A group of AT&T Inc. employees and retirees asked a California federal judge to certify two classes containing nearly 300,000 people total in a suit alleging the company miscalculates married couples’ pension plans.
The workers said in a motion filed Monday that their case accusing AT&T of violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by systemically underpaying pension benefits to married couples is “tailor made” for class treatment. The telecom giant uses all the same factors to determine benefits amounts for married joint survivor annuity recipients as it does for single life annuity benefits, they said.
“In one fell swoop, this court can determine what ERISA’s ‘actuarial equivalence’ obligation requires, whether AT&T has been and is delivering actuarially equivalent JSA benefits consistent with ERISA’s requirements, and the appropriate yardstick for determining future benefits and measuring the amount of past underpayments,” the workers said in their memorandum in support of class certification.
They are seeking to certify one class of about 38,340 AT&T retirees with currently active JSAs and another containing 260,000 plan participants who have not yet retired or begun to receive benefits.
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The proposed class is represented by Peter K. Stris, Rachana A. Pathak, Victor O’Connell, John Stokes and Colleen R. Smith of Stris & Maher LLP; Michelle C. Yau, Mary J. Bortscheller, Kai Richter and Daniel R. Sutter of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC; Todd Jackson and Nina Wasow of Feinberg Jackson Worthman & Wasow LLP; and Shaun P. Martin of University of San Diego School of Law.
Two doctors allege in a lawsuit that the country’s largest dialysis provider performed potentially thousands of unnecessary, invasive vascular procedures on late-stage kidney disease patients and fraudulently charged Medicare and Medicaid for these procedures.
The Department of Justice has now joined the False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuit filed against dialysis giant Fresenius Medical Care, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
The lawsuit, originally filed in 2014 in New York, claims Fresenius Medical Care and its business unit, Azura Vascular Care, violated the federal False Claims Act. The case remained under seal until the court lifted the seal May 9. The federal government has 60 days to file its complaint.
Nineteen states also are included in the lawsuit and potentially could join the case.
The U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York will be taking over the case against Fresenius’ New York facilities, according to law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case.
Molly J. Bowen of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC played a key role in shareholder derivative litigation against Pinterest that led to major commitments to governance reform at the social media company and convinced a Manhattan federal judge to keep investor claims alive against Wells Fargo in a suit over the company’s noncompliance with federal consent decrees. These accomplishments and others have earned her a spot among the securities law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
The biggest case of her career:
Bowen drafted the brief that allowed Wells Fargo investors to avoid dismissal of a proposed securities class action claiming the bank hurt investors by concealing its noncompliance with federal consent decrees.
In its January 2021 dismissal bid, Bowen told Law360, Wells Fargo had argued that because of certain confidentiality restrictions that apply to banks, it had to keep material information from its investors.
“If that argument was accepted, it would obviously have really problematic implications,” Bowen said. “It would mean that banks could conceal problems they were having with their regulators, which are some of the most important issues that investors care about.”
Bowen recalled the moment that her team got the decision on the matter from U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods.
“It was thrilling,” she said. “It’s very exciting when you get a decision back from a judge who you respect and who you know took a careful look at everything and ultimately agreed with you.”
The most interesting case she’s worked on lately:
Bowen has played a central role in shareholder derivative litigation against social media company Pinterest alleging the company’s brass turned a blind eye to, or participated in, discrimination on the basis of race and sex.
Cohen Milstein described the settlement reached with the company, which a judge initially signed off on in February, as “a first of its kind,” with the company making significant commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and corporate governance reforms as part of its $50 million deal with investors.
“Pinterest is a company that really targets women and people of color as some of the most important users of the product, so being consistent with anti-discrimination principles internally is really important for their business success — as well as following the law and doing the right thing,” Bowen told Law360.
Bowen, who took a lead role in the firm’s investigation, drafting the complaint and settlement talks, said that it was “incredibly satisfying to feel like we were able to come to a resolve that would make a material difference for people who had been through a bad experience to ensure that investors really knew what’s happening in the company.”
Her proudest moment as an attorney:
Bowen cited the Pinterest case as a source of great pride.
“Getting through all these hurdles and reaching a resolution that is very meaningful, that is directly tied to allegations in our case, and that is changing structurally how the board of a company and a public company operates, is something I’m incredibly proud of,” she said.
