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.

. . .

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.

. . .

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 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.

A Maryland federal judge on Monday gave her preliminary blessing to Perdue Farms’ $60.7 million settlement with workers who claim the company conspired to keep wages low at its poultry processing plants, certifying a nationwide settlement class of past and present Perdue poultry workers.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher granted preliminary approval to the deal, finding that it is “sufficiently fair, reasonable and adequate” to resolve the dispute. Judge Gallagher certified a settlement class of all persons employed by Perdue, its subsidiaries or related entities at poultry facilities across the continental United States from 2000 until July 2021.

The class excludes managers, human resources managers, office staff, salesmen and watchmen at those facilities, the judge noted.

Under the deal, Perdue will make a total cash payment of $60,650,000.

Judge Gallagher also appointed Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC as settlement class counsel. And she appointed named plaintiffs Judy Jien, Kieo Jibidi, Elaisa Clement, Glenda Robinson, Emily Earnest and Kevin West as class representatives, according to the decision.

. . .

The workers are represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC.

A judge ruled that the Moehrl suit would now cover all sellers who paid commissions to named companies over a 5-year period, plus “current and future” sellers.

Key points:

• The Moehrl suit lists top brokerages and MLSs as defendants and seeks damages of more than $13 billion.
• The ruling “is a blow” to the defendants as it “essentially guarantees” a trial, said industry observer Russ Cofano.
• The plaintiffs allege that requiring sellers to pay commissions to buyer brokers is a violation of federal antitrust laws.

A lawsuit that could change the way agents and brokers get paid has been declared a class action, a decision that dramatically increases its scope and potential impact.

Plaintiffs in the Moehrl vs. the National Association of Realtors, et al., case are seeking more than $13 billion in damages because they paid a cost — the buyer’s agent commission — that would have been paid by homebuyers in a competitive market.

U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood ruled Wednesday that in addition to the handful of people who sued in 2019, the outcome of the lawsuit will cover thousands of home sellers “who paid a commission between March 6, 2015, and December 31, 2020′ to specified companies and MLSs as well as “current and future” sellers engaged with those entities.

“With this class certification, we are pleased to be one step closer to a trial that will bring a competitive market to millions of Americans buying or selling real estate,” said Benjamin D. Brown, co-lead counsel for the certified classes of home sellers, partner at Cohen Milstein and co-chair of its antitrust practice.

Read the complete article on Real Estate News.

An Illinois federal judge certified two classes of home sellers accusing the National Association of Realtors and several real estate brokerage firms of conspiring to charge “inflated” commission rates for buyer-brokers who sold homes, ruling on Wednesday that the suit’s claims meet several class certification requirements.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood certified the suit’s damages and injunctive relief classes after determining that there was commonality due to a “central, common question” of whether there was an antitrust conspiracy for inflating commission rates by using the National Association of Realtors rules, described as “challenged restraints.” The presiding judge also ruled that the home sellers listing their homes on multiple listing services, or MLS, that differed from those used by other class members didn’t negate typicality.

“That some class members listed their homes on different MLSs than plaintiffs does not create a typicality issue because all covered MLSs implemented the challenged restraints,” Judge Wood wrote. “As a result, plaintiffs’ claims share the same essential characteristics as the rest of the class and typicality is established.”

Judge Wood further ruled that the damages class has met the predominance requirement of class certification, which requires the “common question” of the suit to “predominate” individual claims. According to the ruling, the defendants had argued that the claims of the home sellers were so individualized that predominance was precluded.

“First, defendants improperly conflate the existence of individualized proof as to each defendant’s conduct with the need for individualized inquiries,” the judge ruled. “While the evidence might vary as to the nature of each defendant’s participation in the conspiracy, the same evidence will be relied upon by plaintiffs and members of the class.”

The judge added that the defendants’ arguments dealt with the merits of the class action, and those arguments are “inapplicable at the class certification stage.”

Additionally, Judge Wood ruled that the two expert opinions that supported the suit’s claims sufficiently showed that the alleged antitrust conspiracy affected the home sellers. One area where the defendants attacked the expert opinions was on the experts’ use of “steering theory.”

