Brent Coon

Brent Coon is an American attorney and founder of Brent Coon & Associates.
He worked on litigation that resulted from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. U.S. News & World Report named Beaumont-based Brent Coon & Associates a Best Law Firm of 2016.
Legal career
Texas City explosion
Following the Texas City Refinery explosion, Coon represented Eva Rowe, the daughter of Linda and James Rowe. Linda and James Rowe were among the 15 people who were killed in the refinery explosion. Brent Coon and Associates settled her lawsuit against British Petroleum for an undisclosed amount and $32 million in donations to health care, training, and safety education.
DuPont gas leak
Brent Coon and Associates represented the estate of Crystle Rae Wise. She was one of four employees at DuPont who were killed on the job when deadly methyl mercaptan gas apparently leaked. Coon reached a settlement with DuPont for an undisclosed amount. Wise's family members donated part of the settlement in the amount of $100,000 to the Humane Society of Southeast Texas.
Twin Peaks Waco incident
Coon represented four Central Texas bikers arrested after the May 2015 Twin Peaks shootout in Waco. On May 8, 2017 a lawsuit seeking $1 billion in damages was filed in an Austin federal court.
Louisiana packaging facility explosion
Coon on April 25, 2017 filed a lawsuit of behalf of a father of one of the three workers killed in a Louisiana packaging facility explosion. He represented Joe Gooch, whose son Jody Gooch was killed in the explosion.
=== $7 million judgment against the Houston Independent School District ===
Coon was awarded Litigator of the Week (August 20, 2017) by texaslawyer.com following his $7 million jury verdict against the Houston Independent School District (HISD) over its failure to pay his contractor client for renovating six of its campuses on July 24. He helped defeat a $13 million contract counterclaim the school district lodged against his client and two other parties.
Controversies
Forgery in BP case
In 2013, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled that Coon had used a contract with a forged signature. The judge ruled that Coon use the signature to "assert that he represented a fisherman and was entitled to a cut of that man’s share of last year’s multibillion settlement with BP.”
As a result, the judge barred Coon from receiving any funds in the Nguyen case against BP.
Asbestos-related racketeering and claim fraud
Coon admits to having Dr. Jay T. Segarra, a controversial radiologist from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, screen potential clients for asbestos-related injury. National Service Industries (NSI) sued Segarra, numerous other physicians, testing labs, and attorneys for racketeering in 2009. There were several John Doe defendants in the suit that were described as lawyers or law firms. Forbes openly speculated that Coon and other prominent asbestos law firms such as Barron & Budd and Motley Rice were also defendants. Coon went so far as to publicly defend Segarra. NSI alleged that doctors and attorneys conspired to fraudulently produce false diagnoses of asbestos-related illnesses. Lawyers and doctors worked with labor unions to perform X-ray screenings, often in vans just outside work sites. These lawyer-sponsored screenings typically diagnosed asbestos-related disease in 50 to 60% of the patients screened. Similar fraud has been described in detail in the papers of Lester Brickman, a law professor at Cardozo and an expert on fraud and misconduct in asbestos litigation. Independent studies typically turn up disease in 30 to 40 workers out of 1,000.
In 2016, Coon, along with several other Texas trial lawyers, was sued by Humana, United Healthcare, and Aetna and for failing to compensate them for medical care that was covered under asbestos injury settlements and judgments. By failing to reimburse the insurance companies Coon was able to secure double recovery for his clients while increasing the fees he earned. The plaintiffs were able to identify at least 297 such double recovery claims. The suit asked for $19.5 million.
Delinquent taxes
Five lawsuits for unpaid property taxes totaling $122,537 were filed against Coon and companies he controls by Jefferson County of Texas in 2011. Coon blamed his failure to pay on the failure of his tenants to pay rent and poor economic conditions.
American Express
American Express sued Coon's law firm for $170,818 owed on a past due credit card account in 2011. Coon settled the suit in late 2012.
Malpractice suit
Karen and Joseph Gauci filed suit against Coon and several other lawyers for malpractice stemming from their claims for economic damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The plaintiffs demanded $16 million. The suit alleged Coon and his associates "negligently failed to carry out their duties” by not filing and serving lawsuits in a timely manner. The complaint also said that Coon and his associates failed to disclose the true situation to the plaintiffs and lied to them about the effect of late filings on the value of their claims.

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