What motivates her:
Bowen said she’s motivated by her clients and by the nature of her practice as a plaintiffs lawyer.
“We primarily represent public pension funds, who are protecting the assets of often just regular working folks like nurses, firefighters and teachers who work their [whole] lives and put money into a pension or their 401(k)s, who have been harmed by the corporate fraud and misconduct that is at issue in cases,” she said. “So being able to stand up and recover money for people who have been harmed [is a] very tangible outcome and is very motivating — particularly in this time that is, you know, precarious for so many people, it feels really significant to be able to do that.”
She added that being able “to expose misconduct that has happened, and to try and push the law to become more expansive and more protective, is incredibly inspiring.”
“It’s hard to think of what can be more exciting than getting to do that as a lawyer — to be able to help more people and to protect people through your work,” she said.
Why she is a securities attorney:
“I really love securities because the legal issues are so complicated, the stakes are so high, and you always are learning something new: our cases involve such a varied subject matter and all these different industries, so there’s always a chance to become an expert in a new field,” Bowen said.
In particular, she said, “with the derivative cases, working with experts to design settlement terms and corporate governance — practices that will cause better board oversight — has been a really exciting and stimulating part of our practice that I’ve really enjoyed.”
Daniel H. Silverman has scored important class certification wins, including on behalf of animators who successfully forced major film studios to settle no-poach allegations, making him one of the competition attorneys under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
His biggest case:
Silverman was part of the Cohen Milstein team that negotiated nearly $170 million in deals with major Hollywood studios such as The Walt Disney Co., Pixar and Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC to resolve allegations that they agreed not to poach each other’s animators. Labor-side antitrust cases hadn’t yet fully become an important feature of class action litigation, meaning that to win class certification, Silverman said his team had to navigate “novel and interesting and challenging issues,” especially in trying to show that an array of different workers in different jobs earning different salaries all suffered the same kind of injury that could be lumped together.
“What makes it kind of unusual there is that we’re trying to get a class certified that involved these animation workers with hundreds if not thousands of different job titles,” Silverman said. “So there were people in all sorts of different jobs in that industry. All part of the same class. That’s unusual as compared to a normal antitrust class action where you’re representing consumers who all bought the same product.”
Another notable case:
Silverman is one of the attorneys representing Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters suing UFC over an alleged anti-competitive “scheme” to keep their earnings low by buying up competitors or locking up top fighters in exclusive multiyear contracts, and they are now hoping for a long-awaited decision for formal class certification.
Working with UFC fighters has meant navigating a case “full of drama and intrigue,” said Silverman, who’s been fascinated by the world of the sport. Silverman had watched some UFC fights beforehand, but he said supporting the expert work, his main role in the case, involved a considerable learning curve. He read everything he could on the economics of mixed martial arts and of professional sports amid an industry shift to a free-agent system.
“It was really important to get a really granular understanding of how the sport actually works, the business of the sport and how the sport functions,” he said.
Silverman is particularly proud that U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware has said he plans to grant class certification. He pointed to the dedication of the fighters he represents.
“They work so hard, they get injured,” he said. “They really put everything on the line every time they get in the octagon. And to feel that we were able to have some success on their behalf was just really gratifying.”
What motivates him:
Silverman says he is driven by digging deep to understand legal and economic issues that intersect in the antitrust practice.
“Getting to the precise, correct answer and actually figuring out how to explain complicated economic concepts to lay judges, I think that’s fundamentally what motivates me,” he said. “Being able to really take complicated ideas and boil them down in language that lawyers and judges can understand.”
Why he’s an antitrust attorney:
Silverman said he particularly enjoyed science and math as an undergraduate physics major, and he even spent a year before law school working at an engineering lab affiliated with MIT.
“One of the things that I found fascinating about antitrust law is the way that social science and economics and econometrics can actually drive the evolution of the law itself,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any other area of the law I can think of where social scientific work has played such [an] influential role in actually driving the path of the doctrine itself. The Supreme Court itself has often been persuaded by arguments from economists and social scientists in terms of how we should think about the normative goals of the antitrust laws.”
Tenant-screening service allegedly discriminated against voucher holders
A tenant-screening service is being accused of violating fair housing laws by discriminating against low-income tenants of color.
The National Consumer Law Center filed a lawsuit in federal court last week against Texas-based SafeRent Solutions, Law360 reported. The center alleged SafeRent violated the Fair Housing Act and state laws by giving poor risk-profile scores to Black and Hispanic rental applicants with housing vouchers, the suit claimed.
