On Aug. 10, exactly two years after attending a scrimmage at Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, a Cleburne resident filed a petition alleging she had burned her derrière on a bench there. In Carillo v. Cowboys Stadium LP, et al., filed in the 153rd District Court in Tarrant County, Jennelle Carillo names as defendants the stadium, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Blue & Silver Inc., JWJ Corp. and Dallas Cowboys Football Club Ltd. In her petition, Carillo alleges that before going to her assigned seat for the game, she sat on a “black, marble bench outside of and near entrance ‘E’ to the stadium,” which was “uncovered” and “openly exposed to the extremely hot August sun.” No signs warned of the bench’s hazards, she alleges, and by sitting on the bench, she “sustained severe third degree burns to her buttocks.” The defendants committed negligent acts and omissions and had responsibilities for the premises, she alleges. Michael Wash of The Law Offices of Michael Wash in Austin, who represents Carillo, declines comment. Brett Daniels, a spokesman for the defendants, says in-house counsel for the Cowboys organizations are aware of the petition and decline comment.
Baylor Bridal Party
On Aug. 18, Kyle Knas and Berkley Scroggins were married in what may be the most extreme Baylor-oriented wedding ever performed. Knas is a second-year Baylor Law School student, and Scroggins is a 2010 Baylor law grad who now is director of alumni relations at the law school. They hoped to be married on the Waco campus by Ken Starr, the university’s president and a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. But two months ago, a Baylor University alumnus who sits on the Texas Supreme Court spotted a legal issue with Knas and Scroggins’ wedding plans. Justice Don Willett, for whom Knas interned this summer, says he saw a June 4 posting on Texas Lawyer’s Tex Parte blog that prompted him to yell in his chambers: “Hey, Kyle, you better come see this.” The post described a Texas attorney general opinion that spelled out that former federal judges are not allowed to perform marriages in the Lone Star State. Willett’s solution? Starr would perform the ceremony but Willett would perform a second legal wedding immediately after the ceremony. “I immediately loved the idea. And Berkley loved it, too,” Knas says. “What better way to get married than to have two judges perform our wedding?” Scroggins says she was relieved. “I just want to make sure that we’re legally married . . . [b]ecause I’m only putting that thing on one time in my life,” Scroggins says, referring to her wedding dress. “[T]hen it’s going in a shadow box.” Starr says he used to perform weddings often when he was a judge. He appreciated that Willett helped so the ceremony would be legal. “I was masquerading, but he was the real thing,” Starr laughs. “My takeaway was this is the most happy and enthusiastic couple that I have had the privilege of marrying.”
