Michelle Yau of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC helped to secure multiple multimillion-dollar settlement deals as lead counsel on class actions from workers alleging retirement plan mismanagement, including deals with New York Life Insurance Co. and Citgo Petroleum Corp., earning her a spot among the 2024 Law360 Benefits MVPs.
Her biggest accomplishment:
Yau said the high value and number of settlements Cohen Milstein has reached in class actions alleging violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, have made 2024 “the most fulfilling year of my career.”
Among the highlights for Yau is a $19 million deal to end an ERISA class action against New York Life — which got final approval in July from a New York federal court.
“That’s real money for employees,” Yau said.
Yau and Cohen Milstein also saw key developments in May toward an ERISA class action settlement with Citgo, securing class certification for the plaintiffs and defeating a summary judgment motion. An unopposed motion for preliminary approval of the deal, which increased the value of pensioners’ retirement funds by more than $10 million, was filed in Illinois federal court in October.
Her proudest moment:
Yau said that while there’s not one particular moment from the year that stands out, she is proud of the strong cooperation among attorneys in Cohen Milstein’s employee benefits and ERISA practice group that she leads. The multiple ERISA class action settlements reached this year are a “direct result” of that cooperation, she said.
“We’re all working our butts off, and it’s making a difference,” Yau said.
Another major deal was a $14.8 million settlement to end a proposed class action from ex-workers for a retail display manufacturing company called Triad Manufacturing Inc. The deal received final approval in Illinois federal court in August 2023.
Yau said getting settlements on multiple ERISA class actions over the past year was like “hitting the top of the mountain and then getting to stay there.”
Her advice for junior attorneys:
Yau, who has three children, said that as a junior attorney she struggled with juggling family responsibilities alongside a deep commitment to her work.
“I think it took a little bit of a leap of faith to see that it was all OK,” she said.
Yau encouraged attorneys to communicate with their families. She added that while she might not have 100% confidence every day that she’s doing enough in both her career and family life, “you can absolutely do both.”
“At least in my family experience, because I’m working, because I actually love my work just like I love my children, they understand that there’s something else in my life other than them, and that’s OK,” Yau said.
SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, will no longer use AI-powered “scores” to evaluate whether someone using housing vouchers would make a good tenant. On Wednesday, US District Judge Angel Kelley issued final approval for a roughly $2.3 million settlement to prevent SafeRent from discriminating against tenants based on income and race.
The settlement stems from a 2022 class action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts. The suit alleged that SafeRent’s scoring system disproportionately harmed people using housing vouchers — specifically Black and Hispanic applicants. In addition to violating Massachusetts law, the complaint also accused SafeRent of breaking the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination.
As outlined in the initial lawsuit, SafeRent’s scoring algorithm uses factors like credit history and non-rental-related debts to assign a SafeRent Score to potential tenants. Landlords can then use this score to determine whether to accept or deny someone’s rental application. The lawsuit claimed the process isn’t transparent, as SafeRent doesn’t tell landlords how it came up with a person’s score. And the system allegedly assigned lower scores unfairly for Black and Hispanic tenants, as well as people who use housing vouchers, leading landlords to deny their housing applications.
Under the five-year settlement, SafeRent will no longer display a tenant screening score for applicants using housing vouchers nationwide, nor can it include a score when landlords use its “affordable” SafeRent Score model. SafeRent’s service also can’t display recommendations on whether to “accept” or “deny” someone’s application if they use housing vouchers. This means landlords will now have to evaluate renters who use housing vouchers based on their entire record — rather than just using their SafeRent score.
Mary Louis’ excitement to move into an apartment in Massachusetts in the spring of 2021 turned to dismay when Louis, a Black woman, received an email saying that a “third-party service” had denied her tenancy.
That third-party service included an algorithm designed to score rental applicants, which became the subject of a class action lawsuit, with Louis at the helm, alleging that the algorithm discriminated on the basis of race and income.
A federal judge approved a settlement in the lawsuit, one of the first of it’s kind, on Wednesday, with the company behind the algorithm agreeing to pay over $2.2 million and roll back certain parts of it’s screening products that the lawsuit alleged were discriminatory.
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The lawsuit alleged SafeRent’s algorithm didn’t take into account the benefits of housing vouchers, which they said was an important detail for a renter’s ability to pay the monthly bill, and it therefore discriminated against low-income applicants who qualified for the aid.
