Fondren Orthopedic Ltd vs. Columbia Hospital Corporation

In September 2024, AZA won a $25.6 million breach of contract jury verdict in Harris County court in a case pitting AZA client doctors’ group Fondren Orthopedic Ltd. against healthcare giant HCA Healthcare.

Fondren and HCA (which took over for Columbia Hospital Corporation) were in a limited partnership that owns and operates Texas Orthopedic Hospital, a hospital specializing in orthopedic surgery services.  The jury in the 80th district court found that HCA had broken the non-compete provisions of the contract by opening 10 competing hospitals in the Houston area. In addition, HCA prevented the Fondren group doctors from doing the same by invoking the same non-compete provisions the larger entity was blatantly breaking.

AZA Lawyers:  Joe Ahmad, Paul Turkevich, Kyle Poelker, Hilary Greene, Karina Sanches-Peralta, and Kelsi Stayart White.

Case Type: Litigation Plaintiff

United States ex rel. Morgan v. Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center et al.

Working in concert with the federal government for five years, lawyers at AZA saw their whistleblower client receive $3 million of the $15 million settlement of a lawsuit alleging that Houston surgeons were letting unqualified trainees perform parts of heart surgeries while the surgeons billed for two or three concurrent surgeries.

The settlement is with Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine and Surgical Associates of Texas P.A. The government said it is the largest settlement on record for Medicare fraud over concurrent surgery claims.

“In short, the teaching physicians churned through as many cardiac surgeries as possible to generate revenue for Baylor, regulations be damned, and were rewarded with lavish compensation,” said the lawsuit filed by AZA.

That whistleblower lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act resulted in this government intervention and the June 2024 settlement over allegations of the massive number of false claims made to Medicare from 2013-2020.

Case Type: Healthcare and Litigation Plaintiff

Attorneys: Joe Ahmad, Nathan Campbell, and David Warden

In re: Weatherford International LLC et al.

In April 2024, the Supreme Court of Texas agreed with AZA’s appellate team when it found that a trial court abused its discretion when it failed to dismiss a case against energy giant Weatherford International. The justices found that Weatherford could not be sued in a Texas court. The case was filed by the family of a worker who lived in South Africa and centered on questions about a medical test conducted in Egypt.

AZA Lawyers:  Kelsi Stayart White, Todd Mensing and Ryan Hackney

Case Type: Appellate

Hunter Carr v. Scott Hepford et al.

In a business divorce trial where the plaintiff presented damages of up to $82 million, a Harris County jury unanimously found he should take nothing and returned a verdict in favor of AZA’s clients.

Hunter Carr, who ran a diabetes treatment consultancy along with AZA’s clients, alleged in the lawsuit that the others squeezed him out of their business and improperly sold company assets to themselves. But AZA clients Scott Hepford and partners showed the jury they had saved the assets in the sale because their company was failing. 

In the two-week trial before Judge Ravi Sandill, the jury charge was 34 pages long, with many questions the jury did not need to answer once it found that AZA’s clients did nothing wrong. 

AZA Lawyers:  Kevin Leyendecker, Nathan Campbell and Kelsi Stayart White.

Case Type: Litigation Defense

Melinda Abbt v. City of Houston and John Chris Barrientes

In a case that has already changed Texas sexual harassment law, a jury awarded $250,000 to a female firefighter whose supervisor obtained an intimate video made for her husband and secretly watched it for years.

The jury awarded $80,000 in actual damages for mental anguish, $50,000 in punitive damages and $120,166 in attorneys’ fees to Melinda Abbt in Judge Ursula Hall’s court.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2022, in reversing a hostile work environment summary judgment order in this case, set two new precedents in hostile work environment cases.

The panel found the firefighter did not need to experience harassment in real time for it to be actionable. According to the ruling, the victim still has a claim if she finds out later about what happened behind her back. This is the first time the court has ruled on that issue.

The appellate panel also ruled that the City of Houston can be liable if a workplace harassment report goes up the chain of command but stops because a supervisor who was a recipient of the notice is also a participant in the harassment. This is also the first time the court has ruled on this issue.

