In Re Kent Bates v. the State of Texas
Opinion
Opinion issued November 20, 2025
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
Relators Kent Bates, et al. filed a petition for writ of mandamus challenging
the trial court’s orders of December 18, 20241 and December 19, 2024,2 denying
relators’ motions to disqualify the law firm of Ahmad, Zavitsanos, & Mensing,
PLLC (“AZA”), counsel for Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc., Triton
Voyager Asset Leasing GmbH, and Triton Voyager Asset Leasing GmbH, Asgard
US.3 Real parties in interest Transocean and Dr. Henry Small filed responses to the
petition and relators filed a reply to the response. The Court granted relators’ motion
to stay trial court proceedings while the Court considered the petition.
We deny the petition. See TEX. R. APP. P. 52.8(a). Any pending motions are
dismissed as moot. We lift the stay of trial court proceedings.
PER CURIAM
Panel consists of Justices Guerra, Guiney, and Johnson.
1 The December 18, 2024 order denied the motion to disqualify filed by real parties in interest Timothy Baker, Donald Enochs, Daniel Flink, Bryson Griffin, Gregory Malveaux, Stefan Mulyca, Justin Nichols, Richard Rhodes, Drake Riggs, Demetrius Simmons, Roffell Smith, Hunter Voss, and Jeffrey Wright.
2 The December 19, 2024 order denied the motion to disqualify filed by real parties in interest Kent Bates, Jerry Branton, Glen Gill, Bradford Glass, Craig Graham, Gewoski Hewitt, Sterling Hudson, Ethan Lambert, Joshua Stefanic, and Montie Watkins.
3 The underlying case is In re Hurricane Zeta Litigation, cause number 2022-36264, pending in the 113th District Court of Harris County, Texas, the Honorable Rabeea Sultan Collier presiding.
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