Court says all the lawyers in the shootout for Billy Bob’s Texas can stay in the fight
Judges in the state’s highest civil appeals court have ruled that lawyers representing one of the factions trying to retain control of the world’s largest honky tonk can continue their fight.
The two ownership groups, the Murrin group and the Hickman group, who both assert they should have rightful control of Billy Bob’s Texas management, went to court to settle their differences.
Just as the case was heading to trial, one side in the battle over Billy Bob’s Texas, the Murrin group, had asked the courts to disqualify the attorneys representing the Hickman ownership group.
The court said in an opinion published on Friday that it would not send the Hickman group into this battled unarmed, and denied the other side’s petition for removal.
The opinion stated that the removal of attorneys that had worked on the case for months was too harsh and that the other side in the battle over Billy Bob’s had not adequately proven their case.
“Gone are the days when a family feud over a dance hall and saloon in the Fort Worth Stockyards would be solved by six-shooters,” the opinion, written by Texas Supreme Court Justice James D. Blacklock said.
“These days, we use lawyers instead of lead. Thank goodness for that. As complicated, expensive, and frustrating as litigation can be, it sure beats a shootout at the stockyards. Today’s denial of mandamus relief allows this dispute to proceed toward that peaceful alternative to shootouts known as trial, where both sides may be represented by their chosen lawyers.”
The case rose to the Supreme Court after two lower courts denied petitions to disqualify Kelly, Hart and Hallman, the attorneys representing the Hickman group.
This legal fight arose following the firing of Billy Bob’s former manager Concho Minick. Minick filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the nightclub’s majority owners alleging that he was improperly dismissed without the unanimous approval of the bar’s owners, as stipulated in a company agreement.
Minick denied allegations that he had mismanaged the bar, saying he was fired because he raised concerns about a $175 million development planned in the Fort Worth Stockyards.
In a case that was argued in October before Supreme Court justices visiting the Texas A&M Law School, Chad Baruch, one of the attorneys representing the Hickman group, asked whether Billy Bob’s had to get permission from an ex-employee to defend itself in court.
Baruch also argued that money is not at issue at the moment and what attorney or group of attorneys gets paid can be sorted out later by a jury.
Dale Wainwright, one of the attorneys representing the Murrin group, argued that Billy Bob’s Texas is paying the attorneys opposing them in court, and that it did not seem fair since each group was pressing the courts to decide which group should control the management of the nightclub.
Wainwright also said the document outlining how management arrives at major corporate decisions calls for unanimous approval of the partners before those decisions are enacted.
Achieving unanimous agreement of the partners became impossible when some of the partners decided to fire Minick, while some other partners decided that they wanted him to stay in his leadership position.
“This led to anarchy,” Wainwright told the appellate jurists.
That apparent anarchy will now be decided in the trial court, Baruch said.
“We think it’s absolutely the right outcome,” Baruch said. “This is a fight about the control of Billy Bob’s. This nonsense about the lawyers in our view was a diversion from the beginning and that has now been affirmed by the trial judge, the court of appeals and the Supreme Court of Texas.”
