NEWS

Congratulations to Jason Gibson and Casey Jordan of The Gibson Law Firm who, along with the help of Peter Kelly, successfully prosecuted a wrongful death case against Manhattan-Vaughn on behalf of Angel Garcia’s family.  Angel Garcia was killed on December 4, 2013, during the construction of Kyle Field.  His family filed suit, and on February 10, 2016, the jury awarded Garcia’s family $54 million.  You can read more about the case in the Houston Chronicle here.

Congratulations to Kirk Pittard and Leighton Durham who successfully convinced the Dallas Court of Appeals to not only dismiss an appeal, but to sanction both the defense attorney and his doctor client for pursuing a frivolous appeal.  The “cow in the road” appeal, which stems from serious injuries our client suffered when he ran into a cow owned by a former doctor, began when the former doctor argued that, simply because he was a doctor, the personal injury case was actually a healthcare liability claim which required a Chapter 74 expert report.  The trial court denied the doctor’s motion, and the doctor appealed.  Following the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Ross v. St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, 462 S.W.3d 496 (Tex. 2015), Leighton sent opposing counsel a letter notifying him that, in light of Ross, the appeal was frivolous and should be dismissed.  When he refused to do so, Kirk and Leighton asked that the appeal be dismissed and that they be awarded all attorneys’ fees incurred in defending the frivolous appeal.  On February 9, 2016, the Dallas Court of Appeals agreed that the appeal was frivolous and sanctioned both the defense counsel and the doctor.  You can read about the case in the Texas Lawyer here, or Law360.com here.  A copy of the court’s opinion can be found here.

KD&P is pleased to welcome its newest associate, Dava Greenberg-Spindler, to the Dallas office.  Dava is a native San Antonian, and a 2015 graduate, magna cum laude, of Texas Tech University School of Law.  Welcome to the firm Dava.

Congratulations to Rose Walker attorneys, Marty Rose and Chris McDowell, and their client, ThermoTek, who–along with the support of Thad Spalding–obtained a $7.5M jury verdict on November 20, 2015 following a three-week trial in a Federal District Court in Dallas.  ThermoTek, who was originally sued by the Defendants, defeated the Defendants’ claims and successfully pursued its own claims for fraud and unfair competition when those Defendants convinced ThermoTek to make them distributors of ThermoTek’s medical device and then used that relationship to improperly create their own, nearly identical, product and use that product to unfairly compete with ThermoTek.  A Law360.com article regarding the case can be found here.

Congratulations to Peter Kelly who, on November 19, 2015, successfully convinced the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals to affirm a trial court’s order refusing to dismiss his client’s case pursuant to Chapter 74 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code–the Texas Medical Liability Act.  The client, a housekeeper, sued her employer, Corpus Christi Medical Center, for injuries she suffered when she was assigned by the Medical Center to a task that required her to lift very heavy items, a task that was not part of her normal duties.  The Corpus Christi Court of Appeals refused to find that Ms. Martinez’s claim was a health care liability claim and, thus, Chapter 74 did not apply.  You can find a copy of the court’s opinion here.

KD&P is pleased to announce the opening, effective November 1, 2015, of its new office in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Congratulations to Kirk Pittard who successfully defended a trial court’s order requiring that State Farm of Lloyds produce electronically-stored information in the native format in which such information is usually kept. State Farm sought mandamus relief, but the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals concluded that mandamus relief was not warranted and required that State Farm produce the information in its native or near native format. You can read the opinion here.

KD&P and Houston partner, Peter Kelly, are honored to have worked with lead counsel Jim Lewis on an amicus brief in the Texas Supreme Court on behalf of Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse (a United Way Agency) and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, asking that the court reverse a lower court opinion that held that a female employee who was violently sexually assaulted by her supervisor in her workplace bathroom is limited to the same administrative remedies as a victim of non-violent, non-physical sexual harassment or discrimination. A copy of that brief can be found here.

Congratulations to KD&P partners Peter Kelly, Kirk Pittard, Leighton Durham, and Thad Spalding who were all named “Super Lawyers” in the Appellate category by Thomson Reuters and the publishers of Texas Monthly magazine.  A special congratulations to Peter Kelly for also being named among the Houston region’s Top 100 lawyers overall.

Congratulations to Peter Kelly and Will Adams for their successful defense of a judgment in excess of $800,000 in a nonsubscriber case against a negligent employer. Peter and Will defeated nearly all of the employer’s factual and legal sufficiency arguments regarding the liability and damage findings, as well as arguments related to the exclusion of certain evidence, improper jury argument, and charge error. Most notably, however, the court of appeals refused to reduce the medical expenses awarded under the “paid or incurred” statute based on the medical providers’ sale of the injured party’s medical bills to a medical factoring company.  You can read the court’s opinion in Katy Springs & Mfg., Inc. v. Favalora here.