NEWS
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.
KD&P is pleased to announce that on December 28, 2016, its Dallas office has a new home–the old Cedar Crest house at 2223 W. Jefferson Blvd., in Oak Cliff. John Council wrote a nice article about our move and the new house in the January 2017 edition of Texas Lawyer. You can read the article here.
Congratulations to David and Cris Feldman who, along with Kirk Pittard, successfully convinced the trial court to partially lift a temporary restraining order that had been in place prohibiting the release of any benefits to retired police officers and firefighters from the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. Today’s ruling paves the way for the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund Board to reinstate the payment of the monthly retirement installment benefits upon which many of these retired officers and firefighters rely. Fox 4’s Diana Zoga covered the ruling and interviewed Kirk about the case. You can see her story here.
Baylor law student Cassie Hansen is the winner of Baylor Law School’s first Ultimate Legal Writing Competition! Kelly, Durham & Pittard, LLP is proud to be a sponsor of this writing program, and congratulates Cassie for winning the contest. KD&P also congratulates the second and third place finishers, Jamie Oberg, a third-year law student, and Ashlie Morgan, a recent graduate, for their excellent legal writing skills. You can read about the contest, and see pictures of the award ceremony, here.
Congratulations to Dean Boyd and Jamie Kroon of the Attorney Dean Boyd firm, and Leighton Durham of Kelly, Durham & Pittard on an $8.9M verdict in Dallas County following the bench trial of a case in which the plaintiff, Bobby Tunnell, suffered massive injuries when the car in which he was a passenger hit the defendant’s cow, rolled 8 times and eventually exploded. If not for the heroic efforts of his son pulling him from the burning truck, Mr. Tunnell would have died.
This is the “cow in the road medical malpractice case”—a case in which the owner of the cow, who made no real effort to fence his cattle, happened to be a former doctor who claimed that he should be protected by Texas’ medical malpractice statute. After the defendant’s effort to dismiss the case was rejected by the trial court and the court of appeals, and the defendant and his lawyers’ sanctioned, the case finally proceeded to trial and verdict in Judge Tobolowsky’s court. You can see more about the case here. Congratulations to all of those involved!
