February 19, 2025.   In April 2023, Partner Jay Eidex won a big victory for his client in a jury trial in the State Court of Fulton County involving a Plaintiff who was a former NBA player alleging that injuries from a car accident prevented him from making a comeback to the NBA.  In that case Plaintiff’s counsel asked the jury to return a verdict in the amount of $22,017,949.94 plus an amount for pain and suffering at the jury’s discretion.  Mr. Eidex asked the jury to award a defense verdict.   The Jury deliberated for approximately 3 hours before returning a verdict in favor of the Plaintiff in the amount of $100,000.  That verdict was well below the defendant’s pre-trial offer of $225,000.  Further the defense had filed an offer of settlement under O.C.G.A. 9-11-68 in that amount as well and Mr. Eidex announced his intention to file a motion for all of the fees and costs of the defense under the Offer of Settlement.

The hearing on attorneys fees under O.C.G.A. 9-11-68 was held this month where Mr. Eidex was cross examined about his fees.  Following the hearing, the Court issued an award of fees in favor of Mr. Eidex’ client and against the Plaintiff in the amount of $175,054.45.  the Plaintiff was represented by Morgan & Morgan.

Plaintiff Appealed from the award of fees and this week the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the award and further found  that ” Here, as discussed above, Hill utterly failed to show any basis for reversing the trial court’s order, and there was no reason whatsoever for Hill to anticipate a reversal of the trial court’s order based on the arguments that he advanced on appeal since the arguments are either wholly devoid of support from the record or are clearly contradicted by the record. Consequently, we conclude that this appeal was brought only for purposes of delay.”

The Court of Appeals assessed frivolous appeal fees pursuant to O.C.G.A. 5-6-6 of ” 10 percent of the attorney fee award, $17,505.44″  which will be added to the trial court fees award upon remittitur.

The Order Affirming the award of Fees and assessing frivolous appeal sanctions can be found here.

The original Order for fees can be found here.

The original case is Case is Jordan Hill v. Connie Frew,  State Court of Fulton County CAFN 20EV002660, the Appellate case number is A24A1606.

Read more about Partner Jay Eidex here.

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