Charles Brannon Robertson

Areas of Concentration

•Commercial Litigation

•Energy Litigation

•Catastrophic Incident Litigation 

•Product Liability and Toxic Tort Litigation

•Personal Injury Litigation

Experience

Brannon joined Fernelius Simon PLLC as a partner in 2015.  Previously, Brannon was a litigation partner with the Houston office of King & Spalding, an Am Law 50 firm where he practiced from 1999 to 2015. His practice includes business disputes, personal injury, environmental litigation, construction disputes,  toxic torts and product liability.  He represents both plaintiffs and defendants. Texas Monthly magazine has recognized him as a rising star on multiple occasions.

Brannon has litigated matters in federal and state courts across the United States. He also has significant experience with arbitrations. 

Representative Commercial Matters

•Assisted an oilfield-services company in recovering millions from high-level employees who engaged in a sophisticated and wide-ranging effort to steal the company’s assets and drive business to a competing company, which the employees secretly owned.  

•Represented a specialty-chemical maker that was sued for allegedly breaching contractual and fiduciary duties related to various shared-facility agreements.  Served as lead lawyer at the AAA arbitration.  The panel denied any recovery to the claimant and awarded $4 million to the client on its counterclaim.

•Represented a Louisiana gas-storage facility in multiple lawsuits related to the construction of its facility.

•Secured dismissal of a lawsuit brought against a borrower by a bank seeking to recover on its commercial loan.

•Represented an East Texas gas-storage facility in multiple construction lawsuits.  

•Represented a large German real estate holding company in various U.S. real estate disputes, recovering millions in settlements.

•Defended the owner of a compressed-air energy-storage facility in a suit brought by the engineering firm that performed the FEED work for the facility.  

•Successfully represented a broker in a NASD arbitration in which the broker was accused of mismanaging millions of dollars in investments.  

•Represented a foreign investment bank in a dispute regarding the sale of a gas-storage facility.  The new owners claimed that the value of the asset was impaired by more than $100 million.

•Successfully argued an appeal that led to a reversal of a trial court’s refusal to send a case to arbitration.  The matter involved an ownership dispute regarding a shared-services facility.

•Represented a Malaysian E&P company that was refurbishing a drilling rig in a Galveston shipyard when it chose to cease work on the project.  Numerous vendors providing services to the rig brought suit, claiming more than $10 million in damages.  Represented the client in numerous lawsuits and arbitrations stemming from the claims, which resulted in the client successfully exiting its obligations for a fraction of the value of the outstanding claims.

•Represented two Norwegian banks in a lawsuit involving a drilling rig on which the banks held a $30 million note.  Won a summary judgment establishing that the banks were the superior lien holders on the vessel. 

•Represented a petrochemical company in a construction dispute with the engineering firm that designed a $75 million chemical plant for the client. 

•Represented a majority shareholder that sold a high-deliverability, multicycle gas-storage facility for more than $500 million.  A group of minority shareholders brought suit because they were dissatisfied with the price of the sale.  

Representative Tort Matters

•Won a summary judgment in a Kentucky mass-tort case involving more than 1,000 individuals claiming personal injury from groundwater, soil and air contamination.  The motion ended more than a decade of litigation for an international manufacturing company. The American Lawyer covered the win in its “Big Suits” section.

•Secured a multimillion-dollar judgment in Brazoria County, Texas, in a wrongful-death lawsuit for the parents of a woman who was killed in her home.

•Recovered a high-value settlement for the mother of a girl killed in a boating accident.  

•Prepared amicus brief for an international oil company in Borg Warner v. Flores, the Texas Supreme Court’s landmark decision regarding the proof of causation in a toxic-tort lawsuit.  

•Represented a multinational petroleum company in a lawsuit brought by hundreds of minors who lived near refineries in Port Arthur, Texas.   The plaintiffs claimed that the emissions from plant operations impaired their health and constituted a permanent nuisance.  A Beaumont trial court dismissed the case on summary judgment, and the decision was affirmed by the court of appeals. 

•Represented a major oil company whose crude-oil pipeline ruptured and spilled thousands of barrels of oil into the coastal waters of Louisiana.  The case was tried in New Orleans federal court.   

•Represented a major oil company in multiple suits stemming from allegations that naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) related to E&P activities had damaged the plaintiffs’ health and property.  Was part of two trial teams for cases in Mississippi state court.  

•Represented a multinational oil and gas company in property-damage lawsuits related to one of its legacy refineries in Montana.  

•Represented a multinational corporation in groundwater-contamination litigation in California stemming from its agricultural chemicals business. 

•Represented an international E&P company in a case involving property damages from a well blowout in South Texas.

•Represented numerous petrochemical clients in premises-liability lawsuits stemming from asbestos, benzene and vinyl-chloride exposure.

•Defended energy clients in numerous wrongful-death and serious-injury cases stemming from refinery and oilfield accidents.

•Represented oil-company defendants in Jones Act lawsuits involving offshore-drilling accidents.

•Represented an oilfield-equipment manufacturer in a wrongful-death case stemming from a fracing job in South Texas.

•Significant experience representing pharmaceutical clients in personal-injury cases.

•Represented numerous medical-device manufacturers in product-liability cases.

Professional Memberships

•Texas Bar Foundation, Fellow

•Houston Bar Foundation, Fellow

Educational Background

1997-1999–Law Clerk, the Honorable Nancy Johnson, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas 

1997–Juris Doctor, The University of Texas at Austin 

1994–Bachelor of arts, cum laude, Baylor University 

Brannon is admitted to practice before all Texas state and federal courts, as well as the Court of Appeals for the Fifth and Sixth Circuits.

Civic Involvement

Brannon frequently represents individuals on a pro-bono basis, serves on numerous committees for various bar organizations and is a CLE speaker.  He is involved in community organizations outside the legal profession, including the United Way, where he is the chairperson of the Community Investment Group, among other roles.  He also is past president and current board member of LIFE/Houston, a nonprofit that provides baby formula to at-risk children.