November 13, 2026
Mlazgar Faces $9.25 Million Tab as Appeal Unfolds
Hubbell Lighting challenges the agency’s bid to delay payment and reverse the verdict
Five weeks before Mark Mlazgar’s agency announced it was taking on Cooper Lighting, a Cooper executive emailed him a slide deck. One slide carried a heading that now sits at the center of a $10.7 million fight: “Conversion of Hubbell business from prior Mlazgar relationships.”
That deck, dated October 9, 2020, surfaced again Thursday, attached to an appeals court filing by HLI Solutions, the former Hubbell Lighting, now part of Current. It came as Hubbell Lighting asked the appeals court to reject two requests from R.L. Mlazgar Associates: one to pause collection of the judgment against the agency, the other to throw that judgment out without full briefing.
On August 31, Judge Jacquelyn D. Austin entered judgment awarding Hubbell Lighting $10,724,878 on its breach of contract counterclaim. Mlazgar won $1,478,848 under South Carolina’s sales representative statute, half of it punitive. The net leaves the Minnesota agency owing roughly $9.25 million.
The automatic 30-day hold on collection expired October 1. Mlazgar asked Judge Austin in September to extend it and has received no ruling. On November 3, it took the request to Richmond, asking the Fourth Circuit to block collection until February 18, 2027, and to let it file its balance sheet under seal.
A Bond Strategy Built on Another Trial
Mlazgar offers two reasons for more time. Its fee petition, seeking $3,843,818, and a request for $319,616 in prejudgment interest remain pending in Greenville and could shrink the net figure. And Mlazgar goes to trial January 19 in Minneapolis against Focal Point, where its lawyers say a large recovery “could assist” it in posting security.
Hubbell Lighting’s opposition dismissed Mlazgar’s warnings about its finances as “ipse dixit” (legal shorthand for an assertion offered with no proof). It leaned on a 2010 South Carolina ruling that refused a stay despite the debtor’s claimed inability to pay, warning that a judgment holder should not be “forced to fund an appeal on the unsupported hope” of payment later.
Focal Point Commissions Versus a $9 Million Tab
Exhibits from the August trial make that hope look thin. In 2019, the last full calendar year before the fallout, Mlazgar and Elan Lighting (the Wisconsin agency Mlazgar later acquired) represented Focal Point and sister company Kenall. The two lines generated roughly $333,000 and $149,000 in commissions. In that same year, Mlazgar earned approximately $941,000 in commissions representing Hubbell Lighting.
Those figures describe a relationship about half the size of the one that produced a verdict against Mlazgar. If a Minneapolis jury awarded the equivalent of one to three years of those commissions, the total would land somewhere between the mid six figures and the low seven figures, a fraction of the $9.25 million the agency owes Hubbell Lighting. That would cover the tip, not the tab.
Asking the Court to Skip the Appeal
Alongside the stay request, Mlazgar filed something rarer: a motion for summary reversal. The procedure lets an appeals court discard a judgment without full briefing when the issues are “manifestly unsubstantial.” Courts typically use it when precedent has already settled a question. Mlazgar is asking for it after a nine-day jury trial and a $10.7 million verdict.
The agency argues the exclusivity clause it breached is an unenforceable non-compete under South Carolina law, and that a separate contract provision bars Hubbell Lighting’s lost-profit damages. Hubbell Lighting’s response calls the motion “meritless and borders on frivolous,” says the district court rejected the liability argument three times, and notes that Mlazgar cited no case from any circuit summarily reversing a jury verdict.
The Deck Cooper Built
Hubbell Lighting filed the Cooper deck under seal in Greenville last month; in Richmond’s appeals court, it sits on the public docket. Sent by then-Cooper executive Shane Bickley under the subject line “Mlazgar Rollout,” it laid out a 30-day launch plan, including a step to “Execute plan to convert Hubbell stock positions at Mlazgar strongholds.”
Above: Slide 3 of Cooper Lighting’s "Agency Launch – Market Strategy" deck, entered into the Fourth Circuit record on Nov. 12, 2026
It also called for a “Market Blitz” aimed at the top 20 contractors, distributors and specifiers, emphasizing customers holding existing Hubbell Lighting projects, plus a promotion “to incentivize quick conversions from Hubbell.” Hubbell Lighting uses the deck to rebut Mlazgar’s claim that its breach did not cause the lost profits, writing that Mlazgar and Cooper “were plotting the very losses that HLI incurred even prior to the breach.”
What Comes Next
Mlazgar can reply before a three-judge panel takes up the stay. The panel could grant a temporary pause, deny it, or leave the matter to Judge Austin, who has had the September request on her desk for eight weeks.
For lighting people, the larger question is what it now costs to walk away from a Minnesota rep. If ending an agency agreement carries a bar that high, and getting it wrong can run into the millions, a lot of contracts in agency filing cabinets just got more interesting. Mlazgar is counting on Minneapolis to prove that point. It will need more than a good day there.
Editor’s note:
Inside Lighting emailed Mlazgar’s attorneys for comment early in the afternoon of November 12 from two separate addresses, one of them a Gmail account. That day coincided with a widely reported Microsoft 365 outage. The firm’s automated replies arrived overnight, but no comment came before publication. If the agency or its counsel responds, we will update this article.
