Category: In the News - Page 35

College alumni S. Douglas Bunch ’02, J.D. ’06 emphasizes education, professional achievements

After graduating from the College of William and Mary, Board of Visitors member S. Douglas Bunch ’02, J.D. ‘06 still centers education within his career. Whether working as a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers and Toll PLLC or as a U.S. representative at the United Nations, Bunch continues to emphasize the importance of learning.

“I think education may be the number one factor in advancement and mobility, socially, economically, in terms of the progress of humankind in general,” Bunch said. “I think it’s the way that we can do the most to improve our own ability to help the reset of the world and advance our common interest as human beings.”

Bunch’s desire to improve opportunities for others is rooted in his personal experience. “I grew up in Augusta County, Virginia,” he said. “My dad drove a UPS truck and my mom was a public school teacher. I was the first person on my dad’s side of the family to graduate from college. For me, William and Mary was truly transformative. It inspired me to think critically, creatively and globally.”

When investing in the education of others, Bunch thinks big and does not shy away from ambitious projects. As a Monroe Scholar in 2000, he founded Ascanius: The Youth Classics Institute, a nonprofit organization which teaches classical studies to elementary and middle school students. In 2006, Bunch co-founded Global Playground, a nonprofit which has built educational infrastructure in 11 underdeveloped and developing countries.

Read the complete article in The College of William & Mary’s The Flat Hat.

A group of Facebook users accusing Meta of using its Pixel tool to collect data from millions of hospital patients says discovery in their case should not be coordinated with other suits targeting the Pixel software, warning a California judge that coordination would catalyze a “quagmire” of delay, confusion and prejudice.

Meta Platforms Inc. on April 13 filed a request to coordinate discovery among cases contesting Meta Pixel, a code snippet and user tracking tool embedded in many websites. But the patients say Meta didn’t file its request in their litigation — only in the two other cases — forcing them to file a Monday statement opposing the request.

The two other actions at issue include one from anonymous Facebook users who in December hit Meta with a proposed class action accusing the social media giant of collecting sensitive taxpayer information from certain tax filing websites with the Pixel tool. Another class action, also filed in December, contends Pixel is embedded on the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ website, allowing Meta to obtain vast amounts of protected data on a daily basis from the DMV.

The three actions vary in size and in their state of discovery, the patients argued, and coordinating their discovery would sow chaos.

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The health care plaintiffs are represented by Geoffrey Graber of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Jason “Jay” Barnes of Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC, Jeffrey A. Koncius of Kiesel Law LLP, Beth E. Terrell of Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC, and Andre M. Mura of Gibbs Law Group LLP.

Read on Law360 (subscription required).

Drug companies Merck and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals have settled a group of direct purchasers’ claims that they gouged drug buyers via an anti-competitive 2010 pay-for-delay patent settlement, leaving one fewer group of plaintiffs just as jury selection in a highly anticipated trial is set to kick off, according to court records.

The multidistrict litigation trial in Norfolk, Virginia, is expected to yield an extremely rare jury verdict in the pay-for-delay case, one of fewer than three in the decade since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Actavis ruling in 2013.

That verdict will happen with a smaller group of plaintiffs after the settlement noted on the court docket midday Tuesday. The terms have not been made public.

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The plaintiffs are represented by Glasser & Glasser PLC, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Radice Law Firm PC, Hilliard Shadowen LLP, Sperling & Slater PC, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP, Roberts Law Firm PA, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Miller Shah LLP, Nussbaum Law Group PC, Faruqi & Faruqi LLP, Berger Montague, Taus Cebulash & Landau LLP, Furniss Davis Rashkind & Saunders PC, Motley Rice LLC, Miller Law LLC, Wolcott Rivers Gates PC, Kenny Nachwalter PA, and Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller.

Read the complete story on Law360 (subscription required).

The state of Michigan told an appeals panel Wednesday that it can’t be on the hook for property damage caused by the 2020 Edenville Dam failure, arguing that property owners are using a ploy to try to get around government immunity because the dam’s private owner went bankrupt.

Nathan Gambill, an assistant attorney general representing the state, said a group of neighbors in consolidated cases are trying to bypass the state’s immunity by labeling their tort claims as inverse condemnations ones. But the state of Michigan cannot be at fault for the damage from the dam break because it did not own or take control of the dam, he said.

That the state government issued permits to the dam does not mean the government controlled it, Gambill told the Court of Appeals panel.

. . .

The lawsuits against state departments – including the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources – came after the Edenville Dam at the confluence of the Tittabawassee and Tobacco rivers failed during a rainstorm on May 19, 2020, releasing its impounded water.