AZA Lawyers:  Kelsi Stayart White, Joe Ahmad, Jordan Warshauer, Karina Sanchez-Peralta, Colin Phillips

Case Type: Appellate and Litigation Plaintiff

Odessa Pumps and Equipment Inc. v. GR Lift, L.P. et al.

In October 2023, a Harris County jury awarded AZA client Odessa Pumps $2.4 million in attorneys’ fees in a breach of contract case against GR Energy and its affiliates over a 2021 asset purchase. GR Energy sought approximately $30 million but took nothing.

Odessa Pumps, a DistributionNOW company, is a provider of pump products in the energy industry. In 2021, Odessa Pumps bought Flex Flow, a horizontal pumping system business, from GR Energy. Later, both sides sued each other over issues including breach of contract, a noncompete promise and unpaid fees.

AZA Lawyers: Joe Ahmad, Jason McManis, Judge Daryl Moore,  John Zavitsanos, Nathan Campbell, Angela Peterson, Hailey Pulman, and Karina Sanchez-Peralta.

Case Type: Litigation Defense

Dismissal of California Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against International Energy Company

In August 2023, a federal judge in California granted summary judgment for an international energy company represented by AZA in a $10 million offshore platform wrongful death case.

U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter ruled that AZA’s energy company client had no liability for an offshore platform accident in which a platform worker fell to his death in December 2020.  

The plaintiffs’ lawyers asserted that AZA’s client had negligently maintained the platform during its former ownership and failed to warn of dangerous conditions on the platform. AZA successfully argued that its client owed the plaintiffs no legal duty, that the worker’s employer was responsible, and that the plaintiffs had failed to meet the deadline to add related defendants. 

AZA Lawyers:  Rey Flores, Michael Gorrell, and Todd Mensing

Case Type: Litigation Defense

Patriot Contracting LLC v HERC Solutions USA LLC

In a complex six-week case involving the construction of Houston Midtown apartments, a Harris County jury awarded AZA client, Mid Main Properties LLP, $32.5 million. 

The jury found that Patriot Contracting LLC, its owner, and bond insurers Travelers must pay Mid Main. The award included about $17.5 million in punitive damages, $8 million in actual damages and $7 million in attorneys’ fees. 

The case, in state District Judge Rabeea Collier’s court, centered on work done at a four-building, multi-use Midtown property on Main Street near the Ensemble/HCC Metro train stop. The apartments were a continuation of developer Bob Schultz’ vision for an Austin-like Midtown and were adjacent to an area where he had already developed an eclectic mix of eateries, venues and businesses.

AZA Lawyers: Nathan Campbell, John Zavitsanos, Shahmeer Halepota, Kelsi Stayart White and Emily Adler.

Case Type: Litigation Plaintiff

Hebert et al. v. FMC Technologies Inc.

In June 2023, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a Fair Labor Standards Act case summary judgment win for AZA client FMC Technologies Inc., a global provider of technology services for the energy industry.

An installation engineer at FMC made a Fair Labor Standards Act claim that he, and many other installation engineers like him, should not be considered salaried and should be allowed to collect overtime. He claimed he should get overtime because he sometimes received a bonus for going in the field. But a three-judge panel on the appellate court found that the engineer’s regular duties required technical expertise and he was paid a salary, making him overtime-exempt.

The engineer, who when applying his professional engineer’s license in Louisiana claimed he did sophisticated engineering work, argued that because he got a “field bonus” for occasionally checking on work out of the office, he could recharacterize his job as manual labor.

AZA Lawyers: Kelsi Stayart White and Todd Mensing

Case Type: Appellate

AZA Wins Take-Nothing Judgment for Fuel Company

AZA defeated a $5 million breach of contract claim for a Houston-based fuel company that was sued by an international fuel trader.  

A Harris County district judge ruled in May 2023 for AZA’s client following a one-week trial in April 2023 that ended with both sides submitting proposed findings, conclusions, and judgments. 

The plaintiff sued AZA’s client for damages for allegedly breaching supply agreements. The trial was the culmination of three years of litigation. Adding interest and legal fees, the judgment would have likely exceeded $5 million.  

