Denise M. Hasbrook

Denise has handled multiple trials to verdict in numerous Ohio trial courts and argued dozens of appeals in state, federal courts and at the Ohio Supreme Court. She focuses her practice on commercial business disputes involving torts, unfair competition, real property disputes, contracts, employment claims and shareholder disputes. She likewise has substantial experience obtaining and defending claims for injunctive relief.

For more than four decades, she has devoted a significant portion of her practice to issues facing the electric public utility industry. In addition to this emphasis, she regularly counsels and defends national and small businesses of all kinds in litigation facing their businesses.

Experience

• Lead trial counsel in dozens of jury and bench trials involving employment, business disputes and torts of all kinds
• Lead counsel in a case that established a bright line test for the age difference of a significantly younger employee in age discrimination; the decision was selected by Ohio Lawyers Weekly and Michigan Lawyers Weekly as one of the six most important judicial decisions in federal courts in Ohio and Michigan that year
• Argued over 40 cases in multiple Ohio appellate district courts and at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
• Argued and briefed 5 cases before the Ohio Supreme Court resulting in key decisions affecting the electric utility industry including Corrigan v. Illum. Co. 2009-Ohio-2524 defining the exclusive jurisdiction of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to determine service related issues and more recently Corder v. Ohio Edison Co. 2024-Ohio-5432 clarifying that herbicides and other modern methods may be used by utilities to maintain vegetation in their easements throughout Ohio
• Assisted as counsel on the litigation team obtaining successful result for Northwest Ohio hospital system in Federal Court antitrust litigation
• Successfully defended a claim against the former CEO of a publicly traded company seeking indemnification for substantial legal fees paid by the company to defend his criminal charges
• Successful results obtained in numerous disputes involving fiduciary duties owed to minority shareholders
• Injunctive relief successfully obtained in multiple cases for one of the nation’s largest public utilities seeking to site and maintain facilities within its utility easements including obtaining an injunction against a state agency to halt construction of a public welfare project in dangerously close proximity to energized lines