The risk scores resulted in some of those carrying vouchers to be denied housing, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claimed SafeRent Scores accounts for credit history and non-tenancy debts but not the benefits provided by housing vouchers. According to the suit, this disproportionately hurts Black and Hispanic applicants, who typically had lower credit scores than white ones.
“Credit scores and conventional credit history are not accurate predictors of a successful tenancy,” Christine Webber, co-chair of the Civil Rights and Employment practice at law firm Cohen Milstein, stated in a release. Greater Boston Legal Services and Cohen Milstein are also representing the plaintiffs.
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This is not the first time Cohen Milstein and SafeRent have found themselves on the opposite sides of litigation. In 2018, the law firm filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the screening service related to artificial intelligence. That case is still being litigated.
Public Justice’s 2022 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award celebrates and recognizes the accomplishments of an attorney or team of attorneys working on behalf of individuals and groups that have suffered grave injustice or abuse. Cohen Milstein had the honor of being named a “finalist” for this prestigious plaintiffs bar award for the firm’s work in In re Flint Water Cases.
Watch the video about the litigation. Read more about about the case below.
In this consolidated class action and individual personal injury cases, the legal team worked for more than five years to expose the state of Michigan and its government employees’ role in the Flint Water Crisis, which harmed more than 90,000 residents in Flint — a historically Black and economically depressed community. This case highlights the important role of the justice system in holding government officials and corporate entities accountable and affirming they’re not immune to liability.
Historically, the city of Flint purchased safe drinking water from Detroit. However, in April of 2014, the Flint municipal government, along with state officials, including Governor Snyder, and two water engineering firms under state management, devised a plan to re-direct toxic levels of contaminated water from the Flint River into the city’s drinking water in an effort to save money, despite studies indicating that the Flint Water Treatment Plant was unable to safely treat the water for drinking. Meanwhile, the state directed superior water through the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) to more affluent, white communities throughout Genesee County.
Because of this switch, more than 90,000 residents and businesses in Flint received highly toxic, lead-tainted water with concentrations of up to 880 times the EPA’s legal limit, causing the corrosion of pipes, life-threatening illnesses, and serious, long-term developmental conditions in children. Despite residents’ complaints about the water’s bad smell, color, and taste—and the July 2014 outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which killed 12 people—state officials and the engineers failed to identify corroding water pipes as part of the cause, and instead made the problem worse by recommending that the city double the dose of ferric chloride. This highly acidic chemical compounded the corrosion problem, leading directly to the lead poisoning of Flint’s children and rendering real estate worthless.
After more than a year in which Flint residents were forced to endure the contaminated water, Governor Snyder declared a state of emergency after directing Flint to reconnect to DWSD. By January 5, 2016, President Barack Obama declared a federal state of emergency.
On March 31, 2016, a group of Flint residents filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan under the Clean Water Act against the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, and various city and state employees, including former Governor Rick Snyder. An amended complaint was filed on September 29, 2017, consolidating more than a dozen class and individual lawsuits and expanding the residents’ claims to include state and federal constitutional and civil rights violations and injuries caused by the Michigan government and employees involved, including denial of due process based on the bodily integrity doctrine and equal protection due to race and economic discrimination.
In August of 2018, the district court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, allowing litigation to move forward against the engineering companies, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) officials, and high-ranking state officials in Governor Snyder’s administration, while granting the motion to dismiss against Governor Snyder, with leave for plaintiffs to amend the complaint. On October 5, 2018, the legal team filed an amended complaint, arguing that Governor Snyder and his staff were fully aware of the mounting health issues, including the risks of legionella, and were even briefed on the city’s discovery of fecal coliform bacteria and pipe corrosion, which caused the problem in the summer of 2014. This also included MDEQ’s failure to investigate these claims or notify the public, lying to the EPA, discrediting outside toxicology analysis, and refusing DWSD’s offer to return Flint to Lake Huron water in January 2015.
On April 1, 2019, the district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to amend its fourth complaint against Governor Snyder, allowing claims against the former Michigan governor for violating Flint citizens’ “right to bodily integrity.” Additionally, the district court allowed plaintiffs to amend class definitions to include an African-American subclass and smaller subclasses based on property damage, personal injury, injunctive relief, and a set of common issues relating to liability and causation. In August of 2019, the court allowed the citizens to appoint independent counsel to advocate for each subclass. Following the district court’s decision, Governor Snyder filed multiple appeals with the Sixth Circuit, only to be denied each time.
