August 28, 2026
Mlazgar Wins Commissions, Loses Millions to Hubbell Lighting
Jury awards $10.7 million to Hubbell as Mlazgar recovers roughly $1.48 million
A federal jury in Greenville needed one Thursday afternoon to do what four years of litigation could not: put a final number on the Mlazgar Associates vs. HLI Solutions, Inc. dispute. The defendant is better known to the industry as Hubbell Lighting, now rebranded as Current.
The jury returned a mixed verdict, finding that Mlazgar is owed roughly $1,478,848 on its commissions claim while owing Hubbell Lighting $10,724,898 on a breach of contract counterclaim.
Two claims won, one claim lost, and a $9.25 million gap between them. The outcome did not go Mlazgar's way.
— Inside Lighting (@InsLighting) August 28, 2026
An appeal looks close to inevitable. pic.twitter.com/TarAl3R8SL
Mlazgar's four-state territory generated about $27 million in annual Hubbell Lighting sales. At that scale, the $10.7 million award represents multiple years' worth of profit.
The dispute traces back to 2020, when Mlazgar acquired Elan Lighting, a Wisconsin sales agency that carried Cooper Lighting Solutions, and moved to represent both Cooper and Hubbell Lighting across the same territory. Hubbell Lighting terminated the relationship, and Mlazgar responded by claiming millions in damages, arguing the termination itself, and everything that followed it, was wrongful.
Stripped of its legal packaging, the claim asked jurors to decide whether Hubbell Lighting did more than simply benefit when Mlazgar employees left for a competitor. Mlazgar had to show Hubbell Lighting knew those employees owed the agency loyalty and confidentiality, knew they were breaking that duty on their way out the door, and actively helped them do it rather than just picking up the phone when they called.
That distinction, between a company that recruits departing talent and one that conspires with them against their former employer, is what much of the trial turned on.
The Commissions Fight
Much of the dollar figure on Mlazgar's side was already locked in before testimony began. Judge Jacquelyn D. Austin had ruled pretrial that Hubbell Lighting was liable under South Carolina's Payment of Post-Termination Claims to Sales Representatives Act, and the two sides stipulated the unpaid commissions at $739,424.
At trial, Mlazgar's attorneys returned repeatedly to a simple point: nothing in the sales representative agreement gave Hubbell Lighting the right to withhold that money. Hubbell Lighting withheld it anyway, on the theory that Mlazgar was already in breach of contract by the time the dispute over payment arose.
Jurors had one remaining question on that count: whether Hubbell Lighting's nonpayment conduct was willful enough to justify punitive damages, capped by law at three times the stipulated amount. They essentially doubled the commissions figure, adding another $739,424 in punitives and bringing the total on that claim to roughly $1.48 million.
“The jury awarded Mlazgar substantial punitive damages on its South Carolina Sales Representative Act claim against HLI. We are disappointed in the remainder of the verdict and we are contemplating an appeal.”
— Evan H. Weiner, Esq.
Droel PLLC, Attorney for Mlazgar
The Seven Ex-Employees
Seven Wisconsin-based Mlazgar employees left the agency in a cluster around the 2020 holidays to help launch rival agency JTH Lighting Alliance in Wisconsin. They along with JTH were later sued over numerous alleged violations in a case that settled. Those employees were not defendants in this trial. Their conduct mattered only as the predicate for Mlazgar's claim against Hubbell, the theory being that Hubbell was liable for what they did.
The jury was asked to evaluate if three employees, individually, breached a fiduciary duty to the agency. Of those, two were found by the jury to have actually breached it. But on the question that determined liability in this case, whether Hubbell knowingly participated in either breach, jurors said no. The result: $0 in damages tied to either finding, and no punitive damages on the claim. The former employees were not parties in this case and face no consequence from this verdict either way.
The Contract That Cost Mlazgar Millions
Hubbell Lighting's counterclaim carried the biggest number in the case. The court had already determined pretrial that Mlazgar breached its sales representative agreement by taking on Cooper Lighting Solutions in year two of a five-year contract without Hubbell Lighting's contractually-required written consent. Jurors had one job: set the damages. They set it at $10,724,898.
The finding lands on top of testimony Inside Lighting covered from last week’s courtroom proceedings, when Mlazgar president Scott St. Marie told jurors the agency expected to represent both manufacturers simultaneously and said he was not familiar with the Hubbell Lighting contract's terms when he signed with Cooper, even as other exhibits suggested the agency's own internal planning anticipated dropping Hubbell Lighting product lines entirely.
"We are grateful for the outcome. We abide by our contracts and expect others to do the same. We look forward to moving on and supporting our agents and customers."
— Chip Taylor
Chief Commercial Officer, Current
A Likely Appeal and What Comes Next
Net it out and the gap runs heavily against Mlazgar: about $1.48 million recovered against a $10.72 million counterclaim, a swing north of $9.2 million before Judge Austin resolves any interest, setoff, costs and attorneys' fees in proceedings still ahead. That final figure is not yet public, and nothing in the jury instructions suggests it will move in Mlazgar's favor.
An appeal looks close to inevitable. Legal costs for a Fourth Circuit appeal typically run well into six figures, and against a swing this size, that is not a difficult calculation for most companies to make.
Mlazgar's fight over Wisconsin was never fully contained to this courtroom. The agency separately sued its ex-employees and JTH Lighting Alliance, a case that settled on undisclosed terms. Mlazgar also remains locked in a parallel dispute with Focal Point and parent company Legrand in Wisconsin federal court, built on overlapping claims involving the same former employees.
That Focal Point and Legrand case is set for trial in Minneapolis this November, where both sides now have a real data point: a jury willing to find individual former agency employees liable for breaching their duty, but unwilling to extend that liability to the manufacturer that ended up partnering with them.
