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Allergy & Asthma Network/Mothers of Asthmatics (“Mothers”) and its CEO Tonya Winders can breathe a little easier now that Carter Arnett led the successful defense against a $224 million suit filed in federal court in San Antonio, Texas.

The trial team consisted of E. Leon Carter, Linda Stahl, Courtney Barksdale Perez, Joshua J. Bennett and Stacey C. Hernandez of Carter Arnett, a Dallas-based litigation boutique, and David Prichard of Prichard Hawkins Young, based in San Antonio.

During the three-week jury trial, the defense team had the daunting task of disproving a theory that Mothers and Winders conspired in violation of federal antitrust laws to put United Allergy Services (“UAS”) and the Academy of Allergy and Asthma in Primary Care (“AAAPC”), an organization that purports to represent primary care physicians who provide allergy testing and immunotherapy, out of business.

The defendants were added to the suit in 2015 and the other defendants had settled prior to trial. All other defendants chose to settle due to the high cost of litigation; however, the Network and Winders refused to be silenced. At the close of the evidence, the jury unanimously found that Mothers and Winders did not conspire with the allergists in violation of federal antitrust laws as alleged, did not interfere with UAS or AAAPC’s business relations, and further found that Mothers and Winders acted solely to petition the government to protect patients in accordance with their First Amendment rights.

“We are extremely pleased with the just and correct outcome of this case,” Winders said last week. “We remained confident in a successful verdict throughout the entire 4-year process and the jury did a great job making this decision.