Practice Areas & Industries: Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P.

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Our attorneys serve as defense and plaintiff counsel to key regional, national, and international players in the commercial real estate industry. We have represented clients across the full spectrum of real estate activity, including:

• Developers
• Property owners
• Finance, banking, and mortgage companies
• Investors
• Government regulators
• Title insurers

The range of matters that we handle for these clients primarily focuses on environmental and financial litigation, but the firm has also handled everything from state licensing law challenges to property rights disputes.

Environmental Problems

As a highly regarded environmental litigation defense firm, we have represented clients in Texas and other states in controversies involving environmental cleanup and related regulatory disputes. Typical matters that we handle for commercial and residential property owners and developers include:

• Representing landowners, including the chain of prior titleholders, in environmental clean-up litigation
• Representing national financial and real estate entities regarding environmental issues related to past real property acquisitions
• Representing local developers and real estate interests regarding environmental issues that stem from tenant operations or historical impacts
• Assisting industrial entities with state and federal Superfund matters
• Handling matters involving the Texas Voluntary Cleanup Program for site remediation

Property Rights Disputes

Our lawyers defend owners of commercial and multi-family properties against a variety of claims and regulatory actions. Among our recent successes are:

• Represented a regional real estate partnership in a suit over an office building renovation, briefing and successfully arguing defeat of the defendants' summary judgment motion and obtaining favorable settlement on the eve of trial
• Served as lead appellate counsel for building owners in a constitutional challenge to the demolition of apartment buildings, successfully overturning the district court's order of dismissal
• Obtained dismissals of numerous first-party property damage lawsuits involving fires, water damage, mold, and construction defects in state and federal courts

Finance-Related Controversies

Real estate transactions present ample opportunity for litigation involving property financing, ownership, leases, liens, and other monetary issues. We have assisted lenders, owners, and investors with a wide range of matters around the country, such as:

• Represented a California mortgage company in a suit claiming fraud and violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), in which we obtained summary judgment for our client on all claims prior to trial.
• Represented a national real estate development and financing company, as a division of a national insurance company, in real estate lease disputes and lien priority litigation
• Handled joint venture litigation on behalf of parties as varied as a national real estate asset management and brokerage company, and Middle Eastern investment interests

Regulatory Issues

We have experience in dealing with disputes over the application of state regulations to property transactions that occur across state lines. Our clients have been on both sides of these issues. We have, for example, represented national and regional homebuilding and real estate development companies in defense of claims involving the Interstate Land Sales Act and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as in contract litigation. Our lawyers have also represented a state department of real estate in a challenge to the constitutionality of the state's real estate licensing laws by an unlicensed out-of-state company.

Condemnation and Eminent Domain

The power of eminent domain is an essential tool in the service and accomplishment of important public goals, and it affects the fundamental constitutional rights of property owners. It is no wonder that its exercise often leads to hotly contested and high-profile administrative and judicial proceedings. This is especially true in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's 2005 opinion in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, holding that a taking for economic development purposes is an allowed "public use."

We are experienced both in representing clients in their exercise of the power of eminent domain and in defending the property rights of clients when the power of eminent domain is exercised. The outcomes of such cases often profoundly impact rights most central to the parties' plans, prospects, and interests.

Our lawyers' experience is derived from a wide variety of representations, including:

• Representation of an energy company whose producing wells were sought to be condemned by an authority charged with the construction of a large reservoir
• Representation of a pipeline company seeking to expand an existing petroleum product pipeline system in a formerly rural area experiencing semi-urban and commercial development
• Representation of a pipeline company in multiple highly-publicized condemnation proceedings in which summary dismissals were obtained of numerous counterclaims brought by landowners in an effort to halt the construction of a high pressure, high temperature oil pipeline
• Representation of industrial and non-industrial landowners in condemnation proceedings
• Representation of lien holders in both partial and total takings cases
• Representation of a third-party creditor in condemnation proceedings involving the expansion of a highway

Our representation of clients in condemnation proceedings has also grown out of relationships developed while representing clients in other matters. For example, while serving the general litigation needs of national energy companies, we have been entrusted with their representation in condemnation and ancillary proceedings concerning major pipeline projects.

• In addition to our representation of a pipe-line company partnership (whose partners are Fortune 500 energy companies) in complex commercial and antitrust litigation, we represented the partnership in multiple condemnation proceedings aimed at expanding the scope of earlier grants of pipeline easements, in that pipeline partnership's successful effort to convert a major pipeline from crude oil service to transportation of refined petroleum products westward from the refineries of the Texas gulf coast.
• We are currently engaged in the representation of one of the pipeline affiliates of a large international integrated energy company, which we represent in other complex commercial litigation, in a series of condemnation and ancillary proceedings relating to a project to build a brand new pipeline. The new pipeline will transport natural gas from a liquefied natural gas terminal on the Texas gulf coast to interconnections with various intrastate and interstate natural gas pipelines. Prior to the commencement of actual condemnation proceedings, we sought and secured the court's equitable enforcement of the pipeline company's rights ancillary to the power of eminent domain to conduct engineering, environmental, and archeological surveys on the properties affected.

In addition to representing clients in disputes, we are prepared to advise clients concerning their rights in connection with the potential exercise of the power of eminent domain and the appropriate procedures to follow in order to pre-serve and enforce their rights.

Our representation of clients in eminent domain proceedings combines our grasp of the unique condemnation practice with our understanding of and commitment to our clients' dispute resolution expectations and their broader business objectives.

Title Insurance Issues

Our attorneys have had significant experience representing national and regional real estate title insurance companies and agencies and, at times, their personnel as well as their insureds. This representation has included issues ranging from escrow account disputes to defending insureds at the request of the insurer on claims litigation and indemnity actions.