The Starnes Davis Florie LLP trial team representing Plaintiffs, Drummond Company, Inc., and Drummond Ltd., includes Trey Wells, Ben Presley, Tony Davis, Blair Trotter, Kamryn Carpenter, Laura Alice Hillhouse, and Joseph Stipp, along with Sara Kropf of Kropf Moseley Schmitt in Washington, D.C.
Starnes secured a major victory for Drummond in this long-running, high-profile litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The dispute originated from allegations that defendant Terrence P. Collingsworth made false and defamatory statements accusing Drummond of involvement in human rights abuses in Colombia, including hiring paramilitary groups to commit scores of murders. Drummond discovered that Collingsworth and his associates, while representing hundreds of plaintiffs in prior Alien Tort Statute actions against Drummond, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the benefit of witnesses (many imprisoned in Colombia, South America) who testified against Drummond. After this evidence came to light in the defamation suit, Drummond filed a second suit alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). After the court denied summary judgment in December 2024 (allowing the RICO and defamation claims to proceed) and granted Drummond’s motion for spoliation sanctions in May 2025 for defendants’ missing emails and other information, both cases proceeded to a consolidated trial. The trial, originally scheduled for 6 weeks beginning December 1, 2025, resulted in a substantial Plaintiff verdict in Drummond’s favor, awarding $68 million on the RICO claims, plus $26 million in compensatory damages and $26 million in punitive damages on the defamation claim. After trebling under RICO statutes, the total award reached $256 million. This verdict positions Starnes Davis Florie’s win as the second-largest jury award in the history of Alabama, the largest federal jury award in the history of Alabama, and the largest federal jury award in Eleventh Circuit history. The multi-year case centered on complex issues, including alleged witness bribery, obstruction of justice, money laundering, extortion, attorney misconduct in international human rights litigation, and the crime-fraud exception to privilege (Drummond Co. v. Conrad & Scherer, LLP, 885 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 2018)). Starnes’s representation delivered key favorable rulings throughout. This landmark verdict secured a resounding win for Drummond, which has long suffered under a cloud of heinous allegations that a jury has now unanimously determined were false.
