NEWS

Congratulations to Kirk Pittard and Thad Spalding  who have been named “best lawyers” by D Magazine in the Appellate category for 2020.

Congratulations to Dana Levy who successfully defended a $500,000 default judgment in Houston’s Fourteenth Court of Appeals!  Dana prevailed by arguing that the defendant’s 2019 appeal of a 2015 default judgment was untimely.  The court of appeals agreed, rejecting the defendants’ argument that the default judgment was interlocutory because an unserved defendant was never nonsuited.  You can see Dana’s briefing here, and read the opinion here.

DP&S, for the fourth year in a row, proudly sponsored the Ultimate Writer Program at Baylor Law School.  Students compete not only for a cash prize, but also the opportunity to interview for a possible internship with our firm.  Congratulations to this year’s winner, Christina Rosendahl, second place contestant, William de los Santos, and third place entry, Casey Cochran.  You can read more about the winners and the competition here.

Congratulations to Dana Levy, and trial counsel Jason Stephens, on successfully defeating a mandamus petition filed in the Dallas Court of Appeals, seeking relief from the trial court’s striking of a responsible third party designation.  The defendant, an owner of a gas facility where our client was injured, tried to designate and assign blame to a former minority-interest owner and contract-operator of the property.  The court of appeals held that the minority owner, who sold its interest in the premises to the majority owner prior to the personal injuries at issue, owed no duty to the injured plaintiff because, under premises-liability principles, any such duty passed to the majority owner when its interest was sold.  You can read Dana’s briefing here and the court’s majority opinion here.

DP&S is proud to announce the addition of Caren I. Friedman as a partner in the firm’s Santa Fe office.  After serving as a judicial clerk in the Tenth Circuit, and later specializing in appellate practice, Caren has garnered a reputation as one of New Mexico’s top appellate attorneys.  Caren joins colleagues Justin Kaufman and Roz Bienvenu and brings more than two decades of appellate expertise to the firm’s New Mexico office.

Congratulations to Dana Levy, who won an important medical malpractice case in the Texas Supreme Court!  Dana successfully overturned a court of appeals holding that would have required a party to produce an expert report simply for purposes of seeking discovery from a nonparty physician.  The Texas Supreme Court held in In re Turner that the expert-report requirement to proceed with a health-care-liability claim does not apply to a non-party doctor’s deposition when the doctor is a fact witness with knowledge relevant to claims against the defendant Hospital, even if the doctor may also face the possibility of becoming a defendant.  You can read the opinion here.  You can also see Dana’s briefing and argument that led to this fantastic result here and here, respectively.

DP&S associate, Jessica Foster, presented argument Thursday in the Texas Supreme Court in Cherlyn Bethel, et al. v. Quilling, Selander, Lownds, Winslett & Moser, P.C., a case that presents important issues regarding the scope of Rule 91a, a relatively new early-dismissal procedural rule, and attorney immunity, in a case that involves the destruction of crucial evidence.  You can see Jessica’s briefing here, and you can watch her argument here.

Congratulations to DP&S partner, Kirk Pittard, along with a trial team that included Steve Laird, Seth McCloskey, Tim Brandenburg, and Pete Kestner, who, after a two-week trial, secured a $12.5 million settlement in an 18-wheeler-motorcycle collision case in Rockwall County.  The collision occurred when the plaintiff, who was alleged to be going 60 m.p.h. in a 40 m.p.h. zone and attempting to time the green light as he entered the intersection, hit a Mercer 18-wheeler that had run a red light.  The plaintiff, who survived the accident, is now blind and paralyzed.  It was an all-hands-on-deck effort that led to the settlement just before closing argument.

Congratulations to David Harris, Craig Sico, and Louie Cook of Sico Hoelscher Harris LLP on a $40.5 million verdict in a wrongful death trucking case in Santa Fe County against Werner Enterprises.  DP&S’s Justin Kaufman and Rosalind Bienvenu assisted on the trial team through the course of the 2-week trial.  The jury found Werner, one of the largest trucking companies in the U.S., negligent for causing the death of Kathryn Armijo in a 2017 crash.  The jury also found Werner liable for punitive damages.

According to evidence, Werner, through its own inadequate operations and training programs for its student drivers via Roadmaster Drivers School, had a systematic disregard for basic safety policies and training of new drivers. Werner, a company with more than $2 billion in annual gross revenue, each year hires approximately 4,500 new drivers with no prior truck driving experience. This is the second significant verdict against Werner Enterprises in the past 18 months. In May of 2018, Werner was hit with $89.6 million verdict by a civil jury for systematic safety and training failures in a multiple fatality case involving a student driver. You can read the verdict here.

DP&S partner, Kirk Pittard, recently wrote a law review article that has been published in the Summer 2019 edition of the Texas Tech Law Review concerning the recovery of medical expenses under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 41.0105 subsequent to the 2003 Tort Reform legislation.  See Recovery of Medical Expenses Under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 41.0105 – The Paid or Incurred Statute, 51 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 731 (Summer 2019).