Persistence Pays Off

Complex business litigation requires tenacity and endurance. We have plenty of both.

A transportation company driver is seriously injured while delivering a hazardous chemical for our client to a customer. The driver’s suit gives rise to litigation in five different federal and state courts spanning the course of a decade. By forming a small team dedicated to handling all aspects of the case, we expand the depth of knowledge and increase efficiencies. We scour contracts, insurance policies, and related documents. Finally, despite years of infighting among the defendants, we coordinate an agreement among them to fund a settlement with the plaintiff, thereby capping the potential serious exposure to a relatively manageable amount. The settlement is successful because the plaintiff’s lawyers know we are ready for trial.

We do not stop there. We move for summary judgment against the transportation company pursuant to an indemnity clause in the transportation agreement. We succeed and obtain contractual indemnification for our client’s share of the settlement. But we are not quite done. We then obtain summary judgment on our client’s claim for attorneys’ fees incurred in handling all aspects of the litigation. After a two-day hearing on the reasonableness of those fees, which the transportation company opposed with expert testimony, the court awards our client 100 percent of its fees for the entire decade of litigation. At the end of the day – and the decade – the result is a full recovery of several million dollars.

There were plenty of opportunities along the way to settle for less. Our client had a strong position and the will to wait out the right result. We had the persistence and determination to see it through.