The suit also accused SafeRent’s algorithm of relying too much on credit information. They argued that it fails to give a full picture of an applicant’s ability to pay rent on time and unfairly dings applicants with housing vouchers who are Black and Hispanic partly because they have lower median credit scores, attributable to historical inequities.
Christine Webber, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, said that just because an algorithm or AI is not programmed to discriminate, the data an algorithm uses or weights could have “the same effect as if you told it to discriminate intentionally.”
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Louis’ attorneys, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, which submitted a statement of interest in the case, argued that SafeRent’s algorithm could be held accountable because it still plays a role in access to housing. The judge denied SafeRent’s motion to dismiss on those counts.
The settlement stipulates that SafeRent can’t include its score feature on its tenant screening reports in certain cases, including if the applicant is using a housing voucher. It also requires that if SafeRent develops another screening score it plans to use, it must be validated by a third-party that the plaintiffs agree to.
Investors in a December 2020 blank-check company merger that took hybrid-car retrofit venture XL Fleet public have preliminarily settled a four-count fiduciary duty breach suit in Delaware’s Court of Chancery for $4.75 million.
The deal, which would end a lawsuit filed in September 2021 if approved, emerged from final settlement talks underway since at least September of this year, when the parties asked Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick to take a proposed trial off the court’s calendar.
A brief in support of the agreement had yet to be filed on Thursday afternoon, but a stipulation noted the deal was reached in September after two negotiation sessions, in May 2023 and July 2024, mediated by Jed Melnick of JAMS that ended without a resolution.
Surviving to settlement were all or most of five counts in the original six-count suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment against company directors, officers and controllers, as well as a direct claim for beach of contract against the SPAC, Pivotal II, which became XL Fleet in a reverse merger.
According to the complaint, Pivotal II breached a representation that it would enter into a merger with a company having a fair market value of at least 80% of the assets held in Pivotal’s trust account, or $178.4 million. “Legacy” XL, the company taken public, was valued at only $55 million.
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The stockholders are represented by Michael J. Barry, Casimir O. Szustak and David T. Wissbroecker of Grant & Eisenhofer PA, Richard A. Speirs and Alexandra Gray of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, and Peretz Bronstein and Eitan Kimelman of Bronstein Gewirtz & Grossman LLC.
- Suit stems from Deloitte’s auditing for Scana nuclear project
- Meets typicality, predominance certification requirements
Deloitte & Touche LLP failed to convince a federal court to deny certification of a class of investors suing over its audit reports on the ultimately abandoned $9 billion Scana Corp. nuclear reactor project.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 Pension Fund was typical of other class members in relying on alleged misrepresentations from the consulting firm, and Deloitte failed to shake a predominance finding when it argued those misrepresentations weren’t connected to later corrective notices, according to the US District Court for the District of South Carolina.
IBEW alleged that Deloitte, Scana’s longtime auditor, knew the V.C. Summer project couldn’t meet a federal tax credit deadline but continued to issue clean audit reports. The South Carolina project was abandoned in 2017 after running years behind schedule and costing more than $20 billion.
The project’s collapse has also brought securities and criminal charges, and civil litigation, against various parties over the past several years—from a $25 million settlement Scana reached with the SEC, to Scana executives pleading guilty to fraud charges.
Deloitte failed with its argument that the truth was revealed in a 10-K issued Feb. 24, 2017, or when the project was publicly abandoned in Jul. 31, 2017. “Questions of fact remain as to whether any disclosure before” Dec. 20, 2017 “completely cured the market,” the court said.
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Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC is class counsel. Tinkler Law Firm LLC is liaison counsel. Moore & Van Allen and Milbank LLP represents Deloitte.
A Maryland federal judge refused Friday to toss an antitrust suit accusing Actelion Pharmaceuticals of illegally denying generics companies the samples they needed to produce generic versions of its hypertension drug Tracleer, while separately certifying a class composed of “hundreds” of insurers and self-funded employers.
U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III issued two omnibus opinions Friday, including a sealed decision rejecting Actelion’s bid to nix the case on summary judgment. Publicly, Judge Russell also granted the class certification sought by the Government Employees Health Association, rejecting Actelion arguments that the contours of the proposed class of third-party payors were too hard to define.