On August 20, 2020, the state announced a preliminary settlement of $600 million. On November 10, 2021, the district court granted final approval of the settlement after more than five years of litigation and 18 months of court-supervised negotiations and a detailed victim claims process. Due to the novel class strategy granted by the district court, the plaintiffs were able to more effectively analyze and calculate settlement terms — a vital component to assessing fair financial awards given the enormity of the class and claims, and the passage of time since the initial contamination in 2014.
Flint residents can now receive long-awaited financial relief, 80 percent of which will go to individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crisis, with a large majority of that money going to children aged six and younger. The remaining funds will go to special education services in Genesee County, as well as to adults, business and property owners impacted by the water crisis.
While this litigation has concluded, litigation against the national engineering firms, both charged with professional negligence, continues, as well as separate litigation against the EPA. In the fall of 2021, United States District Judge Judith Levy, certified the professional negligence case against the two private engineering firms. The class certification matter is pending trial.
While this doesn’t undo the contaminated water’s long-lasting effects on the residents exposed to the lead poisoning, this landmark settlement represents a long overdue measure of justice, affirming basic human rights to clean water and a safe environment.
TEAM: Theodore J. Leopold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.; Michael L. Pitt of Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni & Rivers, P.C. in Royal Oak, Mich.; Emmy L. Levens, Jessica Weiner, and Leslie M. Kroeger of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC; Cary S. McGehee, Beth M. Rivers, and Channing Robinson-Holmes of Pitt, McGehee, Palmer, Bonanni & Rivers, P.C. in Royal Oak, Mich.; Shawn Raymond, Stephen Morrissey, Jordan Connors, and Katherine Peaslee of Susman Godfrey LLP in Seattle, Wash.; William H. Goodman, Julie H. Hurwitz and Kathryn Bruner James of Goodman Hurwitz & James in Detroit, Mich.; Bradford M. Berry of NAACP in Baltimore, Md.; Deborah A. LaBelle of Deborah LaBelle Law Offices in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Paul Novak and Gregory Stamatopoulos of Weitz & Luxenberg in Detroit, Mich.; Cynthia M. Lindsey and Shermane T. Sealey of Cynthia M. Lindsey & Associates, PLLC in Detroit, Mich.; Trachelle C. Young of Trachelle C Young & Associates in Flint, Mich.; Neal H. Weinfield of Dedendum Group LLC in Highland Park, Ill.; Peretz Bronstein of Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC in New York, NY; Esther Berezofsky of Motley Rice LLC in Cherry Hill, NJ; Teresa A. Bingman of The Law Offices of Teresa A. Bingman in Lansing, Mich.
An Illinois federal judge on Friday certified classes of direct purchasers, indirect purchasers and end-user consumers in a sprawling antitrust lawsuit alleging more than a dozen major broiler chicken producers, including Sanderson Farms Inc. and Perdue Foods, conspired to limit chicken production to boost prices.
In a 55-page order, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin certified the classes and refused to exclude multiple expert opinions supporting the certification requests. In his reasoning, the judge noted that the experts’ evidence shows broiler chicken production rate increased steadily for years, but dropped in 2009 and 2012.
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The end user consumer plaintiffs are represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
Federal Lawsuit Alleges SafeRent Solutions Violated the Fair Housing Act, State Law by Discriminating Against Black and Hispanic Voucher Holders in Tenant Screenings
SafeRent Employs Algorithm That Assigns Disproportionately Lower “SafeRent Scores” to Black and Hispanic Applicants
BOSTON– A lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against SafeRent Solutions, LLC alleges that the national tenant screening provider has been violating the Fair Housing Act and related state laws for years. SafeRent, formerly known as CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, provides tenant screening services that disproportionately give low scores to Black and Hispanic rental applicants who use federally funded housing vouchers to pay the vast majority of their rent, causing them to be denied housing. The lawsuit alleges that SafeRent’s algorithm has a disparate impact based on race and source of income, in violation of federal and state laws.
