Mr. Cate is a litigation attorney in the firm’s Northwest Arkansas office.  His practice focuses on commercial litigation, including litigation concerning ERISA, mortgage servicing, real estate, media law, eminent domain, and class action defense.  His experience includes representing defendants in putative class actions filed in Arkansas and Missouri regarding Internet practices, defending a national mortgage servicer in a putative class action concerning mortgage practices, and defending a publicly traded company in a putative class action against claims of employment discrimination.  He has defended mortgage servicers in litigation filed in Arkansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Tennessee, Kansas, and Mississippi.  He regularly represents insurance companies in ERISA-benefits and other group-benefits litigation in Arkansas and Tennessee courts.  He also represented a natural gas pipeline company in successfully securing a right of way covering the distance of one-half of the State of Arkansas through eminent domain. 

Mr. Cate advises media entities on defamation, First Amendment, and Freedom of Information Act issues.  His recent trial work includes representing a newspaper and its reporter in successfully obtaining copies from a municipality of a 911 recording and written correspondence in a lawsuit filed under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

Mr. Cate’s recent trial work also includes successfully obtaining a declaratory judgment in favor of Arkansas landowners whose neighbor sought to take 27 acres of property by adverse possession or boundary by acquiescence.  And Mr. Cate successfully defended at trial two individuals who had been sued for breach of a real-estate agreement.