While many in the United States celebrated the end of 2014 with champagne and college football bowl games, Larry Macon planned to do what he always does—run a marathon. The 70-year-old Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner will be at the starting line hoping to complete the 26.2-mile run—and there’s little doubt that he will finish it, since it will be the 1,410th time he has run such a race. The Dec. 31 San Antonio race in which he’s competing is part of the 12 Days of Christmas marathon series. Macon is the current Guinness world record holder for the most marathons run in one year—a record he has broken five times. By the end of 2014, Macon will have run 36,942 miles in his lifetime. [See "Run, Larry, Run!," Texas Lawyer, Dec. 9, 2013.]
Traveling Supremes
The Texas Supreme Court will be in Tyler on Feb. 26, 2015, to hear arguments in a case that raises an issue regarding exemptions to disclosure under the state’s Public Information Act. Supreme Court Justice Phil Johnson said, “This will be our second time up there [Tyler], but it will be the first in 15 years.” Until Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1997, the state’s highest civil court was prohibited from hearing cases outside of Austin. Johnson said the court receives invitations from around the state to hear arguments in cases at various sites. “We typically accept one in the fall to go outside Austin and one in the spring,” he said. According to the Supreme Court Clerk’s Office, the location of the arguments in Tyler has not yet been determined. Johnson said the court usually hears arguments in more than one case when it travels outside Austin. The court’s website shows that Boeing v. Abbott is the only case set so far for the Feb. 26 arguments. As noted on the court’s website, the principal issues in a contest to get the price Boeing paid for maintenance facilities at the former Kelly Air Force Base are whether lease information is exempt from public disclosure under a section of the PIA that protects information that would give a competitor an advantage and whether the information sought is protected by a trade secrets exemption in the act. The Texas Office of the Attorney General ruled in 2005 that Boeing failed to make sufficient showing that the information is a proprietary trade secret or that its release would cause substantial competitive harm. The 345th District Court in Austin held that the information does not qualify for exemption from disclosure under PIA. Austin’s Third Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment on March 9, 2012. The arguments before the high court will feature a former state supreme court justice. Scott Brister, an Austin partner in Andrews Kurth and the firm’s appellate section, represents Boeing. Richard B. Farrer, the state’s assistant solicitor general, represents the OAG.