“As stated in the complaint, while SafeRent considers applicants’ credit history, including credit-related information, including non-tenancy debts, and eviction history in calculating SafeRent Scores,” said Todd Kaplan, Senior Attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, “SafeRent’s algorithm does not consider the financial benefits of housing vouchers in assigning SafeRent Scores. On average over 73% of the monthly rental payment is paid through these vouchers.”
SafeRent assigns disproportionately lower SafeRent Scores to Black and Hispanic rental applicants compared to white rental applicants, which is due in part to SafeRent’s use of credit history, which includes non-tenancy debts. SafeRent Scores are designed, marketed, and used to screen prospective tenants for rental housing. These Scores cause Black and Hispanic rental applicants to be disproportionately denied housing. These Scores cannot be justified as a necessary business practice for evaluating applicants with housing assistance vouchers, since a tenant’s voucher ensures the rent is affordable and uniquely protects their housing provider’s receipt of monthly rent.
“Credit scores and conventional credit history are not accurate predictors of a successful tenancy. However, reliance on such data in scoring potential tenants has a disproportionately adverse impact on Black and Hispanic tenants, and those who use housing vouchers,” said Christine E. Webber, Co-Chair of Cohen Milstein’s Civil Rights & Employment practice. “Moreover, as cited in the complaint, SafeRent Score algorithm does not disclose all of the data it considers, or how this data is weighted in score modeling, thereby keeping its inner workings hidden. This means that housing providers cannot exercise any independent judgment as to the merits of housing applicants and can only accept SafeRent calculations.”
As a tenant screening provider, SafeRent provides landlords and property owners a SafeRent Score. The Score cannot be adjusted by the landlord nor can a variable like a housing voucher be weighted in the Score, yet the Score is used to decide if an applicant will be accepted. SafeRent’s algorithm does not consider the financial benefits of housing vouchers in assigning Scores. Specifically, when a housing voucher is used, on average over 73% of the monthly rental payment is paid by public housing authorities directly to housing providers.
According to a 2022 study conducted by the Urban Institute, as of October 2021, Black consumers have a median credit score of 612 and Hispanic consumers have a median credit score of 661, as compared to white consumers’ median credit score of 725, leading to unfair bias in accepting an applicant’s lease application.
“Racial disparities in credit history and credit scores not only reflect historical racial disparities in wealth, but also perpetuate wealth inequalities through reduced financial opportunities and fewer financial safety nets, which hinder a consumer’s ability to accumulate present or intergenerational wealth through homeownership or other financial investments,” said Ariel Nelson, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.
For example, in May 2021, Plaintiff Mary Louis, a 54-year-old Black woman who resides in Malden, Mass., applied for an apartment at Granada Highlands (recently renamed “Altitude Apartments”) and was denied solely because of her SafeRent Score, which was calculated using her non-tenancy related debt and did not take into account her housing voucher which would have covered nearly 70% of her rent.
“As a nonprofit that works directly with lower income renters who have housing vouchers, we help locate, apply for, and secure appropriate homes for hundreds of families a year,” said David Gibbs, Executive Director of the Community Action Agency of Somerville. “We are bringing these claims against SafeRent because its actions interfere with our ability to stabilize low-income families in housing with their vouchers. The tenant screening software makes it almost impossible for us to place families in many developments because these otherwise qualifying applicants often have non-tenant consumer debt. This is especially frustrating because our clients always prioritize paying their rent to keep a roof over their heads.”
Plaintiffs Mary Louis, Monica Douglas, and Community Action Agency of Somerville, Inc., are represented by Greater Boston Legal Services, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, and the National Consumer Law Center.
This is the second AI-racial discrimination lawsuit Cohen Milstein has brought against SafeRent Solutions, which previously operated as CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions. Cohen Milstein is currently litigating, as a bench trial, Connecticut Fair Housing Center, et al. v. CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, Case No. 3:18-cv-00705 (D. Conn.), in partnership with Connecticut Fair Housing Center and the National Housing Law Project.
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About Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC is a national leader in plaintiff-side personal injury and class action litigation. As one of the premier law firms in the country handling major complex lawsuits, Cohen Milstein, with more than 10090 attorneys, has offices in Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Palm Beach Gardens, FL; and Raleigh, NC.
