Attorneys for Camp Mystic, the Texas Hill Country retreat where 25 children and two counselors were killed in a flash flood on July 4, are trying to move four lawsuits against the camp from Travis County to Kerr County, where the victims died.
A defense motion seeking a change of venue argues that Travis County is not the proper place for the legal fight because none of the events at issue occurred in that county and because the people being sued, as well as potential witnesses, live in Kerr County.
“The case should … be transferred to Kerr County for the convenience of the parties and, in particular, the third-party witnesses,” Jeff Ray, Mikal Watts and other lawyers for Camp Mystic said in a motion filed Friday in state district court. “All relevant events in this lawsuit took place in Kerr County. Potential witnesses include camp staff members who reside in Kerr County and local Kerr County officials.”
Late Friday night, the Camp Mystic lawyers also filed their formal responses to the four lawsuits brought by families of campers and counselors who died in the July 4 deluge. In those documents, defense lawyers asserted that none of the cabins at Camp Mystic, a nearly 100-year-old Christian overnight camp for girls, had ever flooded before, and that the July 4 storm was “beyond a 1,000-year flood event, completely off the charts, and never anticipated.”
They also faulted government agencies for failing to install a flood warning system with sirens, despite “recommendations and proposals” for one, and they said Kerr County authorities did not issue an evacuation notice until 5:02 a.m. on July 4, “well after the sudden swell and surge of water had already engulfed the camp and lives were lost.”
In arguing for a change of venue, the defense attorneys said it might be necessary for jurors to visit the camp to “see and appreciate the layout of the property and its elevations and the extent of the flood’s damage.”
A site visit, they said, would allow the jury to see the relationship between the Guadalupe River and various camp buildings and grasp the flood’s effects in a way they could not by relying solely on maps and two-dimensional representations. Such a visit will be possible only if the case is moved to Kerr County, they asserted.
“In contrast, there is no particular relevance of Travis County to this case; substantially all of the events or occurrences that give rise to the plaintiffs’ suit took place in Kerr County,” defense lawyers wrote.
Scott Hendler, an Austin attorney who handles personal injury and wrongful death cases, said the defense most likely wants the suits tried in Kerr County because they “think they’re going to have an advantage of some sort — either empathy or sympathy from prospective jurors or especially the courts.
“Any county that was not affected by the tragedy of these floods in the way that Kerr County was affected is likely to view the evidence more objectively,” he said.
“It really has nothing to do with convenience of the witnesses and evidence and so forth,” Hendler added. “This is about strategy.”
See here for the previous entry. The story says that the plaintiffs filed in Travis County because Tweety Eastland lives there and a couple of the related business entities have addresses there; the camp denied that she lived in Travis County at the time of the flood. I don’t know about any of that, I’m just fascinated by this strategic decision. My gut instinct would be that the camp would prefer to have a jury of people with little to no emotional connection to the flood and could evaluate the evidence more dispassionately. But then I’m not a lawyer and I’m sure as heck not their lawyer. I’m very curious how this turns out, whether they get that motion granted or not.
Patent Attorneys have historically filed in Marshall, TX (Eastern District of TX) for years to achieve favorable rulings and Ken Paxton has repeatedly filed cases in TX (Amarillo, Waco area) counties for judge-shopping purposes and that’s okay, but when the plaintiffs on this case, presumably for the same reason as the patent attorneys and Paxton do it, suddenly it’s a burden for the defendants.
Cry me a (swollen, overflowing) river.
The burden goes on the plaintiffs. My attorney friends tell me this almost always granted.
Federal venue rules are different from Texas state venue rules.
The general rule under Texas law is that suits are to be brought in the county where all or a substantial part of the events occurred, in the county of the defendant’s residence if the defendant is human, or in the county where a business’s principal office is located. Once proper venue is established as to one defendant, it’s binding on all of them; however, the court may move the case to a different county “of proper venue” if keeping it in place works a hardship on the defendant, the balance of interests predominates in favor of the other county, and the transfer would not work an injustice to any other party.
It’s generally the plaintiff’s burden to show that it brought the suit in a proper county. Of course, it can get a whole lot more complicated than this thumbnail when you have a dispute over who lives where, etc.