Bruce is a shareholder in the Litigation Section. He is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law and Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Bruce was formerly Chairman of the Administration of Rules of Evidence Committee for the State Bar of Texas. He is a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation. He was named as a Texas Super Lawyer in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 and as a top rated attorney in Texas by both Texas Monthly and the Dallas Morning News. ABOTA awarded him the rank of “Advocate.” In 36 years with the firm, Bruce has taken a large number of cases to trial with extraordinary success.

AREAS OF CONCENTRATION

Product Liability, Personal Injury and Toxic Tort Litigation

Bruce represents manufacturers and retailers of product in litigation throughout the State of Texas. He has served as national counsel for a client handling well over 17,000 toxic tort claims. He successfully defended a national restaurant chain in a large number of claims of food poisoning and was successful in defending strict liability and negligence claims against one of the nation’s top snack food producers. He also has represented manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cranes, lift axles, electronic doors, oilfield fracking equipment, home gardening equipment and other products.

In the area of personal injury, Bruce has defended oil field accident suits, successfully handled wellhead fires, tank battery explosions, oil rig accidents and heavy equipment operation injuries, as well as carrier transport trucking subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, railroad and auto accidents.

Oil & Gas and Commercial Litigation

Bruce represents operators, drilling companies and oilfield service companies as well as royalty and mineral working interest owners. He recently obtained a $8.5 million dollar verdict for his clients in a complicated oil and gas contract dispute. He has prosecuted and defended trespass to try title lawsuits and disputes over mineral interests as well as continuous drilling/development lease clauses. He has reviewed in litigation hundreds of operating agreements, drilling and oilfield contracts. In defense of oil and gas clients he estimates that he has personally been on some 100 oilfield accident sites, including drilling rigs, work-over rigs, completion and fracking operations, refineries, tank batteries, pipelines and pump jacks. His oil and gas litigation experience includes cases centered in IADC drilling and other oilfield contracts where the duties between the operators, drilling contractor and service companies are at issue, including indemnity, allocation of risk, and waiver of responsibility provisions.

Commercial Business

Bruce has handled a volume of commercial law cases and his practice has broadly encompassed almost every area of civil litigation, including business defamation, tortious interference with contract and the Texas Anti-SLAPP statute.Employment Litigation

Bruce has practiced employment law in both state and federal courts. He has tried to a verdict and resolved discrimination cases in the areas of age, sex, race and disability. Bruce prides himself on using the law to obtain summary judgment on many of the issues presented in employment law cases.

Medical Malpractice, Federal False Claims Act (Qui Tam) and Healthcare Provider Litigation

Bruce has been successful in defending doctors, hospitals and their personnel in medical malpractice suits. He has been particularly effective in handling lab, nursing and emergency room personnel as targets of litigation. He has also handled employment and premises liability cases involving health care providers. He has successfully defended healthcare providers sued in “Qui Tam” cases brought under the Federal False Claims Act.

Contract, Insurance and Bad Faith Litigation

Bruce has handled a wide variety of contract disputes between individuals and companies. He has been successful in defending insurance companies in bad faith cases and Stowers litigation. He has successfully defended a major insurance company in a small West Texas town where a quadriplegic was making bad faith/Stowers allegations. The underlying judgment that plaintiff sought to enforce against the insurance company was approximately $9 million dollars. In voir dire, Bruce creatively set forth the “parable of two brothers,” which set the theme of the trial and led to a successful result.

Bruce was the 1973 Texas pole vault champion for the largest high school division in the state, was a varsity vaulter at Texas Tech University and lettered at Brigham Young University. He served as a missionary in Argentina for two years (1974-76) and was there during the military coup of the Isabel Peron administration. He is fluent in Spanish and taught Spanish for a year and a half. During his third year of law school he simultaneously served on the Board of Barristers, as note editor of the Law Review and as a founder of the Legal Research Board. He was named as the outstanding graduate of 1982 by the law school’s chapter of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity.