Won a jury verdict for DISH Wireless in a 9-figure contract dispute.

WTO won a defense jury verdict for DISH Wireless in a contract dispute with Crown Castle USA, Inc., the largest cell tower company in the nation. A Denver District Court jury rejected Crown Castle’s claim that DISH breached its lease—an allegation that stood to cost DISH hundreds of millions of dollars in additional rent at 20,000 cell tower sites DISH had leased from Crown Castle.  

Crown claimed DISH was taking up more ground space at tower sites than the parties had agreed because some of DISH’s equipment required maintenance to be performed from areas not leased by DISH. A Law360 article about the verdict quoted WTO lead trial counsel Hugh Gottschalk regarding the central issue in the case. "The question is, is DISH entitled to have repair people come by once a year and check the equipment and repair it? Or, for that right, are they obligated to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more in rent?" he said. Following eight days of trial, the jury returned a unanimous verdict for DISH.

After the trial, Judge Sarah Wallace told the jury that the trial was the best-lawyered trial she’d seen in her career. The WTO trial team included Gottschalk, Frederick Yarger, Ryan Cooke, and Rebekah Nickel.  Miranda Worthington and Alena Weicher were key behind the scenes contributors to the trial win.