Pappas Grubbs Price PC Attorney, Kevin S. Niknam Secures a Double-Summary Judgement Victory

Kevin Niknam represented two individual business owners in a personal injury suit. The lawsuit was filed by Scherr Legate, PLLC a prominent personal injury firm in El Paso, Texas. The suit arose from a motor vehicle collision involving Plaintiff and a commercial truck driver. Plaintiff sued the truck driver and the trucking company alleging negligence, negligence per se, gross negligence and vicarious liability. In addition to suing the truck driver and trucking company, Plaintiff also sued the two individual owners of the trucking company asserting direct claims of negligence, negligent entrustment and gross negligence. Plaintiff’s Petition asserted she sustained severe injuries and was seeking in excess of $1,000,000.

After several years of litigation consisting of multiple rounds of discovery, several contested discovery hearings and party depositions, Mr. Niknam filed Traditional and No-Evidence Motions for Summary Judgment on behalf of the business owners. Plaintiff attempted to survive the Motions by arguing the owners had formed a joint enterprise and that the company was merely their alter ego for purposes of piercing the corporate veil. Mr. Niknam demonstrated to the court how Plaintiff had misapplied the legal theories of joint emprise liability and had failed to establish alter-ego theory. In doing so, he successfully argued his clients owed zero legal duties to Plaintiff and thus, she could not maintain individual causes of action against his clients. At the closing of oral arguments, the judge granted Defendants’ Summary Judgment Motions on the spot and dismissed Mr. Niknam’s clients from the lawsuit.