David A. Davenport

• Representation of Cottages of Stewartville and Stewartville Development Corporation, a local partnership and affordable housing developer, in a “year 15 exit dispute” involving an affordable housing project. The dispute arose after the investor limited partner fully exhausted the tax credits available to the partnership and sought to exit the partnership with a forced sale of the project by unreasonably withholding consent to allow the general partner to refinance project debt.  Successfully obtained an injunction and court order that allowed his clients to refinance the project debt without the investor limited partner’s consent and prohibited the investor limited partner from involuntarily removing his client from the partnership.  Following the injunction, the case proceeded to a trial more than a year later.  Ultimately, the Court ruled in favor of our clients and confirmed that the investor limited partner had unreasonably withheld consent to refinance.
• Representation of Pelican Rapids Leased Housing Associates I, L.P., a local partnership and affiliate of a large, national affordable housing developer, in a “year 15 exit dispute” involving an investor limited partner’s refusal to consent to a refinance of project debt. The refinance was needed to avoid the Partnership’s default on its long-term debt financing obligations that were scheduled to mature, but the investor limited partner was refusing consent for the refinance and demanding to be paid the return of its invested amount in exchange for exiting the partnership to nullify the need for its consent for a refinance.  We successfully obtained an injunction allowing for a short-term refinance without the investor’s consent, which was then followed approximately six months later by a favorable summary judgment order finding that the investor limited partner had unreasonably and unlawfully withheld consent to refinance as a means to obtain rights that it otherwise did not have (i.e., a forced buy-out of its interests).
• Representation of CommonBond Communities, a long-standing non-profit affordable housing developer in Minnesota who was looking to exercise a right of first refusal to purchase its partner’s interest in an affordable housing project for seniors at a fixed and discounted price, based on the project’s existing debt and taxes owed.  CommonBond’s limited partner in the development project sought, instead, to require CommonBond to pay market value for the property, thus putting the future of the senior-based affordable housing project in jeopardy by making it too expensive to continue to operate.  We demonstrated to the court that the original contract, drafted twenty years prior, had a mutual mistake in it, which lead to the court’s ultimate decision to reform the contract to allow CommonBond to buy the property at the lower price and continue to operate the senior home.

• Representation of St. Paul Leased Housing Associates IV, an affiliate of Dominium Development & Acquisition, in a land use dispute involving more than a dozen residents seeking to challenge and overturn a conditional use permit issued by the City of St. Paul for the development and construction of an affordable housing project approved by the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission. We successfully secured summary judgment, ensuring that the project could be developed and constructed as planned and on schedule.
• Representation of Pioneer-Endicott, LLC, and others, in what began as a mechanic’s lien action filed against our client by a construction contractor, and ended with a favorable settlement for our client. Under the settlement, the contractor made a cash payment and was required to provide mandatory repairs and remediation work related to several design defect and warranty based claims.  Later, when the repairs and remediation work were not provided nor satisfactorily performed, our client received an additional, substantial monetary payment.
• Representation of a large residential and commercial real estate developer in a matter involving allegations of fraud, in which we successfully secured a $6.5 million settlement on behalf of his client.

Representation of a partner in a real estate holding company, with a variety of holdings and related interests, in which we obtained the appointment of a receiver to take control of and operate the holding company in a manner consistent with the best interests of the partnership rather than in the best interests of the managing partner adverse to our client.  Ultimately, we were able to secure a court approved settlement under which our client became the sole owner of the holding company.

• Representation of Jodi Schwendimann, Cooler Concepts, and NuCoat in a patent infringement case spanning more than nine years where , we successfully proved during a ten-day jury trial that industry giant Arkwright Advanced Coating, Inc. (“AACI”) had willfully infringed Ms. Schwendimann’s patents covering single-step, iron-on image transfer sheets for dark colored t-shirts. We also successfully protected Ms. Schwendimann against allegations that she infringed, through her companies, patents owned by AACI by obtaining a verdict that included a determination that one of AACI’s patents was invalid.
• Representation of Candyland, Inc. in three separate trademark infringement matters relating to its CHICAGO MIX® popcorn, a unique blend of traditional, caramel, and cheese flavored popcorns. All three lawsuits were resolved very favorably for Candyland, including resulting in a permanent injunction barring further use of Candyland’s trademarks by Snyder’s-Lance Inc., CaramelCrisp, LLC (also known as Garrett Popcorn Shops) and Cornfields, Inc., which makes G.H. Cretors popcorn for retailers such as Costco, Whole Foods and Hy-Vee.  The cases received wide-attention by local news outlines, including a syndicated story by CBS News Minneapolis and another story by Fox9 News.
• Representation of MJ Solutions GmbH, a patent owner who had licensed its patents to Arkwright Advanced Coatings, Inc., in an arbitration commenced by Arkwright seeking a judicial declaration that it was no longer required to make royalty payments under the license agreement and had been justified in its prior withholding of payments to MJ Solutions. After a week-long arbitration hearing, we successfully demonstrated that Arkwright was in breach of the license agreement and MJ Solutions was permitted to terminate the license agreement.  The arbitrator agreed with our client’s case, rejected the relief Arkwright sought, awarded MJ Solutions over $500,000 in past due royalties and other damages, and permanently enjoined Arkwright from continuing to practice the patented technology.  We successfully secured confirmation of the award in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota and Arkwright is no longer manufacturing or selling the competing technology.
• Representation of Asset Marketing Services, Inc. and New York Mint, leaders in the numismatics industry with over 500 employees nationally, in matters involving theft of customer lists, customer information and other valuable trade secrets in which we successfully obtained temporary and permanent injunctive relief, among other remedies, against former employees and companies engaged in unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets.