Legal News

Is the Rocket Docket of Eastern Texas Under Siege (Again)?

By Dan Slater

For over a year now, the Law Blog has been asking (here and here, for instance) whether the winds are changing in plaintiff-friendly Marshall, Texas — a/k/a the rocket-docket that is the Eastern District of Texas.

Yes, it’s civil procedure day at the Law Blog. First Rule 23, now venue: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a writ of mandamus yesterday that, according to the Recorder, will make it easier for defendants in patent cases to spring themselves from the “oftentimes inescapable” Eastern District of Texas.

The court ruled that Eastern District Judge John Ward “clearly abused” his discretion when he denied TS Tech Co.’s motion to transfer its patent fight with auto seat maker Lear Corp. to a more convenient venue in Ohio. Lear sued TS Tech in 2007 for infringing a patent on headrest assemblies. Ward denied the motion, saying that because the headrests were sold in the area, the citizens of the Eastern District had a “substantial interest” in having the case tried locally.

But the Federal Circuit disagreed: “The vehicles containing TS Tech’s allegedly infringing headrest assemblies were sold throughout the United States, and thus the citizens of the Eastern District of Texas have no more or less of a meaningful connection to this case than any other venue,” wrote Judge Randall Radar.

The ruling, notes the Recorder, bolsters a 5th Circuit order from May that took Judge Ward to task for refusing to transfer a products liability case against Volkswagen, known as Volkswagen II, out of the district.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 30, 2008 (boomark / email).