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Injunctions in Texas are complex and lawyers need to be on their toes.

We work on cases that seek to have an injunction entered. We also work on cases trying to defeat an injunction. In this case, we are defending against the injunction.

The client and his prior lawyer went to the temporary injunction on a Friday. The hearing did not go well and was carried over until Monday. Because it didn’t go well, I received an email from the client (then only a potential client) on Friday night.

This case was a dispute over the sale of a business. The client was accused of agreeing to sell a business to a couple of employees and then backing out of the agreement three years later. The hearing was supposed to determine whether the client could continue to operate the business.

The client could tell that his prior lawyer wasn’t experienced in temporary injunction matters and was in a panic. The hearing was clearly not going well.

We received an email from the client asking if we would be interested in taking over on Monday. Darrell agreed to meet with the client on Friday night to review the situation. We didn’t want to take on a matter if we couldn’t do a good job.

We accepted the case and worked over the weekend preparing for the contuation of the hearing. We electronically filed a flurry of documents on Sunday and appeared at the hearing on Monday morning.

We took the case because the employees could not meet their burden at the hearing to be awarded a temporary injunction. This proved to be true at the hearing as we continually reminded the judge that one element of a temporary injunction, the requirement of “irreparable harm,” would prevent the granting of a temporary injunction.

The court agreed and denied the request for injunction against our client. When the judge announced his ruling we were treated to the added pleasure of seeing one of the employees collapsing in disappointment.

We love this job.

Some collections matters require a TRO.

We were called by the general counsel of a large, publicly-traded company that had a substantial receivable in Dallas against a nursing home. The client’s customer service representative learned from the nursing home’s employees that the owner was planning to transfer the business to another company they owned in an attempt to avoid its creditors.

When the General Counsel called she was worried that there was nothing to be done to stop the nursing home from dissipating assets and defrauding its creditors.

We immediately filed suit and asked the court for a TRO stopping the transfer from going forward. The court granted the TRO and we proceeded to the temporary injunction hearing.

In the meantime, we found where they had created new companies and found witnesses that corroborated everything we had heard from the client’s customer service representative.

Armed with this evidence we headed to the temporary injunction hearing. Before the hearing was to begin we met with the lawyers for the nursing home and a dialogue for settlement began. As a result, the court agreed to delay the hearing for an hour.

Eventually, before the temporary injunction hearing was commenced, the client settled on terms they found favorable.

Life as a Texas collections lawyer is rarely boring. Not every lawyer knows the best practice for collecting a judgment. No two situations are the same. Frequently we are retained by lawyers who obtain a judgment and then are stumped. A lawyer in Houston had obtained a judgment against a debtor who had a Big Firm lawyer representing him. Prosecuting judgments in Texas is a specialty, not every one understand the process and eventually we were hired to collect the judgment.

Sometimes Texas construction lawyers see next level delaying tactics.

The client was a demolition company that was hired to demolish the public square of a local college. The job was supposed to take three weeks. However, the client had a backhoe cause some minor damage to one of the college’s existing buildings.

The client’s insurance company repaired the damage and the delay to the project was only a few days as the client worked weekends to make sure the overall project wasn’t unnecessarily delayed.

Once the project was 90% complete the general contractor told the client not to come back to the job site. There were procedures for terminating the contract and the general contractor ignored all of them.

The the general contractor refused to pay the sums due under the contract.

We sent a demand letter and the response from the general contractor’s lawyer was that the damage to the building was such that our client should not be paid. But…the insurance company paid for the damage and the repairs were made in a matter of weeks. So that was no defense.

We filed suit and the case was tried to a judge, not a jury.

We went to trial and the judge ruled in the client’s favor on about 95% of the items in question. So we obtained a significant judgment for the client.

The debtor general contractor refused to pay and so we sent the usual post-judgment discovery. Before the due date of that discovery the defendant paid 100% of the amount due under the judgment, including interest.

The client’s commitment was strong and they were well-rewarded.

A lender in Georgia had loaned money to a builder in Houston. The lender hired a large national law firm in Houston who obtained a judgment against the home builder. The builder specialized in large luxury homes.

Texas collections in federal court intimidates some lawyers. But you cannot be afraid of federal court.

Texas collections in federal court: This is another case where a lawyer obtained a judgment and was then unable to collect the judgment.

In this case the prior lawyer obtained a judgment for unpaid overtime wages against a tow truck company in Dallas Federal court. But navigating collections in federal court is even more complicated than Texas state court.

Frequently, lawyers are able to obtain a judgment in federal court, but collecting judgments in federal court is not something most lawyers have actually had to do.

Once retained, we performed our usual investigation into the debtor. From the documents it was clear the debtor’s only assets worthy of our efforts were the tow trucks and related equipment, like jacks. So we went directly to a motion for turnover ordering the debtor tow truck company to turn over all of their equipment.

the federal judge moved quickly to grant the motion and issued an order for turnover.

One difference in a state court turnover and a turnover in federal court is the level of involvement between a sheriff in state court and a marshal in federal court. In the case the U.S. Marshals were proactive and once they arrived at the debtor’s place of business looking for the tow trucks we were able to settle with the tow truck company on very favorable terms. As you might expect.

Texas collections lawyers need to be prepared to go trial.

The client was in the business of closing loans for mortgage companies. He was paid a flat fee for each loan that he closed. During a difficult period in his life (including a mother passing away) he was distracted and failed to bill a significant number of closings.

After doing everything he could to collect this debt on his own, he found his way to us.

From the very beginning the debtor was clear that nothing would ever be paid. Trial seemed inevitable.

So many lawyers seem to assume the case will settle and fail to work it up for trial. But we find that preparing a case for trial is the most intimidating thing you can do to opposing counsel. As a result, we prepare every case as though it is going to trial. So this case was not particularly difficult for us.

Opposing counsel began making tiny offers in the weeks before tria hoping we would see them as lifelines. But since we were ready for trial, we weren’t interested. At trial we won everything we asked the judge to give us.

Yet again, preparation is shown to be the most important factor to success at trial.

An international company based in California obtained a multi million dollar judgment after a two-week trial against an individual who had defaulted on some obligations related to some real estate investment vehicles promoted by the client.

Assistant General Counsel in charge of the case needed lawyers that were experts in post judgment matters and fraudulent transfers. We were retained shortly after the judgment was obtained.

Gregory Ducas is a 57 year old commercial airline pilot that has been employed by United Airlines for 30 years. He was selected as a juror in one of our cases that was set to go to trial for three days. However, Mr. Ducas apparently did not care to serve on the panel. Although he had several opportunities to tell the lawyers and the judge that he would have trouble being fair and impartial, he remained silent.

We represent a large insurance company that provides group health insurance to large employers.  Recently, we went to trial on a case for them where the defendant, an employer of approximately 500 people, alleged that our client failed to properly handle claims and to properly debit the account of the defendant for premiums.