The Dallas Morning News reports that a soon-to-be-released study shows Texas Appellate Courts reverse judgments for plaintiffs with alarming regularity, and at a dramatically higher rate than judgments for defendants: “The study, conducted by two appellate lawyers at Haynes and Boone, found the Texas appellate judges have an overall reversal rate of 49 percent when they review cases that the plaintiff won in the trial court and the defendant appealed. But those same judges reversed only 25 percent of the cases in which the defendant prevailed at trial and the plaintiff appealed. The Texas … [Read more...]
The New “Loser Pays”
A lot of my friends have asked me about the new “loser pays” law and how I expect it to affect litigation in Texas. For years, Texas and most other states followed the so-called, “American Rule” whereby litigants pay their own attorneys’ fees. There were exceptions, such as certain statutory provisions that allowed recovery of attorneys fees in breach of contract, declaratory judgments, and other types of lawsuits. The new law is a departure from our historical approach, and represents a Texas version of the “English Rule,” allowing the prevailing party to recoup attorneys’ fees and … [Read more...]
5th Circuit to Decide If Judge Correctly Appointed Receiver
From The Texas Lawyer, July 25, 2011 Can a federal judge put what he calls a "vexatious litigant" into receivership after the litigant allegedly fails to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to more than 20 lawyers and law firms? That is one of the questions the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering in an appeal brought by a businessman and his company. On May 28, 2009, Netsphere filed its original complaint in Netsphere, et al. v. Jeffrey Baron and Ondova Limited Co. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Netsphere sued Baron and his company, … [Read more...]