PAST APPELLATE ENGAGEMENTS

Our firm has substantial, successful experience bringing and opposing appeals in federal and state courts of appeal. Our appellate work has concerned federal antitrust claims, complex business litigation, and real estate litigation.

Successful Antitrust Appeal: Reversal of the Judgment Below. In one recent antitrust appeal, we persuaded the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court’s dismissal of the case on the pleadings. The case had been pled by the legendary Maxwell Blecher, a legendary trial attorney and antitrust specialist, who passed away shortly after its dismissal. We were honored to bring the appeal, and by it we obtained a reversal of the judgment below and a remand of proceedings to the court below, the United States District Court for the Central District of California (Los Angeles). The case thereafter settled before it reached trial.

Lead Trial and Appellate Attorneys in Nationally Prominent Case. In our most recent antitrust appeal, we appeared before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of national interest — Aya Healthcare Services, Inc. v. AMN Healthcare, Inc. In this case, we represented the plaintiff, a successful national healthcare staffing agency, which alleged that the defendant, the largest healthcare staffing agency in the country, had used unlawful no-poaching restraints in ways that unlawfully restrained and monopolized trade in violation of the Sherman Act. After denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted summary judgment for the defendant in a published opinion, doing so after more than three years of closely contested litigation in which we were opposed by a leading antitrust attorney from Washington, D.C. and his team of capable litigators.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit issued its own published opinion, which affirmed the District Court’s judgment. Of note, the Antitrust Division of U.S. Department of Justice intervened on appeal to express its agreement with our statement of the antitrust law on point. Although we did not win, we capably conducted a major, nationwide antitrust litigation from start to finish in a closely fought case that resulted in two published decisions, and we credibly presented our clients’ claims and then raised a significant appellate challenge. Here are redacted versions of our opening brief and reply brief in support of our appeal. They are representative of the kind of work that we perform at the highest level when called upon to do so.

Lead Trial and Appellate Attorneys in Another Nationally Prominent Case. In another antitrust appeal heard by the Ninth Circuit, we were opposed by some of the best antitrust attorneys in the country in a long-running case in which we represented the largest privately held manufacturer of precast concrete products in North America at all stages of the litigation from its start in 2006 until it ended in 2010. It was a major, national antitrust litigation in which we credibly presented antitrust claims, worked with a world-famous economist from Stanford University, and were opposed by leading attorneys from elite firms in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Successful Appellate Litigation in the California Court of Appeal. We have also conducted appeals in the California Courts of Appeal. In one of these appeals, we obtained a reversal of the judgment below: the Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District agreed with us that our client’s claim had been wrongly dismissed on demurrer, and it remanded the case to the court below, which was the California Superior Court in San Diego County (“SD Superior Court”). We settled the claim after it was remanded.

In other appeals decided by the Fourth Appellate District, we have received affirmances of successful results that we obtained in the trial court below, including one appeal in which we obtained an affirmance on all grounds after having won on all grounds during a bifurcated jury trial and bench trial: in that case, which was tried in 2009 in S.D. Superior Court, we obtained jury verdicts in our client’s favor on all counts and then bench verdicts in our client’s favor on all counts. Then on appeal we obtained an affirmance on all grounds and confirmed our client’s trial victory.

At present, we are lead appellate counsel in a case pending before the Fourth Appellate District in which predecessor counsel, the late Daral Mazzarella, obtained jury verdicts on all counts in our client’s favor, but some of those verdicts were overturned by the Superior Court in Orange County on post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. We are appealing, as is the principal losing party in the case.

MR. MARKHAM’S ARTICLES ON ANTITRUST LAW

MR. MARKHAM’S ARTICLES ON TRIAL PROCEDURE AND CONTRACT LAW