Wilson, Robert

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 and a Texas Association of Defense Counsel director at large.  He is a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation. In 29 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 products in litigation throughout the State of Texas.He has served as national counsel for a client handling 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 defendant strict liability and negligence claims against one of the nations top snack food producers. He also has represented manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cranes, lift axles, electronic doors, and other products. 

In the area of personal injury, Bruce has defended oil field accident suits, successfully handling 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 and Gas Litigation

Bruce represents operators, drilling companies and oilfield service companies. He recently obtained an $8.5 million dollar verdict for his clients in a complicated oil and gas contract dispute. He has reviewed in litigation hundreds of drilling and oilfield service contracts.  In defense of oil and gas clients, he estimates that he has personally been on some one hundred oilfield accident sites including drilling rigs, workover rigs, refineries, tank batteries, pipelines, and pump jacks.  His oil and gas litigation experience includes cases centered on IADC drilling and other oilfield contracts where the duties between the operator, drilling contractor and service companies are at issue including indemnity, allocation of risk, and waiver of responsibility provisions.

Employment Litigation

Bruce has practiced employment law in both state and federal courts. He has tried 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. Recently, he was successful in getting a plaintiff to specifically define her complaints of discrimination based on age and disability during her deposition. He then used recent case law set out by the federal courts to obtain a complete summary judgment and dismissal of the lawsuit.

Medical Malpractice 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 people and companies. His success in defending insurance companies in bad faith cases has resulted in several insurance companies retaining him to handle their insurance coverage and bad faith litigation. He 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 the plaintiff sought to enforce against the insurance company was approximately $9 million. 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.

General Civil Litigation

While the above areas are those in which Bruce has handled a volume of cases, his practice has broadly encompassed almost every area of civil litigation.

   Bruce served as a missionary in Argentina for two years before attending college. 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 a 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.