Jeanne A. Fugate
fugate@caldwell-leslie.com

Jeanne Fugate has a wide-ranging practice including complex commercial litigation, white-collar criminal defense, and entertainment litigation. She has litigated unfair competition cases, trademark disputes, and billboard property rights. At the beginning of 2009, she spent two months in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office TAP Program during which she took six criminal cases to jury verdicts. Ms. Fugate has been named as a Rising Star in the Los Angeles Magazine/Law and Politics Southern California Super Lawyers edition 2009.

Ms. Fugate joined Caldwell Leslie in March 2005 after clerking with the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Honorable Robert W. Sweet, Senior Judge of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. Prior to that, Ms. Fugate was an associate at the law firm of Arnold & Porter in the firm's New York office. Ms. Fugate attended New York University School of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude in May 2001 and was elected to Order of the Coif.

Before attending law school, Ms. Fugate worked as a journalist, covering higher education for The Durham Herald-Sun (North Carolina). Ms. Fugate also served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel, the 35,000-circulation daily newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which Ms. Fugate graduated, summa cum laude, in 1997.

Representative Cases

 Ms. Fugate, along with Robyn Crowther, obtained a writ of supersedeas staying a preliminary injunction on behalf of entrepreneurs challenging the enforceability of non-competition clauses.

 In a corporate embezzlement case, Ms. Fugate worked with Dave Willingham to bring an action against a former employee who had embezzled from the company and, in less than one week, successfully recovered approximately $1 million for the client.

 Ms. Fugate, along with Michael Proctor, obtained the affirmance of a judgment after a ten-day bench trial for an outdoor advertising company, allowing the company to continue to operate a billboard and including an award of almost $500,000 in attorney fees and costs.

 Ms. Fugate, along with Andy Esbenshade, handled a class action on behalf of investors who lost money in a complex Ponzi scheme. Ms. Fugate played a key role in defeating several motions to dismiss, obtaining class certification, and eventually settling the case in order to obtain for the class more than seventeen million dollars in settlements with two major financial institutions and an accounting firm that were alleged to have aided the operators of the financial scheme.

 Ms. Fugate worked with Chris Caldwell and Robyn Crowther to obtain a complete defense judgment on behalf of Oscar®-winning actor Robert De Niro. In the case, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., which insured the film Hide and Seek in 2003, accused Mr. De Niro of intentionally withholding information about his cancer diagnosis during a cast medical examination. The Caldwell Leslie team won summary judgment against Fireman’s Fund, and the case was dismissed in favor of Mr. De Niro.

 Ms. Fugate collaborated with Linda Burrow to obtain summary judgment in favor of Warner Bros. in a trademark matter in the Middle District of Florida. The Eleventh Circuit recently affirmed the ruling. In ruling for Warner Bros., the Court agreed with Ms. Burrow and Ms. Fugate’s argument that the "Elimidate Ironman Challenge" did not infringe the Ironman Triathlon trademarks because the term "ironman" is commonly used to describe persons of unusual endurance and thus the Plaintiffs’ marks were entitled only to limited protection.

 Ms. Fugate successfully defeated two summary judgment motions in an adversary proceeding in which the firm represented a bankruptcy trustee pursuing a novel application of the seminal case, Jewel v. Boxer, 156 Cal.App.3d 171 (1984).

 In a groundbreaking and published decision, Michael Proctor and Ms. Fugate won a complete dismissal of all charges against their client, who was charged with "harboring" her fugitive husband. The Federal court ruled that Federal prosecutors had arrested the client without probable cause to believe a crime had been committed. The client was released and all charges were dismissed seven days after the case was filed by the United States Attorney’s Office.

Education and Honors

J.D. New York University School of Law, 2001
magna cum laude
Order of the Coif
Member, NYU Law Review
Jack and Susan Rudin Scholar
Orison Marden Moot Court Competition, Best Brief, Fall 1999
Teaching Assistant to Professor Derrick Bell, Constitutional Law (Fall 2000),
and to Dean John Sexton, Civil Procedure (Fall 1999)

B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997
summa cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa
Recipient, Whitfield Prize, 1997
Undergraduate Woman of the Year, 1996

Clerkship

Law Clerk to the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 2003-04

Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert W. Sweet, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 2002-03

Professional Achievements

Member, California State Bar; New York State Bar; Central District of California; Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Author, Who's Failing Whom? A Critical Look at Failure-to-Protect Laws, 76 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 272 (2001)