Thompson, Slagle & Hannan, LLC

DeWitte Thompson began his practice as a sole practitioner in 1976 with emphasis on representing construction contract sureties. Jeff Slagle became an associate in 1983; the firm then became known as Thompson & Slagle, P.C. in 1989. The firm's practice grew to include a wide range of civil matters including bankruptcy, corporate law, commercial litigation and general litigation, while the firm maintained a special emphasis on construction contract claims and suretyship.

Michael Hannan joined the firm in 2004 and the firm became Thompson, Slagle & Hannan, LLC in 2005. The firm expanded the services it was able to provide to institutional clients through additional expertise in insurance, ERISA and products litigation, including class actions, while creating significant depth and experience in professional liability, nursing home, catastrophic tort and commercial litigation. The firm has handled countless cases in these areas in numerous state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels.

Members of the firm have been involved in several cases of general interest to the surety industry, chief amongst them have been:

Balboa Insurance Company v. United States, 775 F.2d 1158 (Fed. Cir. 1985). The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was created to hear appeals from patent cases tried in the various district courts, as well as all appeals from certain specialized federal courts such as the Claims Court. Accordingly, for all practical purposes, the Federal Circuit is the final word on federal contract law, which is accepted as a benchmark for many other jurisdictions. The Balboa case presented the Court's first opportunity to consider the Government's duty, as owner on a construction contract, to protect the surety's interest if reasonably possible. The trend in pre-Federal Circuit appellate decisions had been to increasingly limit the government's obligation to the point of extinguishing it. However, the Federal Circuit was persuaded to reverse this trend, rendering one of the most-cited decisions in surety law today. The case firmly re-established the surety as an intrinsic, but distinct party in the web of contractual relationships created by contract and bond.

A.J. Kellos Construction Co. v. Balboa Insurance Company, 661 F.2d 402 (5th Cir. 1981). The defendant surety exercised rights giving rise to a discharge sometime after a declaration of default, but before all of the obligee's damages were known. The Court of Appeals held that the surety's rights accrued as of the date of the default, and sustained the surety's discharge.

Morrison Assurance Company v. Preston Carrol Co., Inc., 254 Ga. 608, 331 S.E.2d 520 (1985); rev'g. 173 Ga. App. 412, 326 S.E.2d 486 (1985). The plaintiff claimed that certain critical rights were not available to compensated sureties, and that the defendant surety could not be discharged based on those rights. The Georgia Supreme Court was persuaded that the State Legislature, by eliminating the distinction between compensated and uncompensated sureties, had not intended also to eliminate the protections that were available to compensated sureties at common law. Accordingly, the defendant, a compensated surety, was still entitled to assert those codified common law rights and receive a discharge.

Giardiello, et al. v. Balboa Insurance Company, 837 F.2d 1566 (11th Cir. 1988). The plaintiffs in this case were trustees of labor union fringe benefit trust funds. Amongst the plaintiffs' contentions were that a bonding company was automatically an "employer" of its principal's employees, as that term is defined by federal statute, for purposes of determining direct liability for unpaid trust fund contributions. The Court of Appeals was persuaded that a surety on a contract bond would not be considered a statutory employer of its principal's employees, solely because of its status as surety.

Amwest Surety Insurance Company v. Ernst & Young, 677 So.2d 409 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996). The firm obtained reversal on appeal of a summary judgement which had been granted the defendant accounting firm. The case established that an accountant may be liable to a surety for negligence in preparing an audited financial statement, if the accountant knows that the statement will be used to obtain bonds and if the surety does in fact issue bonds in reliance upon the statement. This case is the first reported case in Florida holding that an accountant may be held liable to a surety for negligence in connection with the preparation of audited financial statements for the surety's principal.

Gulf Insurance Company v. GFA Group, Inc. 554 S.E. 2d 746 (GA. App. 2001). On appeal from a grant of summary judgement, the surety asserted that a payroll services company, which advanced money for payroll to a contractor on a public project, was not a proper claimant on a payment bond. The Court of Appeals agreed , holding that the provision of administrative services and lending funds do not amount to the provision of labor as a subcontractor under the bond and applicable Little Miller Act Statute.