FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Bethesda, MD) — On January 19, 2017, a federal jury in Maryland returned a verdict in favor of Mezeh Mediterranean Grill on trademark infringement and unfair competition claims brought by one of its larger competitors. The lawsuit, brought by Cava Group, Inc., claimed that Mezeh’s logo unfairly infringed on one of Cava’s […]
Read more...Category: Litigation
Bad Agreements with Bad Actors: A Few Words on Contracts
Contracts are a necessary element of business. They form the relationships and set the expectations on which we all rely as businesspeople. But, at the end of the day, a contract is nothing more than a promise. And a promise, as we all know, is only as good as the person who makes it. When […]
Read more...Hooters Waves White Flag: Will Voluntarily Close Rather than Face Revocation
There are some battles that are just not worth fighting, apparently. For the Rockville, Maryland Hooters restaurant that was charged with overserving the drunk driver who killed Montgomery County police officer Noah Leotta late last year, that would include the battle to save their liquor license. The restaurant faced a show cause hearing before the […]
Read more...Landlords Come and Go. It’s What Your Lease Says That Matters Most.
Commercial leases, like most contracts, are subject to interpretation. Clauses and terms that may seem clear at the time they are drafted can later become ambiguous, or subject to more than one understanding, especially when words on paper become applied to real life situations. Or the terms may be unclear on their face, and such […]
Read more...Lawsuit: DC Waterfront Developers Trying to Drive Us Out of Business
In a federal lawsuit filed last month, the owners of two fish markets and a seafood deli located at the Maine Avenue waterfront in Southwest Washington, DC, have sued the developers of the massive “Wharf” project for violating their lease and trying to drive them out of business. As expected the lawsuit has gotten significant media attention, […]
Read more...UPDATE: SHA Opts Not to Appeal Pre-Condemnation Ruling from Montgomery County
This is to provide an update on this story from earlier this year, where we successfully defended a property owner’s right to deny the State Highway Administration’s efforts to gain access to his property for environmental testing, and actually had the statute in question declared unconstitutional. As matters turned out, the State Highway Administration did not appeal this […]
Read more...Montgomery County Judge Declares Key Maryland Eminent Domain Statute Unconstitutional
On Monday, July 14, a judge of the Montgomery County Circuit Court declared unconstitutional a long-standing law that permits the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) to obtain a court order allowing it to enter private property, without the landowner’s consent, and conduct intrusive drilling, soil sampling, and subsurface engineering studies. The law has been on […]
Read more...Bethesda Apartment Building Construction Causing Closures, Spawning Lawsuits
In the last two years, the Woodmont Triangle area of downtown Bethesda has seen a building boom in high-rise luxury apartment buildings. Construction of one of those buildings, however, appears to be taking its toll on some established local businesses, and has now caused the closing of two local restaurants and an automotive repair shop. […]
Read more...Court of Appeals (Again) Declines to Bring Dram Shop Liability to Maryland
In a closely watched case (and one I have written about here, here, and here), the Maryland Court of Appeals last month, in a 4-3 decision, declined to recognize dram shop liability in the state of Maryland. Dram shop liability is a theory of liability that holds a restaurant or tavern owner accountable if a […]
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