Representative Cases

We represent individuals and businesses against telemarketers and junk faxers in lawsuits for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a federal law designed to enhance privacy and prevent businesses from shifting advertising costs to unwilling recipients. In one of these cases, we won a $459 million trial verdict — the largest trial verdict in Georgia history.

When a joint venture disintegrated and the partners went their separate ways, one of the partners started contacting the other’s clients, threatening to sue them if they did business with the other partner. That other partner hired us. We convinced the court to issue a temporary restraining order against the bullying former partner, and then we persuaded a court to declare the noncompete and nonsolicitation provisions of the joint-venture agreement to be illegal and void. We obtained a final judgment in a matter of weeks that allowed our client to continue its operations free from threats from its former partner.

A disgruntled home buyer, who also happened to be an attorney, lashed out at the woman who sold him his home by suing her. We defended the woman, who did nothing wrong. Not only did we win the case twice (the disgruntled home buyer sued our client in two different courts), we persuaded the courts to order the disgruntled home buyer to pay our client’s legal bills.

We persuaded the Georgia Supreme Court to overturn a statewide election. This was the first successful statewide election challenge in U.S. history. In a statewide election in which almost 1.1 million votes were cast, a runoff was to take place between the top two vote-getters; Howard Mead was in third place by 382 votes. But 529 absentee ballots distributed to voters in one county listed Howard Mead as “Thomas Mead.” And another candidate’s first name was Thomas, further adding to the confusion. Howard Mead hired us to challenge the election results. After a contentious trial and appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court invalidated the first election because of the irregular ballots and ordered a new election take place. For a copy of the Supreme Court’s decision, see Mead v. Sheffield, 601 S.E.2d 99 (Ga. 2004).

A company fired one of its IT employees who then tried to infect the company’s computer system with a virus. We were hired by the company to sue its former employee and obtained a judgment against him. This judgment, obtained in 1997, is believed to have been the first of its kind in Georgia.

Several employees of a company left to start a rival business, which would have been alright if that was all that they did. But they stole their former employer’s customer lists and started soliciting the company’s customers for their new business. We were hired by the company to sue its former employees and we obtained a judgment against them and their business, which included a permanent injunction that prohibited them from contacting our client’s customers.

In Alea London Ltd. v. American Home Services, Inc., 638 F.3d 768 (11th Cir. 2011), we persuaded the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the District Court’s holding that an insurance policy didn’t cover claims for illegal telemarketing practices, a decision that put the insurance company on the hook for $459 million.