Tiburon Land and Cattle, LP & Trek Resources, Inc. v. Kerwin Stephens, Chester Carroll et al.,
Cause No. DC-2013-0016, 32nd District Court, Fisher County, Texas
TheStephensCase.com
The Stephens case - originating in Dallas County, Texas, but eventually moving to Fisher
County, Texas, then into several federal courts - is notoriously known as “The Vietnam of Texas
oil and gas litigation.”
The case has lasted for a decade and a half, with no end in sight (as of early 2026).
The case has consumed millions in legal fees and resources on both sides, and it has ruined
the businesses and personal lives of businessmen Tommy Taylor and Chester Carrol of Abilene,
Texas, and businessman and attorney Kerwin Stephens of Graham, Texas.
See this video of James Allen Holmes, Sr. discussing the summer 2015 jury trial and its 69-page Jury Charge (download
this to appreciate fully Holmes’s viewpoint), which ruined Kerwin Stephens (Holmes’s client) and
Chester Carroll (a co-defendant). Tommy Taylor had died just before trial, and his estate did
not appear in the trial.
Holmes and his team created this video in August 2020 - five years after the jury trial,
while the case was dragging through Texas appellate courts, bankrupting Stephens.
At that time, Holmes did not know of the trial judge’s improper conduct - including his
numerous and frequent social-media interactions with Stephens’s opponents during critical
stages of the trial and post-trial litigation. See the end of the video to learn more about
that improper conduct and the ramifications flowing from it.
TheStephensCase.com
The Stephens case - originating in Dallas County, Texas, but eventually moving to Fisher County, Texas, then into several federal courts - is notoriously known as “The Vietnam of Texas oil and gas litigation.”
The case has lasted for a decade and a half, with no end in sight (as of early 2026).
The case has consumed millions in legal fees and resources on both sides, and it has ruined the businesses and personal lives of businessmen Tommy Taylor and Chester Carrol of Abilene, Texas, and businessman and attorney Kerwin Stephens of Graham, Texas.
See this video of James Allen Holmes, Sr. discussing the summer 2015 jury trial and its 69-page Jury Charge (download this to appreciate fully Holmes’s viewpoint), which ruined Kerwin Stephens (Holmes’s client) and Chester Carroll (a co-defendant). Tommy Taylor had died just before trial, and his estate did not appear in the trial.
Holmes and his team created this video in August 2020 - five years after the jury trial, while the case was dragging through Texas appellate courts, bankrupting Stephens.
At that time, Holmes did not know of the trial judge’s improper conduct - including his numerous and frequent social-media interactions with Stephens’s opponents during critical stages of the trial and post-trial litigation. See the end of the video to learn more about that improper conduct and the ramifications flowing from it.