has agreed to pay $3.7 million to settle a lawsuit over concerns that the way it uses criminal background checks as part of the hiring process has disproportionately hurt black and Latino applicants.

Reporter Kavita Kumar quotes Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund: “Target’s background check policy was out of step with best practices and harmful to many qualified applicants who deserved a fair shot at a good job. Criminal background information can be a legitimate tool for screening job applicants, but only when appropriately linked to relevant questions such as how long ago the offense occurred and whether it was a nonviolent or misdemeanor offense.”

As part of the settlement of the class-action complaint, independent consultants will recommend changes to Target’s current screening guidelines.

Read the Star Tribune article.

Facebook Inc. finds itself in the eye of a rapidly building legal storm over the disclosure of user data to political research firm Cambridge Analytica as lawsuits stack up from users and investors, and regulatory agencies pile on, Bloomberg Technology reports.

Reporter Christie Smythe quotes Marc Melzer, a New York-based attorney: “Facebook’s having to fight on multiple fronts, with potentially conflicting strategies and obligations, is what will make this ‘litigation swarm’ problematic.” The company will likely “want to move slowly and withhold as much as they can without antagonizing regulators or the courts that are presiding over the suits.”

“Damages could be substantial for shareholders, with one group of investors estimating that at least $50 billion in the company’s market capitalization has been wiped out as a result of the disclosure, which affected 50 million users,” Smythe reports.

Read the Bloomberg Technology article.

Bloomberg Law reports that a wealthy investor who accused Holland & Knight of facilitating a Ponzi scheme was not entitled to the $34.5 million verdict that a jury awarded him in 2012, a California appeals court ruled April 2.

Plaintiff Rahim Sabadia claimed that he lost $16 million in cash, and incurred an additional $18 million in loan obligations, in a series of real estate investments that H&K structured on behalf of Atlanta developer M. Shi Shailendra. Shailendracame under SEC scrutiny for defrauding investors and was permanently barred from selling securities in 2014.

“Sabadia filed this suit against H&K in 2010, accusing the firm of malpractice and fraud and alleging that it helped Shailendra with a series of transactions that bore the ‘classic elements of a Ponzi scheme,’ in the words of a fraud examiner.” writes Samson Habte.

The appeals court said that verdict couldn’t stand because “Shailendra’s dishonest acts broke the causal connection” between H&K’s alleged misconduct and the plaintiffs’ claimed investment losses.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s attempt to derail a multistate fraud investigation into the company’s public comments about climate change flamed out in a New York court, according to wire services, via The Dallas Morning News.

The report says a U.S. district judge in New York on Thursday dismissed Exxon’s lawsuit claiming officials in New York and Massachusetts conspired with environmental groups in planning the securities-fraud probe and made up their minds about its outcome before it started.

Judge Valerie Caproni said in her ruling that Exxon’s tactic of suing in federal courts in New York and Texas to stop the state probes “running roughshod over the adage that the best defense is a good offense.”

Read the Dallas News article.

Bloomberg is reporting that Barclays Plc agreed to pay $2 billion to settle a probe into how it sold the sort of mortgage bonds that fueled the financial crisis, securing a penalty less than half of what U.S. authorities originally demanded.

Reporters Stephen Morris and Gavin Finch explained: “The British lender was the only bank to push back against the size of the settlement demanded by the Justice Department, prompting the prosecutor to file a lawsuit in the waning days of the Obama administration in 2016. The DOJ wanted a fine of about $5 billion, but the bank refused to pay any more than $2 billion, Bloomberg news reported in 2016.”

Two former executives at the bank, Paul Menefee and John Carroll, also settled Thursday and agreed to pay $2 million to resolve claims without admitting wrongdoing.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Charles Sartain offers a reminder that a court will (if it’s doing its job) enforce an agreement according to what it actually says, not by that which one party or the other would have liked it to say or imagines that it said.

Writing in Gray Reed’s Energy & the Law blog, Sartain discusses Claybar v. Samson Exploration. That case involved an agreement over an indemnity clause in a contract for the drilling of petroleum wells and related operation on property owned by Claybar.

Sartain presents the facts of the case, including a break-down of both side’s positions.

“Generally, indemnity agreements do not apply to claims between the parties but apply to claims made by others who are not parties to the agreement,” Sartain writes. “However, the parties can write an agreement to indemnify one another against claims they later assert against each other. To do so, the parties must expressly and specifically state that intention.”

Read the article.

As the White House and Congress descend deeper into turmoil, the U.S. Supreme Court is showing signs of becoming as politically fractured as the rest of Washington, with a shift to the right a real possibility, reports CNN.

CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic explains: “Indications from the few decisions issued so far and from oral arguments in yet-to-be decided cases suggest the five conservatives on the nine-member bench may be ready to wield their majority power. Led by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by President Donald Trump appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch, the five have already prevailed in recent ideologically charged cases regarding prisoners’ civil rights and immigrants in custody.”

Biskupic writes that a looming question since Trump took office has been whether the justices would become a check on Trump, who has flouted legal norms, criticized federal judges, and revealed disdain for the rule of law.

Read the CNN article.