Christine Tenley is a partner in the Atlanta office of Lewis Brisbois. Christine thrives on strategizing and successfully resolving difficult and costly premises liability and workplace challenges. She is determined in accomplishing her client’s goals and diffusing disputes quickly and efficiently. Christine is highly skilled at effectively engaging opposing counsel, judges, juries, and witnesses to elicit her clients’ desired results. As a partner to her clients’ businesses, she is always available when they need guidance or have an emergency. Christine is fully vested in her matters until they are successfully resolved and ensures she stays directly involved in every aspect of her client’s matters to ensure the highest quality of service is delivered.

With more than 23 years of national litigation, trial, class and collective action, and appellate experience, Christine has extensive experience in residential and commercial premises liability matters, including land use, landlord tenant, state and local code compliance, and HOA disputes arising from property ownership and management. Christine also manages complex commercial and employment litigation matters for clients on a national and regional level. She frequently practices in the residential and commercial property ownership and management, retail, health care, financial services, and education industries. Christine has handled employment and commercial litigation matters in states with some of the most complex regulatory frameworks, including Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Christine has first-chaired complex investigations and administrative proceedings in front of federal and state government agencies, including the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Labor (DOL), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and correlating state agencies. In the traditional labor arena, Christine has successfully defeated multiple union organization efforts to organize LPN nurses at nursing home facilities before the NLRB and the federal appellate courts. Christine is well versed in assisting clients in navigating COVID-19 and the virus’s impact on the workplace, including developing mandatory and optional vaccination policies and best practices for leave issues.

Christine also has specialized experience in navigating post-eviction moratorium issues for residential landlords, including best practices to implement in returning to nationwide evictions, removing squatters and identity theft trespassers from residential property, determining whether or not to accept federal and state rental assistance, and streamlining tenant removal once possession of the property is returned to the owner.

Christine is an avid tennis player and a tennis fan who travels to professional tournaments to watch her favorite players as her schedule permits. She regularly volunteers with North Fulton Community Charities and Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers.

Community Affiliations

Publications

Media Coverage

Admissions

• State Bar Admissions
  • Alabama
  • Georgia
  • Louisiana
• United States District Courts
  • United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
  • United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama
  • United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama
  • United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia
  • United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia
  • United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia
  • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
  • United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana
  • United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana
• United States Courts of Appeals
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Associations

• State Bar of Georgia
• Atlanta Bar Association
• Louisiana State Bar Association
• Alabama State Bar

Awards & Honors

Georgia Super Lawyers "Rising Star", 2007 & 2009

Education

Tulane University Law School

Juris Doctor, 1998

Stevenson University

Bachelor of Arts with Highest Honors, 1993

Representative Matters

• Christine has extensive national experience representing commercial and residential property owners and management companies, including responding to identity theft, landlord tenant matters, mold claims, fair housing complaints, and resulting litigation. Christine also assists property management companies with implementation of best practices in managing residential property, including application processes, move out processes, security deposit return, mold remediation, and prevention of identity theft to reduce risk of unnecessary litigation.
• In February 2021, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Christine defeated a motion for preliminary injunction in a large-scale commercial litigation, case involving a forged operating agreement for an LLC. After two days of examining multiple, witness in federal court in Atlanta, GA, including the examination of Christine’s client’s, handwriting expert and Daubert motion arguments, Judge Jones denied the Defendants’, request for injunctive relief and accepted Christine’s handwriting expert, who testified that the critical document at issue in the case is forged.
• In November 2019, the United States District Court for Northern District of California granted, Christine’s motion to dismiss in a case involving employment and restrictive covenant, claims, under California law.
• In April 2019, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of, Christine’s food processing client in an ADA case, which involved a production supervisor. The district court held, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, that the company’s termination of the supervisor for excessive absenteeism and abuse of the attendance policy was not discriminatory notwithstanding the supervisor’s medical history of spinal stenosis surgery and recovery.
• In March 2019, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville, Division, Christine’s team successfully defended ADA and FMLA claims brought against a poultry plant client located in Live Oak, Florida, winning summary judgment on all counts. The court determined, among other issues, that wearing a “bump cap” (similar to a hard hat) was an essential function of a production employee’s job while working on the processing floor and the company did not have to create an exception for a migraine sufferer.
• In October 2012, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the NLRB’s decision that licensed practical nurses (LPNs) employed at a long-term health care facility in Florida were not supervisors under the National Labor Relations Act and could be organized by the union. Christine co-chaired this significant case from the hearing level through the appeal and it remains one of the few employers’ favorable decisions regarding the classification of nurses as supervisors for organizing efforts. 
• In October 2005, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Christine was able to resolve allegations of C-suite sexual harassment and sexual assault early in litigation to reduce client exposure and damage to goodwill and reputation.