The Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday breathed new life into claims that legal behemoth Dentons misappropriated more than $1.3 million from three family trusts established by an Atlanta industrialist and philanthropist.

Judge Gary Andrews, writing for a panel that included Judges Yvette Miller and E. Trenton Brown III, reversed a ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox Jr. that dismissed the case. The suit was brought by three trusts named after patriarch Walter Bunzl, who died in 1988.