Thomas Wyatt Palmer

Practices

• Business Litigation
• Intellectual Property
• Product Liability Litigation

Professional Experience

Professional Experience

Tom practices in the Business Litigation and Product Liability Litigation practice groups. He represents businesses and individuals in a wide variety of subjects, including trademark infringement, copyright infringement, employer intentional tort, CERCLA, commercial contract disputes, construction contract disputes, shareholder derivative actions, breaches of fiduciary duty, breach of warranty and product defect, FDA regulations, product liability, premises liability, real property tax appeals, and pro bono criminal defense. Tom has resolved these disputes in Court and by mediation.

Tom has significant experience in the following matters encountered by major manufacturers and franchisors: prosecuting and defending federal trademark infringement and dilution actions; enforcing non-compete and non-disclosure agreements; obtaining temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions in both federal and state court, and defeating employer intentional tort actions.

Tom also practices before appellate courts, has argued before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, authored a winning brief before the Fifth District Court of Appeals of Ohio, and authored a victorious Petition for Writ of Certiorari before The Supreme Court of the United States.

Tom is admitted to practice in Ohio, in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of Ohio, the United States District Court for Eastern District of Michigan and in the United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Circuit.

Education

• The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law, J.D., 2000
• The Ohio State University, B.A., 1993

• Repeatedly represented and advise Ohio based international landscape contractor. Most significant representation was defense against Fortune 500 international retail conglomerate and property owner asserting claims for product defect, breach of service contracts, and breach of implied warranties based upon the death of hundreds of trees at a regional shopping center. After largely successful motions to dismiss, settled the matter for one-tenth of the plaintiff's alleged damages.
• Won summary judgment and appeal of an employee's claim that the employer's failure to provide protective equipment caused the former employee to be showered with molten metal.  See Russell v. Nippert Co., 2003 Ohio 6016.
• Successfully settled multi-million dollar claim against international manufacturer of copper wire and copper parts that workplace exposure to cobalt dust caused hard metal lung disease and heart failure.
• Won numerous applications for temporary restraining order and for preliminary injunction in federal and state courts. Most frequent prosecutions involve protecting a client's rights under the Lanham Act, state trade secret law, and non-compete agreements. Significant representation of franchisers enjoining rogue franchisees. This experience encompasses expedited motion practice, expedited discovery, and evidentiary hearings of applications for preliminary injunction.
• Argued before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and authored a victorious Petition for Writ of Certiorari.  See United States v. Robinson, 116 Fed. Appx. 646 (6th Cir. 2004); Miles v. United States, 544 U.S. 1059 (2005).
• Won appeals of real property tax assessments for national communications company throughout Ohio.
• Represent company which develops isometric therapies used to reduce hypertension in the U.S.D.C. for the District of Idaho.  Defenses and counterclaims involve numerous contract issues, violations of FDA regulations, disputes over the scope of intellectual property to be assigned as part of stock purchase, tax exempt status of stock purchase, lapse of patent rights, potential patent infringement, breach of fiduciary duty, and a shareholder derivative action.
• Part of the team which successfully resolved the issue whether a property owner’s claims directly against a subcontractor for breach of an implied warranty to perform a service absent privity of contract is barred by the economic loss doctrine in the Ohio Supreme Court.  See Corporex Dev. & Constr. Mgt., Inc. v. Shook, Inc. (2005), 106 Ohio St.3d 412.

• French