Back to all newsCW wraps up decade-long legal battle with $2.6 million settlement
October 2024
In 2011, Cohen Williams’ client, a top Los Angeles interior designer, was hired by a Beverly Hills homeowner to redecorate his home. In 2013, the designer sued the homeowner for breach of contract when he failed to pay some of her invoices. In response, the homeowner countersued, claiming that the designer had violated Contractor State Licensing Law by working as an unlicensed contractor, fraudulently overbilled him, negligently damaged his home, and breached their contract. The homeowner sought in excess of a million dollars in damages, including full disgorgement of everything he paid CW’s client, the amount of purported overcharges, and costs of repair, plus punitive damages.
In 2019, CW substituted into the case to represent the designer and successfully opposed summary adjudication. In 2022, the case proceeded to trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. CW’s trial team, led by partner Marc Williams and counsel Neil Jahss, achieved a resounding victory, with the jury rejecting all of the homeowner’s claims and awarding CW’s client damages on her breach of contract cause of action. The trial court then granted CW’s motions for over $1.7 million in attorneys’ fees. When the homeowner challenged the jury’s verdict and the trial court’s award of attorneys’ fees in California’s Second District Court of Appeal, CW convinced the court to unanimously affirm. CW then used this decision as leverage to negotiate a settlement of $2.6 million with the homeowner, which included interest on the judgment and further attorneys’ fees for post-judgment proceedings and the appeal.