Victories.

Published Texas Supreme Court mandamus opinion holding that the attorney-client privilege does not protect communications between a workers’ compensation insurer’s lawyer and the insured employer during the underlying workers’ compensation proceedings. The Court rejected three theories the insurer advanced to shield those communications from discovery — the allied litigant doctrine, the joint client privilege, and any free-standing insurer-insured privilege — and held that the communications were discoverable in the subsequent bad faith litigation.

The opinion is directly applicable to Texas Labor Code § 451 retaliation matters, where insurer-employer coordination often produces the documentary evidence of retaliatory motive. We relied on this opinion to obtain key discovery in our Alleyton Resource Co. v. Ball matter — our $1.73 million § 451 jury verdict, affirmed on appeal. The opinion is now controlling Texas authority on the scope of attorney-client privilege between workers’ compensation insurers and their insured employers, and is regularly cited in § 451 discovery disputes and workers’ compensation bad faith litigation across Texas.

Published Texas Supreme Court mandamus opinion establishing the framework for the “anticompetitive action” exception to the medical peer review committee privilege under Tex. Occ. Code § 160.007. The Court held that proceedings, records, and communications of medical peer review committees are not confidential to the extent they are relevant to a properly pleaded anticompetitive action — including tortious interference claims based on independently wrongful anticompetitive conduct. The Court further held that piercing the privilege turns on the plaintiff’s pleadings, not evidence, removing a significant gatekeeping barrier that hospitals had historically used to shield retaliatory peer review proceedings from discovery.

The opinion is controlling Texas authority on the scope of peer review privilege and applies directly to physician retaliation matters where peer review proceedings function as the adverse action. The Court resolved the relationship between the medical committee privilege under Tex. Health & Safety Code § 161.032 and the medical peer review committee privilege under Tex. Occ. Code § 160.007, holding that the more specific § 160.007 anticompetitive exception controls where both privileges apply.

Procedural note: The underlying lawsuit subsequently proceeded to trial, where we secured a substantial jury verdict that was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. The Texas Supreme Court later reversed and rendered on causation grounds in a separate merits opinion. The 2015 mandamus opinion on peer review privilege scope was not disturbed by the Court’s subsequent merits review and continues as controlling Texas Supreme Court authority on medical peer review discovery.

Published Texas authority on the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, applied to a Texas healthcare retaliation matter brought under Tex. Health & Safety Code § 161.134. We represented the appellee. The opinion establishes controlling Texas authority on the EFAA — the federal framework voiding predispute arbitration agreements in qualifying matters and restoring federal court access. The opinion’s framework applies broadly to employer arbitration agreements imposed across the Texas employment workforce, including healthcare retaliation matters under § 161.134.

Published Texas authority on workers’ compensation retaliation and circumstantial-evidence rebuttal of facially neutral “reduction-in-force” pretexts. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment and found that Texas Labor Code § 451.001 protects employees who report a workers’ compensation injury and receive medical treatment — even where the employee has not yet filed official claim paperwork. The opinion’s circumstantial-evidence framework applies across § 451, Sabine Pilot, federal whistleblower retaliation, and the broader retaliation case landscape in Texas.