Georgia Court of Appeals issues “very, very rare” decision granting firm’s client a new trial

On February 5, 2021, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a favorable decision for our client in Maki v. Real Estate Expert Advisors, Inc.

After our client lost a trial verdict while being represented by a different attorney, she hired us to appeal the verdict. But there was a problem: the trial attorney failed to raise appropriate objections and actually consented to the jury being given improper instructions before the jury began its deliberations.

The general rule is that if your attorney doesn’t object at trial—or if your attorney consents to something—you can’t complain about those things in any appeal. Despite that rule, we were able to persuade the Court of Appeals to reverse the jury’s verdict. The Court of Appeals acknowledged that decisions like the one it entered in this case are “very, very rare.”

Paying us the ultimate compliment a court can bestow on an appellate lawyer, the Court of Appeals plagiarized the first paragraph of its decision from the first paragraph of the initial appellate brief we filed in the case.

The Court of Appeals’ decision can be found here. Our initial appellate brief can be found here.