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“We are pleased that members of the third-party payor class who paid higher prices for branded and generic Tracleer as a result of Actelion’s alleged conduct will have their day in court,” said Sharon K. Robertson of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
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The plaintiffs are represented by Sharon K. Robertson, Donna M. Evans, Aaron J. Marks and Joseph M. Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Thomas M. Sobol, Hannah Schwarzschild, Rachel A. Downey and Erin C. Burns of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, John D. Radice, A. Luke Smith and Rishi Raithatha of Radice Law Firm PC and Archana Tamoshunas of Taus Cebulash & Landau LLP.
A California federal jury hit Commercial Metals Co. with a $110 million antitrust verdict on Tuesday, finding the Texas rebar giant liable for multiple antitrust violations and awarding Pacific Steel Group millions of dollars in lost profits and other damages.
A unanimous nine-member jury handed down the verdict in favor of San Diego-based steel fabricator PSG after less than 3 hours of jury deliberations in the high-stakes jury trial that began Oct. 22 in Oakland, California, according to court documents.
During trial, PSG accused Texas-based CMC of suppressing competition by pushing micromill-maker Danieli Corp. into a three-year exclusivity contract barring Danieli from developing most rival mills within 500 miles around CMC’s since-shuttered Rancho Cucamonga, California mill.
Jurors found Tuesday that PSG has proven “by a preponderance of the evidence” that there is a relevant steel rebar market 500 miles around the mill, and that CMC’s exclusivity contract with Danieli was an unreasonable restraint of trade in that market, according to the verdict form.
Jurors also concluded that CMC attempted to monopolize the market and that its conduct harmed PSG, which acquired land north of Los Angeles to build a new cutting edge rival “micromill” with Danieli, the verdict form says.
In light of CMC’s misconduct, jurors awarded PSG $74 million in lost profits from its mill operations; $12.9 million in lost rebar transportation savings; $10.8 million in lost fabrication cost savings and $12.28 million in increased costs to purchase the mill due to inflation, according to the verdict form.
That brings PSG’s total potential damages award to $110 million, which is the full amount PSG’s counsel had sought during trial closings.
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Pacific Steel Group is represented by William C. Price of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Benjamin D. Brown, Daniel McCuaig, Nathaniel D. Regenold and Daniel A. Small of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
The Fall 2024 issue of the Shareholder Advocate, our quarterly securities litigation and investor protection newsletter, features:
- $580 Million Stock Lending Settlement Earns Final Approval – Michael Eisenkraft and Julie Reiser
- Abbott Investors Secure Important Ruling – Carol Gilden and Molly Bowen
- Investors Settle SPAC Litigation – Richard Speirs
- SEC Heightens Liability for Individual Auditors Who Break Accounting Rules – Richard Lorant
- Fiduciary Focus: Court Rules Members Lack Standing to Sue Defined Benefit Plan Over Investment Choices – Suzanne Dugan
- Team Profile: Susan Greenwood
We are also pleased to announce our selection and retention of the law firm of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll who will work with Savage Law Partners under the direction of the Attorney General’s Office, to represent the State in the Washington Bridge lawsuit. Cohen Milstein has an extensive track record, which includes successfully navigating complex, high-profile matters, such as the landmark Flint, Michigan Water Contamination litigation. We are looking forward to working with Cohen Milstein and are confident that their expertise will be instrumental in steering this matter to a successful outcome.”
Prison phone company Global*Tel Link Corp will pay $17 million to escape claims that it colluded with two other companies to inflate the cost of calls made from inside U.S. prisons after a Maryland federal judge gave the deal her preliminary seal of approval Wednesday afternoon.
U.S. Circuit Judge Lydia K. Griggsby conducted the entire fairness hearing top to bottom in under 30 minutes, saying at the end that she was satisfied that the settlement was fair and that the proposed class — which could number in the tens of thousands — was good for preliminary certification.
In closing, she reminded the parties that there was still “quite a bit of work to be done in this case” to identify who all the class members are and figure out how to notify them, since the parties are not yet sure exactly how many people will fit the bill.
The class will comprise anyone who received a call from a loved one from a facility with phone service run by GTL during a certain period and paid for that call, since the provisionally certified class argues they paid an inflated rate.
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The family members of prisoners and the proposed class are represented by Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Justice Catalyst Law Inc., the Human Rights Defense Center and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.