It appears a legal malpractice lawsuit against Alston & Bird will once again offer the Court of Appeals of Georgia an opportunity to define the limits of the state's apportionment statute.

In February, Alston & Bird was hit with a verdict of more than $2 million in damages and fees following a two-week legal-malpractice trial. But jurors apportioned the bulk of the damages to a nonparty in a decision that left lawyers on each side arguing over the breakdown.

Alston & Bird's lawyers argued the total post-apportionment award was around $700,000, while the plaintiffs lawyers said the firm was liable for nearly all of the more than $2 million judgment.

On Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall came down on Alston & Bird's side, awarding $683,522 to plaintiff Hatcher Management Holdings.

“We are disappointed with the ruling and believe that the court got it wrong,” said Caldwell, Propst & DeLoach partner Jeremy Moeser. “We also believe that the Court of Appeals ultimately will reverse the ruling.”

Lead defense attorney Richard Robbins of Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield referred questions to Alston & Bird partner and general counsel Steve Collins, who declined to comment.

Hatcher Management, a family-owned company, sued Alston & Bird in 2012, alleging former partner Jack Sawyer helped onetime company manager Maury Hatcher loot the business of more than $1.5 million before decamping to Florida.

The company sued Hatcher and won a default judgment of more than $4 million that was never paid, then sued Alston & Bird.

The jury found Alston & Bird liable for legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty, awarding compensatory damages of $697,614 and interest of $341,831, for a total damage award of $1,039,445.

But the jury also found Maury Hatcher—who was not a defendant and did not appear at trial—liable for 60 percent of the damages. Plaintiff Hatcher Management itself was declared 8 percent at fault.

Alston & Bird was found liable for 32 percent of the damages.

Two of Hatcher's brothers, Barry and Jerry Hatcher—who took over as co-managers when Maury left—were assessed zero fault.

The jury then ruled that Alston & Bird's conduct did not rise to the level of “willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression or an entire want of care” such that punitive damages were warranted.

But it did say Alston & Bird engaged in bad faith and awarded $1,096,561 in attorney fees.

The total damages, interest and fees came to $2,136,006.

As soon as the jury was dismissed, the lawyers were on their feet, with lead plaintiffs attorney Harmon Caldwell and Moeser arguing that the only reduction in the award should be the 8 percent of damages ascribed to Hatcher Management.

Under that reasoning, Alston & Bird would be on the hook for $2,052,850.

Robbins countered that the entire award—damages, interest and fees—should be subject to an across-the-board reduction of 68 percent, representing the fault assigned to the company and Maury Hatcher.

Schwall asked the parties to brief the subject. The plaintiff's brief argued the apportionment statute says nothing about reducing damages levied against anyone except the plaintiff and that Alston & Bird was thus responsible for 92 percent of the damages and all of the legal fee award.

Alston & Bird's brief said the apportionment was a simple “matter of arithmetic.”

“The jury determined that 68 percent of the damages was the fault of plaintiff and a nonparty,” it said.

“Under the law, defendant cannot be found liable for that portion of the damages determined by the jury to be proximately caused by others,” it said.

Regarding the attorney fees, “the law is clear that expenses of litigation, including attorneys' fees, is a component of compensatory damages,” it said. Thus, “they must be reduced like other components of damage, based on the jury's findings of the amount Alston & Bird was at fault relative to other parties and non-parties.”

Schwall's May 22 judgment agreed, reducing the entire award by 68 percent.

The case has already been before the Court of Appeals once on an apportionment issue. Three years ago, Alston & Bird filed a notice of nonparty fault and intended to ask the jury to apportion fault to parties including Maury, Barry and Jerry Hatcher.

The company objected, arguing that the apportionment statute only applied to cases involving multiple defendants, and Schwall refused to allow the nonparties to be added to the case.

The law firm appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed, citing a 2015 Georgia Supreme Court case, Zaldivar v. Pritchett, 297 Ga. 589.

That ruling said the apportionment statute “requires the trier of fact in cases to which the statute applies to 'consider the fault of all persons or entities who contributed to the alleged injury or damages,'” including parties other than the plaintiff and defendant.

The Georgia Supreme Court denied cert, and on remand Schwall allowed Alston & Bird to add Maury Hatcher and his brothers to the verdict form.