AZA Lawyers:  Kyle Poelker, Todd Mensing, and Harrison Scheer

Case Type: Litigation Defense

MMWKM Advisors, LLC, and Kenneth Moraif v Joseph Dowdall

An arbitration panel awarded $3.4 million to AZA client, MMWKM Advisors, which does business as Retirement Planners of America (RPOA), a Plano-based investment advisory firm, from former employee Joseph Dowdall, a Plano-based financial planner.

The three-arbitrator panel for the American Arbitration Association found that Mr. Dowdall breached his contractual and fiduciary duties to RPOA when he took confidential information and accepted client relationships in violation of his contract when he left to go to a competitor. The panel denied Mr. Dowdall’s counterclaims and found that he destroyed texts and other evidence after he became aware of this litigation.

MMWKM was awarded $2.7 million in damages and attorneys’ fees, plus pre-judgment interest and arbitration fees. The case was in arbitration per the Investment Advisor Representation Agreement the parties signed in 2013.  

AZA Lawyers: Ryan Hackney

Case Type: Arbitration

SilverBow Resources Operating LLC and El Dorado Gas & Oil, Inc. v. ETC Field Services, LLC et al.

In February 2023, AZA and Hogan Thompson  law firm teamed up to win their two clients a total of $41.8 million from a South Texas jury in an oil and gas trespass case.

A McMullen County jury unanimously found that AZA’s client SilverBow Resources and Hogan Thompson’s client El Dorado Gas & Oil were damaged by Energy Transfer’s trespass. The trial focused on whether midstream energy company Energy Transfer should pay for additional drilling and production costs caused by Energy Transfer’s injection of natural gas processing waste byproducts in the subsurface.

AZA Lawyers: Todd Mensing, Taylor Freeman, Jane Robinson, Cameron Byrd, Harrison Scheer, Hilary Greene, and Thomas Cooke.

Case Type: Litigation Plaintiff

Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Holdings Inc., vs. Conopco, Inc.

In December 2022, the board of directors of Ben & Jerry’s, the premium ice cream brand known for its social awareness, successfully and confidentially settled a dispute with its parent company Unilever, a multinational consumer product company. The legal battle was over the billion-dollar brand’s corporate governance, including the licensing of Ben & Jerry’s products in the West Bank.

The fight gained international media attention after the board filed suit in federal court in New York seeking to stop the parent company from subverting its 2000 merger agreement that requires board approval for the sale of Ben & Jerry’s intellectual property.

AZA Lawyers: Shahmeer Halepota

Case Type: Litigation Plaintiff

Marquette Transportation Company, LLC and Marquette Transportation Company Gulf-Inland, LLC Appellants v. Gerald Simon, Appellee,

In December 2022, AZA won its appeal to keep a client’s personal injury claim in Houston, rejecting the defendant company’s effort to move the case out of state. The lawsuit involves a seaman who sued his employer over the unseaworthiness of the vessel he was working on and the lack of safety procedures and crew.

AZA client Gerald Simon suffered a stroke while working on the vessel and fell to the floor. In his lawsuit, he said Marquette Transportation Co. failed to properly maintain and staff the vessel and also failed to properly train employees on safety measures.

AZA Lawyers: Kelsi Stayart White and Daryl Moore

Case Type: Appellate

MMWKM Advisors, LLC, Series ERD I, LLC, and Elias R. Dragon vs. Philip Floyd

In August 2022, a Collin County judge affirmed a $1.4 million arbitration award against a former employee who breached his contractual and fiduciary obligations to MMWKM Advisors, which does business as Retirement Planners of America (RPOA), a Plano-based investment advisory firm.

Arbitrator Anne Ashby, a retired Dallas County judge, found that Philip Floyd had “solicited another MMWKM employee, Joseph Dowdall, to work with him on a scheme to use the information and client relationships they had received access to from [RPOA] to serve their own financial interests.”

Mr. Floyd in 2019 signed an Investment Adviser Representative Agreement in which he agreed that for three years after leaving the company that trained him and provided him with clients, he would not use the company’s confidential information, and that if he accepted the business of any of his former employer’s clients he would purchase the client relationships at a contractually agreed price.

AZA Lawyers: Ryan Hackney

Case Type: Arbitration