Runners-Up and Shout-Outs From While We Were Out
Courts don’t stall their dockets when we go away for a week. So, in fairness to litigation teams whose wins land while we’re out, we’ve recently made a habit of writing a backward-looking “Litigator of the (Past) Week” column when we get back. One of those is in the works for Thursday. But in the meantime, there’s no need to wait on the runners-up and shout-outs that landed during the LOTW cycle from June 12 to 19.
First up are Willkie Farr & Gallagher partners Alexander Cheney and Stuart Lombardi and counsel Josh Levy. The Willkie team represented client Womply, which developed a technology platform called “PPP Fast Lane” to help small businesses access the Paycheck Protection Program. The Willkie team won $117 million in damages for Womply in an arbitration against Benworth Capital Partners, which used the Fast Lane platform to fund more than 300,000 loans with more than $4 billion in principal, and received more than $680 million in fees from the SBA. After an arbitration hearing in March, a JAMS panel issued the nine-digit award for Womply and denied Benworth’s counterclaim for more than $400 million. The arbitration award was made public earlier this month in parallel proceedings in Puerto Rico federal court. The team also included Willkie associates Tiffany Lin, Dan Morris, Katherine Hanley, Adriana Morton and Vincent Palmeri.
Donnie King and his team at Akerman secured a $30 million verdict for power management technology maker Eaton Corp. in litigation against Angstrom Automotive Group LLC and Wrena LLC. Eaton claimed that the defendants delivered defective “147 levers,” a component for the heavy-duty clutches Eaton makes for 18-wheel semi-trucks. After a two-week trial in Cleveland federal court earlier this month, jurors sided with Eaton on its breach of contract, breach of warranty and fraudulent inducement claims, and denied all counterclaims. The Akerman team included partners Michael Marsh and Eric Coleman, associates Reginald Janvier and Mario Marin and local counsel, Sarah Sears of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick.
A Cooley team led by Heidi Keefe, Reuben Chen, Adam Pivovar and Allie Dunworth Leeper helped Uber Technologies Inc. beat back patent infringement claims brought by Enovsys LLC. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, granted Uber’s motion to dismiss finding three Enovsys geolocation patents unpatentable on Section 101 grounds. The judge adopted an analogy put forward by the Cooley team writing “[e]ven children playing Marco Polo efficiently manage location information within a specified geographic zone.” The team representing Uber also included Liz Stameshkin, Angela Madrigal, HanByul Chang and Linda Vu.
A Keker, Van Nest & Peters team led by Sharif Jacob helped Northern California medical service provider Sutter Health beat back healthcare fraud claims for recovery room charges after a seven-week trial in Alameda County Superior Court. Judge Stephen Kaus last week found the recovery room care was “medically ordered, appropriate, and supervised” and charged out using industry-standard billing practices. The Keker team included partners Erin Meyer and Anjali Srinivasan, of counsel Dan Jackson, and associates Victor Yu, Ryan Hayward, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Michael Deamer, Imara McMillan, Niharika Sachdeva, and former associate Hayk Esaghoulyan.
Here’s a shout-out to Latham & Watkins partners Michele Johnson and Robert Collins and associate Kathryn Running who helped X Corp. beat back a proposed class action brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act related to its use of PhotoDNA software to police pornographic images on the platform formerly known as Twitter. U.S. District Judge Sunil Harjani in Chicago earlier this month granted their motion to dismiss the BIPA claims finding the plaintiff failed to allege the software tool can be used to identify specific individuals.
Another shout-out goes to Leah Godesky and her team at O’Melveny & Myers who helped Chubb insurance affiliates Federal and ACE American whittle down what was initially a request for $21 billion dollar in disgorgement and $40 million in actual damages brought by software company FICO. Federal jurors in Minneapolis last week awarded FICO just $3.725 million, less than the $15 million FICO was requesting in a damages-only copyright damages retrial in the long-running litigation. The O’Melveny team included partner Anton Metlitsky, senior counsel Daryn Rush, counsel Zachary Dekel, associates Elizabeth Marley, Gillian Hawley and Zachary Meeker, with co-counsel Leah Janus and Terrence Fleming of Fredrikson & Byron.
Here’s a shout-out to the defense team for Steve Wynn, led by Bob Luskin of Paul Hastings, who helped fend off claims that Wynn acted as an unregistered foreign agent for the People’s Republic of China in mid-to-late 2017 when lobbying the Trump Administration. The D.C. Circuit earlier this month held that the Foreign Agents Registration Act does not allow suits against individuals who “failed” to comply in the past, but no longer have a legal obligation to register. The court found, even accepting the government’s allegations as true, Wynn ceased acting as a foreign agent long ago. Luskin argued at the D.C. Circuit for Wynn, whose defense team also included Reid Weingarten, Brian Heberlig, Bruce Bishop and Nicholas Silverman of Steptoe, and Leo Tsao of Paul Hastings.
Another shout-out goes to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Hope Skibitksy and associates Stefan Berthelsen and Cara Mund. Senior U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Virginia, granted summary judgment to their client Bowlero, the world’s largest owner and operator of bowling centers, in its breach of contract and computer hacking case against former chief information officer, Thomas Tanese. The judge sanctioned Tanese for submitting doctored evidence in the case but left the issue of monetary damages to consider separately.
Here’s a shout-out to a team at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett that once again fought off class certification for client M&T Bank Corp. in long-running litigation in connection with its $3.7 billion merger with Hudson City Bancorp. Federal Circuit Judge Evan Wallach, sitting by designation in the District of Delaware, denied the renewed motion for class certification finding the plaintiffs failed to meet their burden to satisfy the predominance requirement of Rule 23. The Simpson Thacher team included partner Jonathan Youngwood, senior counsel Janet Gochman and associates Katherine Hardiman Sherwood, Noah Gimbel, Pierce MacConaghy, Margerite Blase and Miranda Hernandez.
