September 16, 2026
Mlazgar Appeals Hubbell Lighting Verdict. Both Demand Millions in Fees.
More than $6 million in new fee demands follows the August verdict
Mlazgar started this fight. It lost, decisively.
The August 27 verdict gave both sides a win of sorts. Lighting agent Mlazgar Associates collected on its unpaid commissions claim. Hubbell Lighting won far bigger on its breach of contract counterclaim, but the math was never close: $1.48 million for Mlazgar against $10.7 million for Hubbell Lighting.
The meter is running on Mlazgar's tab: net interest on that gap tops $1,000 a day. That widening balance is the backdrop for two things that just landed on the docket: a notice of appeal and a pair of dueling attorneys' fee petitions.
The dispute traces to 2020, when Mlazgar, then representing Hubbell Lighting (litigated here as HLI Solutions, now operating as Current) across Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin, added competitor Cooper Lighting to its line card without Hubbell's consent. Hubbell terminated the relationship. Everything since, the commissions claim, the fiduciary duty allegations, Hubbell's counterclaim, grew out of that split.
Mlazgar filed its Notice of Appeal to the Fourth Circuit on September 15, one day after both sides asked the trial court for millions in fees. The notice itself says little, just that Mlazgar is appealing the entire judgment, not a narrowed piece of it. That's standard procedure. The actual grounds for appeal surface later in the briefing phase.
Expect a long, possibly multiyear process. Briefing alone typically stretches months, and oral argument, if granted, often lands six months out or more.
The Dueling Attorneys' Fee Petitions
Both petitions were filed September 14. Mlazgar wants $3.84 million under South Carolina's sales representative fee-shifting statute, arguing that because its commissions win and its dismissed claims share a common core of facts, the fees for the losses travel with the fees for the win.
Hubbell Lighting counters with $2.69 million combined in fees and costs under its own contract's fee provision, built on leaner staffing: two attorneys handling most of 2,588 billed hours, after voluntarily cutting more than 400 hours worth roughly $189,000. Hubbell's petition also notes that Mlazgar cycled through 14 different lawyers over the life of the case.
What's Next
Three things now move on separate clocks:
- The appeal heads to the Fourth Circuit on its own slow timeline.
- The fee petitions proceed in the Greenville trial court, which keeps jurisdiction over fees even while the merits appeal sits elsewhere.
- And, unrelated to Greenville but not unrelated to Mlazgar's overall financial picture, the agency also heads to trial in Minneapolis this November against Focal Point and Legrand over a separate set of commissions claims, a case Inside Lighting has covered separately.
None of these three tracks waits on the others. Add the daily interest gap in the Hubbell Lighting case, and Mlazgar's financial position keeps accruing week to week.
For lighting people, the appeal was always the expected next step. What's less obvious is how much the fee fight, the daily interest, and now a second unrelated trial can all be pulling on the same company's balance sheet at once.
