Litigation in Hospitality

Our litigators are called into service by our hospitality clients to handle challenges in the courtroom, and before issues become litigation. With more than 200 litigators, including experienced trial lawyers, we help hospitality clients resolve all manner of disputes.

We handle commercial, labor and employment, regulatory, and intellectual property disputes, as well as internal and government investigations, in the courts and in arbitration and mediation.


Experience
+

  • We provide a leading operator of food and beverage concessions in the U.S. and Canada with more than 200 outlets in 29 airports with litigation counsel in disputes with municipalities and joint venture partners
  • We represented a national hotel chain in complex, nationwide construction defect litigation involving more than 50 lawsuits and more than 250 parties, relating to more than 200 hotels with total claims in the tens of millions of dollars. Venable's trial team won a significant jury verdict, resulting in a $1.2 million judgment for its client for damage sustained at a single hotel. Following commencement of a second jury trial, the defendants entered into an extremely favorable settlement for the remainder of the claims
  • We defended a Florida resort in a patent infringement action brought by a patent holding company regarding the patent known in trade circles as the "JPEG-On-The-Internet" patent, obtaining an early dismissal of the case with prejudice
  • We obtained a negotiated settlement in federal court entering a permanent injunction on behalf of a historic hotel and park located in Colorado, preventing a local developer from developing a site across the street with condominiums, retail stores, and a wedding banquet hall, using a name that was confusingly similar to the name of the hotel
  • We settled a case favorably for a hospitality company that sued its former affiliate located in the United Kingdom for using a converted domain name to offer hotel reservations in the United States, beyond the scope of the defendant’s trademark rights
  • On behalf of a hospitality client, we won a significant employment case in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, affirming a summary judgment ruling which determined that discharging an employee for making only internal complaints did not violate "a clear mandate of public policy" under state law sufficient to create an exception to the employment-at-will doctrine. This case sets new precedent in the employment-at-will doctrine
  • We obtained an almost $10 million judgment for a group of hotel developers in a fraud action against their lender, and a related multi-million-dollar settlement (after three weeks of trial) with a major national bank for its negligence in the transaction

Recognition
+

  • U.S. News – Best Lawyers
    • Best Law Firms, Commercial Litigation (Tier 1), National, 2020, 2022
    • Best Law Firms, Commercial Litigation (Tier 1), Baltimore, 2020, 2022 – 2023
    • Best Law Firms, Commercial Litigation (Tier 1), Washington, DC, 2020, 2022 – 2023
    • Best Law Firms, Commercial Litigation (Tier 2), Baltimore, 2011 – 2019, 2023
    • Best Law Firms, Commercial Litigation (Tier 2), Washington, DC, 2011 – 2019
  • Chambers USA
    • Commercial Litigation, Maryland, 2016 – 2018, 2020 – 2023
    • Commercial Litigation, Virginia, 2016 – 2023
    • Commercial Litigation, New York, 2021 – 2023