Nowell Berreth focuses his practice on representing agribusinesses in litigation and general counseling, working frequently on matters concerning the Packers & Stockyards Act, the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, the Capper-Volstead Act and other agricultural statutes. He works with producers and distributors of many agricultural products, including poultry, peanuts, pork, eggs, fresh produce, corn and soybeans. He also works on immigration issues related to agribusinesses. He is the past chair of the State Bar of Georgia’s Agricultural Law Section and has served on the Advisory Board of the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas Law School. He leads the firm’s agribusiness practice team. He is active in the American Agricultural Law Association and the Georgia Agribusiness Council, and is a frequent speaker across the country on agricultural law issues. Before joining the firm, he served two years as a federal court law clerk to the Honorable Willis B. Hunt, Jr., U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Representative agriculture experience:
- Representing a major agricultural lender in peanut-related litigation in a Georgia Superior Court.
- Lead trial counsel for one of the largest integrated poultry companies in the United States in the successful defense of claims brought under the Packers & Stockyards Act and the Agricultural Fair Practices Act.
- Served as counsel to a large cooperative representing egg producers.
- Representing a large peanut marketing company in litigation involving long-term peanut supply contracts.
- Trial counsel for a large integrated poultry company in a week-long jury trial in the Superior Court of Walton County, Georgia. The jury awarded the company more than $630,000 in damages on its breach of contract claims and awarded the defendant nothing on its counterclaim.
- Counsel for a large integrated poultry company in the successful defense of claims arising out of a delayed freight train. The arbitration panel found for the company on all claims and awarded the plaintiff nothing.
- Counsel to numerous produce companies in successful efforts to obtain injunctive and monetary relief in Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act cases in federal and state courts.
Representative fiduciary litigation experience:
- Lead trial counsel for co-trustees and co-executors in the successful defense against multimillion-dollar claims for breach of fiduciary duty and other torts. The trial court granted a summary judgment in our clients’ favor and there was no appeal.
- Counsel for a charitable foundation’s trustees in a successful appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court in a case involving the disposition of a multimillion-dollar estate.
Representative other litigation experience:
- Obtained a judgment for more than $5 million as trial counsel in a breach of fiduciary duties case in the Superior Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia.
- Lead trial counsel for a worldwide transportation and logistics company in two arbitrations seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars for shipments of computers that had been lost or damaged by trucking firms. Both arbitration panels awarded the company all the damages it sought.
- Counsel for a Fortune 25 company in the successful defense of the constitutionality of the North Carolina punitive damages cap in a case involving a jury verdict of $20,000 in compensatory damages but $23 million in punitive damages.
Past Events
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September 18, 2009
Seminar
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September 26, 2008
Seminar
- American Agricultural Law Association
- Georgia Agribusiness Council
- Georgia Agritourism Association
- State Bar of Georgia’s Agricultural Law Section
- Advisory Board of the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas Law School
- International Food and Agribusiness Management Association