Appeals

June 6, 2025 in Case Summaries

In a tragic case involving a six-year-old girl who was killed by her school bus as she crossed in front of it, the Texas Supreme Court agreed with the argument of her parents, Levinger PC’s clients, that the bus manufacturer and dealer had no right to take an interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s order denying their challenge to venue in Dallas County.  Despite a previous line of intermediate court decisions upholding interlocutory appeals in all cases involving multiple plaintiffs, the Supreme Court interpreted section 15.003(b) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code to permit interlocutory appeals only in cases where a plaintiff’s independent claim to venue is at issue.  Because the parents were asserting identical claims based on identical facts under identical venue grounds, the Court held that the appellate court lacked jurisdiction over the defendants’ interlocutory appeal of the venue ruling.  In so holding, the Court closed a significant loophole that had permitted  piecemeal appeals in any venue case involving multiple plaintiffs, and reinforced the principle that interlocutory appeals are the exception rather than the rule.  Rush Truck Centers of Texas, L.P. v. Sean and Tori Sayre, No. 24-0040, 2025 WL 1599527 (Tex. June 6, 2025).

Courts:  Supreme Court of Texas

Subject Matter:  Procedural & Evidentiary Issues;

Products Liability & Personal Injury

May 16, 2025 in Case Summaries

Jeff Levinger teamed with Dallas trial lawyer Kyle Pugh to successfully uphold a Federal Tort Claims Act judgment of $26.5 million in favor of Michael Le, who was rendered a quadriplegic and double amputee after his vehicle was struck by a United

States Postal Service truck.  In a published opinion authored by Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham, the Fifth Circuit reviewed the complex expert testimony offered by both sides and rejected the government’s contention that fault should have been assessed against Mr. Le and the surgeon who conducted the emergency surgery on his fractured spine.  The Court also rejected the government’s contention that the awards of noneconomic damages were excessive under the maximum recovery rule, and that the awards of future damages should have been reduced as a result of Mr. Le’s death during the pendency of the appeal.  Le v. U.S., 138 F.4th 264 (5th Cir. 2025)

Courts: Federal Courts of Appeal

Subject Matter:  Products Liability & Personal Injury; Procedural and Evidentiary Issues

January 28, 2025 in Case Summaries

Jeff Levinger led a team of trial and appellate lawyers in a successful effort to overturn a $14.5 million judgment in favor of Baylor College of Medicine after a jury found that their clients, a group of property insurers, had wrongly denied coverage for business interruption and other losses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.  Relying on a series of state and federal cases from around the country, the Houston Fourteenth Court of Appeals held that the evidence was legally insufficient to show that COVID-19 had caused “direct physical loss of or damage” to Baylor’s property within the unambiguous meaning of those policy terms.  Lloyd’s Syndicate 1967, et al v. Baylor College of Medicine, No. 14-22-00925-CV, 2025 WL 309722 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Jan. 28, 2025, pet. filed) (mem. op.).

Courts:  Texas Intermediate Courts; Texas Supreme Court

Subject Matter:  Business Litigation

May 17, 2024 in Case Summaries

Levinger PC teamed with former Chief Justice Tom Phillips to convince the Texas Supreme Court to resurrect a breach of contract and constructive eviction lawsuit filed by their client, Westwood Motorcars, LLC, against its commercial landlord.  The Dallas court of appeals had reversed a significant judgment that Westwood had obtained following a jury trial, holding that an agreed judgment of possession in an eviction case filed in the justice of the peace court barred Westwood’s claims in district court because it meant that Westwood had voluntarily abandoned the premises.  The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that a justice-court judgment in an eviction suit determines only the right to immediate possession of the premises and is not a final determination of the parties’ ultimate rights, the wrongfulness of the eviction, or any other question.  Because the justice-court judgment does not bar a suit for damages in district court, and because the evidence showed that Westwood’s departure from the premises was not voluntary, the Supreme Court remanded the case for a determination of the landlord’s unaddressed issues.  Westwood Motorcars, LLC v. Virtuolotry, LLC, 689 S.W.3d 879 (Tex. 2024).

Courts:  Supreme Court of Texas

Subject Matter:  Business litigation

November 7, 2023 in Case Summaries

In a published opinion touching on numerous aspects of Texas products liability jurisprudence, a panel led by Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham upheld a $5.0 million jury verdict in favor of Su Min Kim, a passenger in a Honda CR-V who suffered severe brain damage when a side impact caused the driver to slip out of his seat belt and crash his head against Su Min’s.  The Fifth Circuit first rejected Honda’s Daubert challenges to the testimony of the plaintiffs’ liability experts, Mariusz Ziejewski and Neil Hannemann.  Next, the Court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s finding that either of two alternative designs—a front center airbag and a reverse geometry seatbelt—would have significantly reduced the risk of Su Min’s injury without substantially impairing the vehicle’s utility.  Finally, the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s refusal to submit a jury instruction on Texas’s rebuttable presumption of nonliability, holding that no federal regulation governed the product risk of a far-side impact injury in a side-impact collision.  Su Min Kim and Ji Hun Kim v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., 86 F.4th 150 (5th Cir. 2023).

Courts:  Federal Courts of Appeals

Subject Matter:  Products Liability & Personal Injury; Procedural & Evidentiary Issues