About Greater Boston Legal Services
Greater Boston Legal Services annually helps more than 11,000 low-income families and individuals living in poverty to solve their civil (non-criminal) legal problems. Our clients include tenants in no-fault evictions, homeless families, homeowners facing foreclosure, survivors of domestic violence, elders, people with disabilities, low-wage workers, families with no source of income, and immigrants facing persecution. We represent our clients in court, at appeals, in hearings before administrative law judges, and with advice and paperwork, both as individuals and through partnerships with community organizations. We have a special focus on “impact litigation.” GBLS provides legal counsel to dozens of community-based groups and organizations and conducts strategic impact advocacy to bring about positive systematic change throughout the region and state. For more information, please visit www.gbls.org or contact: 617-371-1234.
About National Consumer Law Center
Since 1969, the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center® (NCLC®) has used its expertise in consumer law and energy policy to work for consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people, including older adults, in the United States. NCLC’s expertise includes policy analysis and advocacy; consumer law and energy publications; litigation; expert witness services, and training and advice for advocates. NCLC works with nonprofit and legal services organizations, private attorneys, policymakers, and federal and state government and courts across the nation to stop exploitive practices, help financially stressed families build and retain wealth, and advance economic fairness.
Two Massachusetts women and a fair housing organization on Wednesday accused a tenant screening company of racial discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act, saying its scoring tool disproportionately denies housing to Black and Hispanic renters.
Tenants Mary Louis of Malden and Monica Douglas of Canton, along with the Community Action Agency of Somerville, filed a proposed class action in Massachusetts federal court targeting SafeRent Solutions LLC. The Texas-based company has “effectively blackballed” certain low-income, minority renters, according to the suit.
SafeRent Solutions’ algorithmic SafeRent Score is based “in significant part” on prospective renters’ credit history and score, the plaintiffs claimed. This history includes debts that are not related to prior tenancies, and allegedly results in disproportionately lower scores and housing denials for Black and Hispanic renters.
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SafeRent Solutions was already facing Fair Housing Act claims prior to Wednesday’s complaint. A federal trial expected to resume this fall in Connecticut is focused on the company’s algorithmic CrimSAFE product, which pulls criminal records.
In that suit, filed in 2018, plaintiffs argue that CrimSAFE can disqualify a renter simply based on the existence of a charge or conviction, disproportionately denying housing to Black and Hispanic renters.
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in both cases, which allege that SafeRent Solutions is a key decision-maker for its clients, assessing prospective renters through an opaque process.
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The plaintiffs are represented by Todd S. Kaplan and Nadine Cohen of Greater Boston Legal Services, Christine E. Webber and Samantha N. Gerleman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Stuart T. Rossman, Charles M. Delbaum and Ariel C. Nelson of the National Consumer Law Center.
A former barbecue chain worker hit Argent Trust Co. with a proposed class action in New York federal court Friday, accusing it of violating federal benefits law and costing workers millions in retirement savings by letting them pay too much for their employer’s stock.
Jamaal Lloyd filed the lawsuit against the Atlanta-based wealth management company and several of the chain’s shareholders on behalf of the W BBQ Holdings Inc. Employee Stock Ownership Plan and a proposed class of 1,459 employees. Lloyd said Argent and WBBQ shareholders ran afoul of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act when it facilitated the sale of company stock by $6 million less than it was worth, which hurt participants’ pockets as the value further depreciated over time.
“Argent and the seller defendants did not give adequate consideration to these and other factors in determining the sale price for the company,” Lloyd said in his complaint. “To the contrary, the seller defendants were focused on promoting the company’s value for their own financial benefit, and Argent did not properly account for their conflicts of interest and failed to conduct a rigorous independent examination of the transaction and the price paid by the ESOP.”
Lloyd worked for WBBQ, a New York City barbecue restaurant chain, from 2013 until 2020, during which he was a participant in the ESOP. When he left the company, he was 60% vested in WBBQ shares, according to the complaint.
The ESOP, which is protected by ERISA, takes employer contributions made on behalf of the employees and invests them into company stock.
In July 2016, WBBQ shareholders sold the ESOP 400,000 shares of WBBQ common stock for nearly $99 million, over $6 million more than the originally negotiated purchase price for the same number of shares, Lloyd said. The aggregate price of the value of the shares only totaled nearly $28.9 million by the end of 2016, less than 30% of the purchase price, according to the complaint.
From 2017 through 2020, the shares continued to decrease in value, and as of December 2020 — the last year for which reported data is available — the shares were worth more than $11.2 million, according to the complaint.
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Lloyd is represented by Michael Eisenkraft of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.