The downstream property owners sued the state departments, saying that it was the state’s decision to raise and lower the water levels, and that the flood damage to their properties due to those decisions led to the dam’s failure. Others whose property was not downstream also sued, saying their property values had decreased because they no longer had a lake in front of their property.

The Court of Claims consolidated those 25 cases and denied the state’s dispositive motions to dismiss the complaints, saying the state is not immune from inverse condemnation claims. The state appealed, saying the Court of Claims should have held an evidentiary hearing to review evidence to determine if it had governmental immunity.

The neighbors cannot pursue compensation under Michigan’s Takings Clause because it isn’t enough to say the state caused the damage, Gambill said Wednesday. Rather, to succeed in a takings clause claim, the neighbors would need to show the state took control of their private property and put it to public use, he said.

Attorneys for the property owners said that the state had significant operational control of the dam, and that the neighbors have a right to bring these constitutional claims.

. . .

The citizens are represented by Denenberg Tuffley PLLC, Johnson Law PLC, Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers PC, The Miller Law Firm PC, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Giroux Trial Attorneys PC, Gruel Mills Nims & Pylman PLLC, the Rasor Law Firm PLLC, the Buckfire Law Firm, Fieger Law, Behm & Behm and McAlpine PC.

A group of victims and families of victims of the April 15, 2021, mass shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility on Thursday sued the distributor of the 60-round magazine used in the attack, saying it recklessly advertised the magazine in a way that encouraged such a shooting.

In the 54-page complaint in New York federal court, the estate of Jaswinder Singh, who was killed in the attack, represented by his son, Gurinder Singh Bains, as well as surviving victims Harpreet Singh and Lakhwinder Kaur and Harpreet’s spouse, Dilpreet Kaur, allege that despite knowing that its products would be attractive to mass shooters, distributor American Tactical Inc. still sold and advertised them while hyping up the number of rounds they carried and their use in battlefield scenarios.

The suit names American Tactical’s president and marketing director, along with Schmeisser GmbH, the German company that made the magazine used in the attack, as defendants.

The complaint opens with quotes from gun manufacturer and designer William B. Ruger Sr. saying, “No honest man needs more than 10 rounds,” and “I never meant for simple civilians to have my 20- or 30-round magazines.”

According to the complaint, American Tactical used imagery reminiscent of combat-based video games and movies, with actors wearing tactical gear similar to what the shooter used when he attacked the FedEx facility, and those advertisements recklessly promoted the magazines to impressionable youths, like the 19-year-old shooter.

. . .

“American Tactical, Inc.’s high capacity magazine used in the FedEx mass shooting had 60 rounds, two to three times the killing capacity of standard magazines,” Leslie Mitchell Kroeger of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement Thursday. “It is clear that the defendants put profits from high capacity magazines ahead of people, which came at the grave expense of the victims and victims’ families of the FedEx mass shooting.”

. . .

The plaintiffs are represented by Hadley E. Lundback and Kathryn Lee Bruns of Faraci Lange, Leslie Mitchell Kroeger, Poorad Razavi, Rachael Flanagan and Michael B. Eisenkraft of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Douglas N. Letter and Philip H. Bangle of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Read the story on Law360.

Victims and families of victims of the 2021 Indianapolis FedEx mass shooting filed a lawsuit Thursday against American Tactical Inc. the distributor of the magazine used in the mass shooting, where 13 people were shot, eight fatally.

The 19-year-old suspect was a previous employee at the FedEx Ground station who died by suicide inside the facility, according to police. At least 100 people were inside the FedEx Ground facility on Mirabel Road on April 15, 2021, at the time of the shooting, according to police.

American Tactical, Inc. President Tony DiChario and Marketing Director Joe Calabro, along with the magazine manufacturer Schmeisser GmbH, were also named in the lawsuit, according to a news release.

. . .

“American Tactical, Inc.’s high capacity magazine used in the FedEx mass shooting had 60 rounds, two to three times the killing capacity of standard magazines,” said Leslie Mitchell Kroeger, partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, in the news release. “It is clear that the Defendants put profits from high capacity magazines ahead of people, which came at the grave expense of the victims and victims’ families of the FedEx mass shooting.”

. . .

The plaintiffs are represented by Leslie Mitchell Kroeger of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, along with Philip Bangle at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Read the article on IndyStar.

The son of a man killed in a 2021 mass shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility filed a federal lawsuit Thursday with two of the survivors against the distributor of the 60-round magazine used by the gunman, alleging the use of reckless marketing tactics targeting young men at risk for violent behavior.

The lawsuit — filed almost exactly two years after the shooting that killed eight people — alleges that American Tactical, Inc. failed to take steps to help prevent dangerous people from obtaining the high-capacity magazine, which allow shooters to fire dozens of rounds without having to reload.