The experts for the home sellers found that the alleged conspiracy made buyer-brokers “steer” their clients away from using multiple listing services that offered commission rates lower than the “inflated” rates, according to the ruling. But the defendants argued that, even without the alleged conspiracy, buyer-brokers would still try to get paid as much as possible for home sales and that home sellers would offer “similar” commission rates to get their homes sold.

. . .

The home sellers are represented by Susman Godfrey LLP, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Justice Catalyst Law and Teske Katz PLLP.

The complete story can be read on Law360 (subscription required).

Federal lawmakers and police officers seeking to hold former President Donald Trump responsible for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have told the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Department of Justice’s suggested ruling in the case would be too narrow.

Eleven members of the U.S. House of Representatives and two U.S. Capitol Police officers have criticized the DOJ’s amicus brief filed earlier this month, in which the department encouraged the appellate court to issue a ruling that only applies to Trump’s immunity related to a trio of lawsuits accusing him of inciting the insurrection during his speech at the Ellipse near the White House earlier in the day.

Such a ruling would be too narrow, the lawmakers and police officers contended in a March 23 brief, and it would replace a standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 50 years ago with “an amorphous, malleable appeal to the ever-evolving traditions of the presidency.”

Instead, the D.C. Circuit should issue a ruling establishing that an action taken by a president that isn’t tied to a constitutional or statutory responsibility, and that encourages the obstruction of another branch’s duties, is not covered by the president’s broad immunity.

“Urging private citizens to use any means that obstruct Congress from carrying out its constitutional duty to certify a presidential election — a procedure the framers expressly placed beyond presidential reach — bears no connection to any presidential responsibility,” the lawmakers and police officers said.

. . .

The plaintiffs are represented by Joseph M. Sellers, Brian Corman and Alison S. Deich of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Janette McCarthy-Wallace, Anthony P. Ashton and Anna Kathryn Barnes of the NAACP, Robert B. McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice, Patrick A. Malone, Daniel Scialpi and Heather J. Kelly of Patrick Malone & Associates PC, Philip Andonian and Joseph Caleb of Caleb Andonian PLLC, Matthew Kaiser and Sarah R. Fink of KaiserDillon PLLC, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., Ginger D. Anders, Elaine J. Goldberg and Sarah E. Weiner of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, and Cameron Kistler, Erica Newland, Kristy L. Parker, Jacek Pruski, Anne Tindall, John Paredes, Genevieve C. Nadeau, Benjamin L. Berwick and Helen E. White of United to Protect Democracy.

Read on the complete story on Law360. (Subscription required.)

A Michigan federal judge has sent a proposed class’s claims that they purchased General Motor vehicles with a defective transmission to arbitration, agreeing with the auto giant that the buyers signed paperwork that included an arbitration clause.

U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson said Tuesday that the plaintiffs in the proposed class action signed agreements, and those agreements have enforceable arbitration clauses.

“The arbitration clause is enforceable, and the plaintiffs’ objections to its application do not alter that conclusion,” Judge Lawson wrote.

The 2021 case is similar to another class action, Speerly v. GM, that Judge Lawson certified on Monday. That suit, which came from several class actions consolidated in 2019, alleges GM vehicles had eight-speed automatic transmissions that slipped, kicked back and caused the vehicles to jerk. Some drivers said they were nervous about driving the vehicles because they had “alarming difficulties” stopping when a “hard shift” would cause the vehicles to surge forward, causing some to almost hit other vehicles or pedestrians.

. . .

Doug McNamara of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, representing the plaintiffs, said he thinks GM’s argument will fail at arbitration.

“We believe the underlying legal argument attempted by GM — to invoke a dealer agreement arbitration clause to cover a manufacturer who sold defectively designed vehicles — will fail before the arbitrator or when back in front of Judge Lawson. The underlying factual issues regarding the defective 8L transmissions will be sorted out by the jury hearing the Speerly class action,” McNamara said.

. . .

Harper and Ulrich are represented by Theodore Leopold, Douglas J. McNamara and Karina G. Puttieva of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Russell D. Paul and Amy J. Park of Berger Montague and Emily E. Hughes and Sharon S. Almonrode of The Miller Law Firm PC.

Read the article on Law360. (Subscription required.)