Firm Secures Preliminary Injunction in Baldwin County Bridge Litigation Dispute
May, 2023 - New York, New York
On May 17, 2023, Patterson Belknap, along with co-counsel Melton Espy & Williams and Armbrecht Jackson, secured a significant victory on behalf of their client, the Baldwin County Bridge Company LLC (“BCBC”), when a judge granted injunctive relief against the Director of the Alabama Department of Transportation (“ALDOT”), John Cooper. The firm represented BCBC, which owns and operates a toll bridge in Baldwin County, Alabama over the Intracoastal Waterway, in its pursuit of a court order to preliminarily enjoin bad faith conduct on the part of the ALDOT Director.
Following a seven-day hearing, a Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Jimmy B. Pool granted BCBC’s request for a preliminary injunction and ruled that Director Cooper had acted in “bad faith” and attempted to put a “private company out of business” by causing ALDOT to pursue a $120 million bridge just a mile away from BCBC’s bridge. The judge ordered that all construction of the Director’s proposed new bridge—which the trial court dubbed the “Cooper Bridge”—be stopped pending the outcome of the case and criticized Director Cooper for engaging in a “years’ long campaign” to put BCBC out of business.
“Director Cooper’s outrageous conduct in embarking on spending more than $120 million of State funds, on a bridge that ALDOT does not need, for the purpose of putting a private company out of business shocks the conscience of the Court,” Judge Pool wrote in his order.
The Patterson Belknap team, which included Peter Tomlinson, Henry Ricardo, Clint Morrison, Isaac Weingram, Shelley Attadgie, Michael Halper, Charlotte Allyn, Lauren Doxey, and Tammy Appelbaum, was featured in the American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Week” column for their work on the case.
To read the Notice of Order, please click here.
To read press coverage from The American Lawyer, please click here.
To read press coverage from Law360, please click here.