Instead, the lawsuit says the company specifically targeted its products to a “consumer base filled with impulsive young men who feel they need to harm others in order to prove their strength and who have militaristic delusions of fighting in a war or a video game.” It points to action-movie-style marketing videos that were posted on American Tactical’s YouTube page featuring men firing round after round in tactical vests — similar to one worn by the FedEx facility shooter.

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The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York, where a law passed in 2021 opened the door to civil cases brought against the gun industry by classifying the illegal marketing and sale of firearms as a “public nuisance.”

Read the complete story on AP.

Drug buyers seeking billions in damages in an antitrust pay-for-delay trial against pharma companies Merck and Glenmark urged a D.C. federal judge Wednesday to force Covington & Burling partner Timothy Hester to livestream testimony, citing the finding of the trial’s presiding judge that Hester is a “key” witness.

The case concerns claims that the 2010 patent settlement that staved off Glenmark’s plans for a generic version of Merck cholesterol pill Zetia was anti-competitive and involved a form of “reverse payment” from Merck to Glenmark, costing buyers money as they waited years for a price-decreasing generic to come to market.

Though the trial will take place in Norfolk, Virginia, with jury selection starting Monday, Hester cannot be subpoenaed there, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith ruled in recent weeks. Nor can two other key witnesses.

. . .

Read the story on Law360 (subscription required).

A class of consumers suing Marriott International Inc. in wide-ranging multidistrict litigation over a major data breach says it needs information on how the hotel company calculated the value of the consumers’ personally identifiable information, asking a Maryland federal judge to sign off on a special master’s report ordering discovery into the valuation.

The consumers’ Tuesday letter to the court comes after Marriott objected to a special master’s report recommending certain discovery into the California Consumer Privacy Act statement contained on Marriott’s website. The discovery, the hotel chain said, “goes far beyond the discovery plaintiffs requested and the ‘narrow, focused discovery’ the court permitted.”

. . .

The discovery is part of multidistrict litigation over a data breach uncovered in 2018 in which hackers stole the personal information of hundreds of millions of guests at Marriott-owned Starwood Hotels & Resorts Inc. The data theft unleashed a wave of lawsuits that were consolidated into the MDL in Marriott’s home state of Maryland.

The litigation has been split into three tracks, the third of which is the consumer track involving millions of people. The first, a securities track, was tossed in June 2021, and the second involves the city of Chicago.

U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm in May 2022 certified eight classes of Marriott guests on the consumer track while rejecting a damages model advanced by the plaintiffs on grounds it requires “too much individualized inquiry.”

. . .

The consumer track plaintiffs are represented by James J. Pizzirusso of Hausfeld LLP, Andrew N. Friedman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Amy E. Keller of DiCello Levitt LLC.

Read the complete story on Law360 (subscription required).

Paul Rusesabagina, depicted in the 2004 film about genocide in his country, was reunited with his family last week. It took years of pressure to get him out of Rwanda, where he was convicted on terrorism charges.

Rwanda’s leader was in combative form last December when, on a visit to Washington, he was asked about his country’s most famous political prisoner, and his personal foe.

No amount of U.S. pressure could “bully” Rwanda, President Paul Kagame said, into releasing Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier whose heroism during the 1994 genocide inspired the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”

“Maybe make an invasion and overrun the country — you can do that,” he added tartly, at an event during the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Summit for leaders from around the continent.

Nevertheless, early the next morning, one of Mr. Kagame’s top aides met quietly with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to discuss the terms of a potential release.

It was a key step in a complex, secretive effort to free Mr. Rusesabagina, which culminated on Wednesday in his return to the United States, where he was reunited with his tearful family at a U.S. Army base in Texas.

“All of us crumbled when we saw him,” his daughter, Anaïse Kanimba, 31, said in an interview.

The freeing of Mr. Rusesabagina, a 68-year-old dissident and permanent U.S. resident, was not only a triumph for quiet, patient diplomacy. It resolved a growing burden in Washington’s relationship with a small yet important African ally that punches above its weight on the continent, and is accused of stoking a conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that could explode into a regional war.

Mr. Rusesabagina’s plight also presented a delicate challenge for the United States as it seeks to reset its relations with African countries to counter surging Chinese and Russian influence on the continent.

That has meant shoring up ties with leaders like Mr. Kagame, a prickly authoritarian whose achievements in rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide have been overshadowed by a repressive rule that brooks no dissent — a trend that Mr. Rusesabagina’s case has come to symbolize.

Read the complete story on The New York Times.

Cohen Milstein is honored to have played an instrumental role in the litigation leading up to the release of Mr. Rusesabagina.