01/16/2026
In the fall of 2017, Brookhaven, Georgia, was asked to abandon a city street so a developer could build a condominium project. The price was too low for a host of reasons. Over the next 12 months and multiple negotiation sessions, the parties could not agree. The road abandonment was denied, and the project did not get built. The developer sued and the case went to trial. The jury found the City, the Mayor, and the City Manager liable for over $6.2 million believing the public officials and the City had unlawfully interfered with the project.
After two trips to the Court of Appeals, and a judge acknowledging her mistakes from the first trial in between, today the case is finally over and the error that was Ardent v. Brookhaven has been vanquished. For the record, we were right all along and it is the work of my co-counsel Ted Meeker and I that preserved the errors and got this result, though no one in Brookhaven will acknowledge that fact today.
