CNO Attorneys fight ruling that would cost client $190,000
Tom Cauthorn
Cauthorn Nohr & Owen attorneys Tom Cauthorn and Wick Cauthorn were in court last week arguing against a ruling that would require their client, the attorney for the former housekeeper for the CEO of Waffle House, and the housekeeper herself from having to pay more than $190,000 in attorney fees related to a Fulton County State Court lawsuit that was voluntarily dismissed by those who filed it. In 2013, a judge ordered the housekeeper, Mye Brindle, and her attorney David Cohen of Marietta's Complex Law Group to pay $142,657 as sanctions related to filing and withdrawing the Fulton lawsuit. Judge Susan Forsling, who has since stepped down, determined that Brindle had improperly filed the suit in Fulton instead of filing counterclaims to a suit Waffle House CEO Joseph Rogers Jr. had previously filed in Cobb County.
The Fulton suit was filed on Sept. 19, 2010, and voluntarily dismissed 21 days later.
The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that some of the fees awarded by Forsling were not permissible under the law and remanded the matter to the State Court.
In court last week, Tom Cauthorn argued against what Rogers' lawyers claim is sanctionable conduct. As reported in the Daily Report, Judge Forsling found that—by filing a new suit in Fulton after Rogers had already sued Brindle in Cobb County instead of filing a counterclaim in Cobb—Brindle and her lawyers had unnecessarily expanded the litigation and attempted to engage in forum shopping.
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