2022 Attorneys of the Year: Jim Koch v. SKT/Koch Trucking, Randy Koch and Dave Koch

His war was against his brothers and two family-owned businesses, Koch Industries and Stan Koch and Sons trucking, owned by Jim and his brothers, David and Randy. He was represented by a team from Anthony Ostlund Louwagie Dressen & Boylan, including Richard T. Ostlund, Randy Gullickson, Shannon Awsumb, Joe Jankowski and paralegal Shannon Flinn.

Jim wanted to separate from the family business, essentially controlled by his brothers, but it wasn’t easy. It resulted in a $12 million jury verdict as well as a $58.8 million stock buy-out award by the court. Attorney fees and expert witness fees were added. The verdict earned interest at 10% starting in July 2021.

The case settled right before Christmas, after almost exactly four years and more than 500 court documents after it was filed. Jim Koch relinquished his claim for about $1.58 million in statutory interest.

An attorney from another firm said in the team’s nomination, “This is an incredibly successful result in an important case of local significance, which was well-covered by the press. I litigate in this area and have been against or on the same side of most of the team members, and I am honored to nominate them for this award.”

Ostlund said, “The significance of the Koch judgment is how this decision reinforces the shareholder protection principles of the $45.2 million Lund decision issued in 2017, also to an Anthony Ostlund trial team which included members of the Koch team.

“The Koch decision is also a testament to 35 years of close collaboration between Randy Gullickson and me — together we have built a practice that has now involved hundreds of cases across America. The value of talented, committed teammates has been essential to our success in these always hard-fought cases.”

Read more about Minnesota Lawyer’s superb class of Attorneys of the Year for 2022 here.