Appellate Law

Our litigation attorneys have significant experience representing clients beyond trial at the appellate level. We have successfully represented clients before the Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and the United States 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on a wide variety of issues, including commercial litigation, labor and employment law, First Amendment and other constitutional issues, malpractice and other tort matters, both in oral argument and on brief. Our firm recently represented a group of citizens before the Georgia Supreme Court who were arrested and prosecuted for engaging in a peaceful protest at a city council meeting. On appeal, we succeeded in having the statute under which they were charged declared unconstitutional by the Georgia Supreme Court.

Appellate Court Cases

In the spring of 2007 our firm was successful in upholding a superior court trial judge’s decision to overturn the decision of the Professional Standards Commission (PSC), which had sanctioned two teachers for hosting a party at their home for their teenage daughter, in which public high school students had consumed alcoholic beverages. The PSC sanctioned these two teachers for ethical violations for hosting such a party, without providing the supervision to prevent the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Our firm represented the teachers throughout the litigation and successfully argued the case to the superior court judge, who overturned the decision of the PSC. The case was later appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which also upheld the trial court’s decision, finding that the actions of the teachers were not unethical and that the sanction against the teachers was properly reversed by the trial court. This particular decision was a landmark decision for teachers across the State of Georgia. It offers further protection for teachers who are unlawfully and unfairly sanctioned by the PSC for not preventing conduct of others, namely the unlawful underage drinking by teenagers in this particular case. It is anticipated that this decision will be cited frequently by many other attorneys who represent teachers across the state and the nation.

In 2006, our litigation team was successful in upholding a grant of summary judgment to Wild Adventures, Inc., one of the nation’s top fifty theme parks, in two premises liability cases pending before the Georgia Court of Appeals. The first case resulted from a female patron who allegedly injured her back after falling off a chair, when one of the chair legs broke. The Georgia Court of Appeals found no evidence of negligence on behalf of Wild Adventures, Inc. and found that the premises owner could not be held liable simply because the chair leg broke under the weight of the patron. Similarly, our litigation team successfully upheld summary judgment on a wrongful arrest/malicious prosecution case against Wild Adventures, Inc., holding that Wild Adventures was not liable for turning over an alleged crime, reported by a visitor, to the sheriff’s department.

Please contact us to learn more.