TEXARKANA — As the trial’s lunch break stretched beyond its usual hour Tuesday, more than a dozen attorneys gathered in the hallway outside the judge’s chambers. Most of them were standing, the wooden chairs lined up along the hallway empty.
Then the door opened.
“Come in,” shouted U.S. District Judge Robert W. Schroeder II.
Among those present, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and two people he was suing — a mother and daughter who claim Jones is the young woman’s father — were ushered into the courtroom. Shortly afterward, they all returned to the adjacent courtroom, where Judge Robert W. Schroeder III announced that a settlement had been reached to end the trial.
“I can tell you that my defendants were well-intentioned,” Jones told the jury after thanking the eight people who gave him their time. “Certainly in the mother’s case. She’s a working mother.”
Tuesday’s abrupt resolution came in the middle of the trial’s second day of testimony. It marked the end of multiple lawsuits Jones has faced since 2022, when the first lawsuit filed by Alexandra Davis in a Dallas County district court brought the parentage dispute into the open.
Jones, 81, had filed a countersuit against Alexandra Davis, 27, and her mother, Cynthia Davis, accusing the women of violating a settlement agreement reached with Davis more than 20 years ago. He sought $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees he spent defending himself against the multiple lawsuits filed by Alexandra Davis.
The 1998 agreement prohibited the Davises from “pursuing or supporting any legal action” to establish paternity and kept the terms of the agreement confidential. In exchange, Jones paid millions of dollars through trusts from “infancy through adulthood” for the younger Davis, according to court documents.
The terms of the mid-trial settlement were read aloud in court Tuesday. Jones agreed to drop the countersuit on the condition that Alexandra Davis dismiss all pending litigation, including a paternity suit, against Jones with prejudice, meaning she cannot later decide whether to bring her original claims back to court.
Jones filed a countersuit against the women after a judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed against the billionaire and others by Alexandra Davis. In the paternity suit filed in Dallas County, a state district judge in February ordered Jones to submit to a DNA test.
Jones appealed the Dallas County judge’s decision. He has repeatedly denied being Davis’ father and denied the allegations against him in court.
Now he will not have to take the test, under the terms of the agreement reached Tuesday.
The agreement also stipulated that the 1998 settlement would remain in effect, meaning the Davises could face legal consequences if they filed future lawsuits seeking to establish parentage or argue over the terms of the agreement.
Attorneys for Jones and the Davises said The Dallas Morning News that they were pleased to see the dispute resolved and declined to discuss the agreement beyond what was read in open court.
“Cindy has been a friend for many, many years,” Jones told media gathered outside the courthouse. “I’m glad this case is resolved. This is not something I wanted to happen, not something we wanted to happen, but I’m glad we got it resolved.”
Jones trial ends abruptly
Donald Jack Jr., a lawyer hired by Jones who negotiated the 1998 settlement agreement and managed the trusts used to issue funds to the Davises, testified Tuesday that the younger Davis repeatedly asked for more money over the years.
Under questioning by Jones’ attorney, Jack described a 2017 dinner at a Dallas steakhouse with Alexandra Davis, during which she asked for a renegotiation of the deal. Alternatively, she suggested during the meeting that $20 million would be enough to drop the issue altogether, Jack testified.
The Davises’ attorneys had not yet finished questioning Jack when Schroeder called for a lunch break. When the jury was called back into the courtroom, the trial was already over.
As a result of the move, the Cowboys’ traditional training camp opening press conference in Oxnard, Calif., was pushed back from Wednesday to Saturday.
Mother tearfully testified about negotiations and relationship with Jones
Cynthia Davis, 62, testified Monday that she and Jones had a romantic relationship after meeting while she was working at an American Airlines ticket counter in Little Rock, Arkansas.
She said she felt “very hopeless” after giving birth to her daughter. She felt helpless against Jones, even after hiring a New York lawyer to represent her during negotiations for the 1998 settlement, and would sign “anything they presented to her,” she said on the stand.
Lawyers for Alexandra Davis and Cynthia Davis asked the jury of five women and three men to imagine the emotional impact a settlement similar to the one in 1998 would have on them, wondering whether Jones cared about the Davises.
Cynthia Davis said she eventually regretted accepting the deal. The terms were financially advantageous to her, she said, but they didn’t take into account her daughter’s desire to have a relationship with her father later in life.
In opening statements, Chip Babcock, one of Jones’ attorneys, said the football team owner had lived up to his end of the 1998 settlement and “more.”
Babcock said the terms were “double” what would typically be awarded to a child under Arkansas law when parentage was established and that Jones gave the gifted child more than was agreed, including payment for international travel, tuition at Southern Methodist University and a luxury SUV.
Jones sat with his back to Davis throughout his testimony Monday. At one point during questioning, when Davis became emotional, Judge Schroeder called a recess and asked the jury to leave the courtroom.
Cynthia Davis stepped down from the witness stand and hugged Jones. She then appeared to call out to Alexandra Davis, but the younger Davis appeared to refuse.
A likely end to a series of legal battles
The lawsuit is the latest development in a series of legal skirmishes between Alexandra Davis and Jones since her now-dismissed 2022 lawsuit in Dallas County sought to free her from the 1998 agreement.
Before the trial, Alexandra Davis’ attorneys asked the court to consider that she was not legally bound by the agreement given her age at the time she signed it. However, Judge Robert W. Schroeder III ruled that the settlement agreement did not violate Texas public policy.
Jones’ lawsuit is a counterclaim to a defamation lawsuit the younger Davis filed against him and several other defendants in March 2023, accusing them of a “smear attack” after she sued him to establish paternity a year earlier. All defendants except Jones were eventually dropped from Davis’ defamation lawsuit, which was partially dismissed in October, refiled in November, and then dismissed again in March.
Alexandra Davis’ lawyers said in a previous statement to The news that her legal relationship with Jones was “never about money, but rather about a young woman searching for her father.” In her testimony, Cynthia Davis said her daughter only wanted “15 minutes with her father.”
Jones, his wife, children, Alexandra Davis and several others were among those who could have testified but did not because of the mid-trial settlement.