NEWS
Congratulations to KDP partner Kirk Pittard for a recent win in the Tyler Court of Appeals. The defendant in this medical malpractice case attempted to postpone a second special setting with a last minute petition for mandamus. After briefing and oral argument, the Tyler Court of Appeals denied the mandamus allowing the case to proceed against East Texas Medical Center. The style of the case is In re East Texas Medical Center, No. 12-17-00183-CV, 2017 WL 4675511 (Tex. App.—Tyler Oct. 18, 2017) (orig. proceeding) and the opinion can be found HERE.
KDP Partner, Leighton Durham, was part of a trial team in an automobile products liability case in which the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $41,935,624.17.
It is our pleasure to announce that KD&P’s partners, Peter Kelly, Kirk Pittard, Leighton Durham, and Thad Spalding, have all been named “Super Lawyers” in the Appellate category by Super Lawyers Magazine, a Thomson Reuters publication, for 2017.
Congratulations to KD&P partner, Kirk Pittard, who was sworn in to the Colorado Bar Association on September 8, 2017.
KD&P is pleased to welcome Jessica Foster as its newest associate. Jessica is a 2016 graduate of Texas A&M School of Law in Fort Worth, where she received a full Presidential Scholarship and served as an Articles Editor for the Texas A&M Law Review and as a teacher’s assistant for Legal Research and Writing courses. Jessica also brings significant water law expertise to the firm, having co-authored a publication for Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation explaining Texas and Oklahoma’s laws for acquiring water for oil and gas operations and, more recently, conducting extensive research on transboundary groundwater governance along the Mexico-Texas border, research which is to be published as part of an inaugural report in a new Texas A&M University series integrating science and the law.
Congratulations to Kirk Pittard for being named, for the 7th year in a row, a “best lawyer” in the Appellate category by D Magazine!
Congratulations to Mike Doyle of Doyle LLP and Peter Kelly of Kelly, Durham & Pittard, LLP whose hard work led to a $6.4 million verdict in favor of Dr. Gomez. Mike Doyle was lead trial counsel, and tried a fantastic case against one of the top lawyers in Texas. Peter helped him get there by persuading the Texas Supreme Court to let Dr.Gomez have access to the hospital’s internal communications. You can read a Houston Chronicle story about the case and the verdict here, and John Council wrote about it in the Texas Lawyer.
Congratulations to Steve Laird, Stephen Daniel, Steve Samples and Kirk Pittard who just secured a $6,095,000 verdict in Judge Tapscott’s Court in Dallas today in an 18 wheeler trucking accident case. Pat Montes assisted with witness preparation. The damages awarded were just for the plaintiffs’ non-economic damages. The defendants’ pre-trial offer to settle was $35,000.
Congratulations to KD&P associate Morgan McPheeters for successfully defending an expunction order obtained by Jeremy Rosenthal, of Rosenthal & Wadas, on behalf of his client in Collin County. The order at issue expunged records relating to an arrest for felony aggravated assault for which the client was subsequently acquitted. The State, claiming that the entire expunction statute is “arrest based,” argued that the records could not be expunged because, when the client was arrested, she was also arrested on a totally unrelated misdemeanor theft charge to which she ultimately pled guilty. In a case of first impression, the court of appeals rejected the State’s “arrest-based” interpretation, concluding that, based on the plain language of article 55.01(a)(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a guilty plea to a wholly unrelated offense does not prohibit the expunction of records related to the acquitted offense, even where the arrest arises out of both. You can read the opinion here.
Congratulations to Maria Wormington of Wormington & Bollinger and Christy Wollin and Peter Kelly of Kelly, Durham & Pittard for an excellent appellate win in the Fort Worth Court of Appeals in which the court held that the lower standard of care—“wilful and wanton”—applicable in hospital emergency rooms does not apply to healthcare provided to expectant mothers being treated in an obstetrical unit. The opinion can be found here. Peter Kang, with Law360, wrote an article about the opinion. You can read that article here.