Select Cases & Results
United States Supreme Court
Successfully obtained certiorari review in case challenging the “separate sovereigns” exception to the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause. Client had been convicted as a felon-in-possession of a firearm in both federal and state court in Alabama. Emmett, one of three attorneys working on the certiorari portion of the case, was the sole author of the reply brief that immediately preceded the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari. The case subsequently was argued on the merits before the Supreme Court in December 2018.
Ohio Trial Court
Emmett’s client, the plaintiff in this matter, filed suit seeking to collect on promissory notes issued by defendant Guardian Manufacturing Company LLC, a manufacturer of protective gloves. Originally filed by other counsel in July 2019, the case languished for nine months prior to Emmett’s involvement. Previous counsel failed to conduct proper discovery and missed the summary-judgment briefing deadline. The court granted a short extension of that deadline, and the plaintiff terminated prior counsel and retained Emmett. Emmett was able to draft and file a motion for summary judgment only 3 days after first appearing as counsel in the case. The Court of Common Pleas for Huron County, Ohio, granted the motion for summary judgment, and the case ultimately settled for a sum in excess of that awarded by the court.
Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals
Appellant, while represented by other counsel, pled guilty to several white-collar offenses—including money laundering, forgery, and aggravated theft—stemming from alleged diversion and personal use of hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to appellant’s employer. Appellant was sentenced to consecutive maximum sentences. Emmett joined the case on appeal, drafted the appellate briefs and, with his colleagues at Flannery Georgalis, convinced Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals that the case should be sent back to the trial court for resentencing.
Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals
Emmett obtained complete reversal of a jury verdict and trial-court judgment ordering his trust-beneficiary client—who also served as trustee of the at-issue family trust—to pay a large, six-figure sum in actual and punitive damages to another trust beneficiary. Following briefing and oral argument, the court of appeals held, as urged by Emmett, that the trial court’s decision was both contrary to law and unsupported by the evidence. The court of appeals agreed with Emmett’s arguments, including that the trial court had applied inappropriate burdens and standards of proof and had misunderstood the elements of a claim of conversion. The court of appeals not only reversed the jury verdict against Emmett’s client, the defendant in the trial court; it also entered judgment in his client’s favor and ordered the plaintiff to reimburse his client for court costs.
Western District of Louisiana; Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
After R.J. Reynolds terminated its direct-distributor relationship with Plaintiff Caldwell Wholesale, Caldwell sued, alleging tortious interference with business and violations of the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act. Emmett authored R.J. Reynolds’s motion to dismiss and reply in support of the same, which resulted in a complete victory for R.J. Reynolds at the very outset of the case in the trial court. Caldwell appealed the trial court’s decision, and Emmett represented R.J. Reynolds before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court’s judgment.
District of Nevada; Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Obtained complete summary judgment in favor of consumer credit reporting company where plaintiff alleged violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Plaintiff subsequently appealed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But in light of the strength of Emmett’s arguments, plaintiff ultimately dismissed the appeal without further briefing or argument.
Select Additional Experience
- Represented an affiliate of a top-20 national bank in actions brought against the affiliate by a state worker’s compensation board. Emmett drafted the motion to dismiss in the first-filed case which induced the worker’s compensation board to settle on terms favorable to Emmett’s client.
- Represented a top-five national bank in a series of cases stemming from the 2008 financial crisis.
- Won dismissal of a securities class-action against a major manufacturing corporation and its CEO and CFO. The case arose from an accounting restatement that had caused the company’s stock price to drop dramatically. Emmett argued that the misconduct of a single low-level employee had necessitated the restatement and that the employee’s guilty state-of-mind—or scienter—should not be imputed to the company or its CEO and CFO. Emmett was the lead author of the successful briefs.
- Represented a client, convicted of murder in 1998, who sought exoneration based on the results of new DNA testing. The case involved multiple rounds of briefing before both the Ohio Ninth District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court.
- Emmett defended a major health care provider in a qui tam action brought under the federal and Indiana False Claims Acts. The case, in which Emmett drafted numerous briefs, was resolved on terms favorable to the client.
- Secured complete forgiveness of hundreds of thousands of dollars in National Health Service Corps scholarship debt owed by client to the Health Resources and Services Administration. Client was granted the scholarship on the condition that he serve as an NHSC dentist for a set number of years but was unable to complete dental school due to a troubling health diagnosis.