Atlanta, GA
Civil rights Lawyer at Atlanta, GA
Practice Areas: Civil Rights, Litigation ... +2 more
OUTCOME: preliminary injunction granted
nude dance club obtained injunction preventing the county from enforcing certain unconstitutional restrictions in its ordinances.
OUTCOME: Appeal lost
My client sued a bank that refused to reimburse him for certain fraudulent checks drawn on his corporate account.My client did not dispute the checks within the 30-day period provided for in the Bank's ... standard "customer agreement." We argued that the trial court erred in holding that O.C.G.A. § 11-4-103(a) allowed a bank to contractually shorten the 60-day period established in O.C.G.A. § 11-4-406(f) through its customer agreement, notwithstanding allegations of negligence. In a divided opinion, the court of appeals disagreed. It held that the Uniform Commercial Code permits parties to a contract of deposit to agree between themselves as to their duties and the legal consequences that flow therefrom. An account agreement was controlling unless it was manifestly unreasonable, and the 30-day period here was not manifestly unreasonable. Shortening the time period did not excuse the bank from its duty of ordinary care or disclaim the bank's liability for negligence in the future inasmuch as the notice period started over again each time the bank sent a new statement to the customer. Accordingly, the trial court properly upheld the parties' agreement that the bank could not be charged with liability after the expiration of the 30 days provided for in the agreement.
OUTCOME: Reversal
The plaintiffs alleged that O.C.G.A. § 16-12-80's complete ban on advertising for devices designed or marketed primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs violated their First Amendment right ... s to commercial speech under the U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.The district court found that the challenge failed the Central Hudson test. On appeal, a prior appellate panel expressly determined that § 16-12-80 banned all advertising of the sexual devices in issue, this per se ban on advertising was more extensive than necessary, and it violated plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. On remand, the district court gave the statute a limiting construction and found that the statute did not violate the First Amendment. In this appeal, the appellate court determined that the district court on remand violated the law-of-the-case doctrine when it revisited the issue of whether the statute violated plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. The prior panel, at least by implication, determined that § 16-12-80 could not be saved by giving the statute the more limiting construction used by the district court. Also, the law-of-the-case doctrine applied during the preliminary injunction stage. The appellate court then vacated and reversed the district court's order granting summary judgment for defendants and remanded the case with instructions for the district court to enter summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs.
OUTCOME:
I represented a group of existing adult entertainment businesses challenging the City of Charlotte's ordinances regulating those businesses. We defeated the City's motion for summary judgment and, ulti ... mately, negotiated a relocation for our client.
OUTCOME: Appeal won
On this appeal, we represented an adult business that was operating in Columbus, Georgia. The business's lawsuit against the City had been summarily dismissed by the federal trial court on abstention p ... rinciples.
OUTCOME: Reversal
The district court found that Fulton County's 1997 amendment to its adult entertainment ordinance operated as a content-neutral restriction that furthered the government's interest in preventing negati ... ve secondary effects associated with plaintiffs' businesses. On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the amendment failed to further this interest because local studies showed no evidence of negative secondary effects, namely increased crime or decreased property values, connected with plaintiffs' clubs. The court of appeals agreed that the 1997 amendment failed to further the county's concern with negative secondary effects. The court noted that local studies commissioned both by the plaintiffs and the county board found no evidence of the secondary effects. Accordingly, the court found that it was unreasonable for the county to rely on foreign studies concerning these effects when the county's own current data conclusively demonstrated that such secondary effects were not found. Thus the district court's judgment was reversed as to plaintiffs' freedom of expression claims.
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