September 23, 2026
Mlazgar, Focal Point Head Toward November Trial
The remaining fight comes down to how big a check Focal Point may have to write
For lighting people who followed the Mlazgar-Hubbell verdict four weeks ago, a November trial in Minneapolis carries an odd kind of déjà vu: another Mlazgar lawsuit, another high-profile manufacturer defendant, another jury asked to put a dollar figure on a broken relationship. But the fight now playing out in dueling letters to Judge Nancy Brasel isn't really about liability. That question was settled more than a year ago. It's about how big a damages number the jury gets to hear.
R.L. Mlazgar Associates' case against Focal Point, the Legrand-owned lighting manufacturer, has been narrowed by summary judgment to exactly two questions. The court found in August 2025 that Focal Point violated the Minnesota Termination of Sales Representatives Act (MTSRA) by giving Mlazgar just 30 days' notice instead of the statutory 90, with no cure period and no stated good cause. Damages on that claim will go to the jury.
A second claim, that Focal Point breached the confidentiality provision of its sales agreement by forwarding roughly a dozen of Mlazgar's sales orders to rival agency JTH Lighting Alliance, survived too, on both liability and damages. Everything else in a lawsuit that began in 2022, trade secret claims, civil conspiracy, aiding and abetting, tortious interference, was thrown out.
Mlazgar Claims vs. Focal Point / Legrand |
|
|---|---|
| Claim | Status |
| Count I — MTSRA (Minnesota Termination of Sales Representatives Act) | Summary judgment in favor of Mlazgar. Damages to be decided by jury. |
| Trade Secrets — MUTSA (Minnesota Uniform Trade Secrets Act) | Dismissed: no qualifying trade secrets found |
| Trade Secrets — DTSA (Defend Trade Secrets Act) | Dismissed: no qualifying trade secrets found |
| Breach of Contract (confidentiality provision) | Survives: jury to decide liability and damages |
| Aiding and Abetting Breach of Fiduciary Duty | Dismissed: insufficient evidence |
| Civil Conspiracy | Dismissed: insufficient evidence |
| Tortious Interference with Contract | Dismissed: insufficient evidence |
Focal Point Counterclaims vs. Mlazgar |
|
|---|---|
| Counterclaim | Status |
| Breach of Contract | Dismissed on summary judgment in favor of Mlazgar |
| Breach of Fiduciary Duty | Dismissed on summary judgment in favor of Mlazgar |
| Unjust Enrichment | Dismissed on summary judgment in favor of Mlazgar |
| Conversion (wrongful taking of property) | Dismissed on summary judgment in favor of Mlazgar |
The case for a tight trial
All this could make the November trial in Minneapolis a tidy affair. Focal Point's attorneys argued as much in a September 4 letter, proposing a five-day trial with 13 hours per side. Their pitch: the jury needs to resolve a roughly $44,000 gap between Mlazgar's expert-calculated lost commissions ($197,359) and JTH's actual commissions during the same period ($152,917), plus whatever the forwarded sales orders were worth. Nothing more. Notably, Focal Point wants two much larger numbers, a $14.47 million lost-profits calculation and a $46.39 million disgorgement figure, kept out of the courtroom entirely, arguing those were built for the trade secret and tortious interference claims that didn't survive summary judgment.
Mlazgar's lawyers weren't having Focal Point’s recommendations. Their September 8 response asks for a full two weeks, split evenly, and argues the bigger numbers are still fair game. Their theory: damages aren't confined to the termination window, citing Eighth Circuit and Minnesota appellate precedent, and the lost-profits analysis remains relevant to the confidentiality claim because the court itself, in denying summary judgment on that count, cited testimony that the leaked information "was instrumental" in helping JTH compete and that Focal Point "benefited directly" from it.
Judge Brasel hasn't yet ruled on the scope question. Her own summary judgment order explicitly left it open, declining to decide whether Mlazgar could present lost-profits evidence beyond the one-year renewal period. Mlazgar's letter asks that the issue get a proper motion in limine rather than get decided off two competing letters. Court records show the case, once headed to trial in June, is now set for a final pretrial conference in mid-October, with the jury trial itself beginning November 9.
Evan Weiner, attorney for Mlazgar, shared a statement with Inside Lighting, “Mlazgar looks forward to the trial in its case against Focal Point in which Focal Point has already been found liable to Mlazgar and all of Focal Point’s counterclaims against Mlazgar have been dismissed. We are confident that there will be a positive outcome in the Focal Point case.”
The view from Greenville
Zoom out, and the stakes in Minneapolis look much larger than a $44,000 commission dispute. Mlazgar is still absorbing an August 27 jury verdict in its parallel case against Current, the manufacturer formerly known as Hubbell Lighting. That jury awarded Mlazgar $1.48 million on an unpaid commissions claim but zeroed out its fiduciary duty claim, while handing Current $10.7 million on a breach of contract counterclaim over Mlazgar's handling of a competing line. Net it out, and Mlazgar owes Current something in the neighborhood of $9.25 million.
Last week, Mlazgar filed a notice of appeal, keeping the Greenville fight alive.
It’s not clear how a 50-person rep agency would fund a judgment of that size if it stands. The arithmetic invites an obvious question among lighting people watching both cases: would a favorable outcome in the Focal Point trial, even one confined to the narrow figures Focal Point wants, meaningfully offset what's owed in Greenville? Or does Mlazgar need the broader damages theory it's fighting for in its September 8 letter to make a real dent?
Post-judgment interest is running on that balance at more than $1,000 a day. The clock, not just the jury, is part of Mlazgar's math now.
Special Minnesota statutes that reward waiting
There's a structural wrinkle in Minnesota's rep-protection law worth noting here, one Inside Lighting has covered before: MTSRA doesn't just require 90 days' notice and a cure period, it makes it expensive for a manufacturer to walk away from a rep relationship on anything but the rep's terms. That cuts both ways. A manufacturer can't easily cut ties with an underperforming rep. But a rep with a fading or soon-to-expire line has little incentive to resign it voluntarily, either.
Consider the shape of both Mlazgar disputes. In each case, a manufacturer moved to replace Mlazgar with JTH on a line where Mlazgar's numbers were reportedly declining, and in each case, Mlazgar didn't walk away first, it waited to be terminated, then sued under a statute that pays out precisely when a manufacturer gets that termination wrong. Whether that reflects a deliberate strategy, ordinary reluctance to give up a paying account, or simple bad timing on Focal Point's and Current's part is not something the court filings say one way or the other.
The incentive for Minnesota reps is real: waiting to be fired, rather than resigning a line that's losing momentum, preserves commissions on the way out, and it gives a rep the opportunity to shelve the line and drain the momentum out of it before handing it over to a competing agent who eventually takes over the line. Whether that's what happened here is an open question.
What the jury will actually hear
None of that context changes what's technically before Judge Brasel: a scope dispute over admissible damages evidence, and a trial-length fight that's really a proxy for it. If she sides with Focal Point, the November trial stays compact and the numbers stay modest. If she sides with Mlazgar, jurors could hear about a multi-manufacturer database and a hypothetical eight-year revenue trajectory that has nothing to do with a dozen sales order forms.
For an industry watching two Mlazgar verdicts land within months of each other, the real story may not be decided by a jury at all. It may come down to whether a judge lets one case's damages theory borrow scale from claims that no longer exist.
