When a circuit court found the arbitration provision of a student enrollment form at Daymar College to be unenforceable, the college turned to Dinsmore for the appeal. A group of students alleged that they were deceived into enrolling at Daymar through false and misleading statements regarding the transferability of credits and availability of job opportunities. All of the students had signed an enrollment form, which contained a provision that stated any dispute related to the form or their enrollment would be handled through arbitration. The provision also stated that the cost of arbitration would be split amongst both parties. After their initial complaint, the students also argued that they were unaware of the arbitration provision on the enrollment form, and that they were pressured by Daymar to sign the enrollment form quickly. The trial court ruled that the provision was procedurally unconscionable and denied the client’s motion to compel arbitration, explaining that students had a limited time to read and comprehend the enrollment form, and also that requiring students with limited income to pay for half of an arbitration proceeding was unconscionable. Upon appeal, we argued that state and federal law strongly favor the enforcement of agreements to arbitrate, and that state law does not support the proposition that the cost of arbitration can render an arbitration provision unconscionable. Furthermore, we argued that the trial court could have severed the cost-splitting provision as an independent covenant, following state policy to strike objectionable provisions to maintain the contract as a whole. The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the trial court and remanded the matter for additional proceedings.

We represented a man-lift manufacturer in a product liability case where plaintiff’s husband died in accident while operating an industrial bucket truck. The plaintiff alleged that the bucket truck should have been equipped with a strain gauge load cell system. The plaintiff filed claims for negligence, strict liability and breach of warrant against our client. After successfully obtaining dismissal of plaintiff’s manufacturing defect claim, we filed Daubert motions to exclude plaintiff’s experts arguing her experts were unreliable. Concurrently, we filed a motion for summary judgment. The state court judge granted both the Daubert motion and summary judgment motion in favor of our client.

Represented national restaurant chain in commercial real estate litigation (trial and appellate court levels) and related local zoning proceedings.

Served on our trial team as counsel to insurer in multi-million dollar dispute over coverage for asbestos bodily injury. The dispute involved issues of policy limits for product liability versus non-product liability. After years of discovery, briefing, and a trial of issues relating to the types of asbestos exposure experienced by underlying plaintiffs, we succeeded in obtaining an arbitration ruling in our client's favor on the issue exhaustion of policy limits.

We represented a major motorcycle manufacturer in a personal injury product liability case in Montgomery County, Ohio. After conducting some preliminary discovery, and after arranging for an inspection of the product by expert witnesses, we were able to persuade the Plaintiff’s counsel to voluntarily dismiss the litigation.

As part of our trial team, I served in 2012-2013 as counsel for the consultant on his claim for breach of a consulting agreement. Our client had assisted the defendant, an inventor of intellectual property, in successfully marketing his inventions to medical device companies, but the inventor then refused to pay our client the millions of dollars in contingent commissions which were owed. After we successfully obtained summary judgment on liability, the case became centered around complex proof of past and future damages which totaled many millions of dollars. I served as lead counsel for the client on several critical depositions, including depositions of defendant’s damages expert, defendant’s accountant, and the defendant-inventor himself. I also served as a liaison for some of our experts on damages-related infringement issues and on complex accounting issues. Using materials developed in discovery and at depositions, I served as lead counsel in responding to a critical motion in limine, whereby the Court approved central parts of our damages theory. This ruling helped lead to successful resolution of the matter shortly before trial.