The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team is finally on equal footing with their male counterparts thanks to landmark new collective bargaining agreements announced Wednesday that experts say provide a framework for other similarly structured organizations to even out pay disparities.

The deals, which run through 2028, are critical to resolving a $24 million equal pay suit that the women and U.S. Soccer Federation had settled in February pending the approval of a new CBA.

Under the labor agreements, the teams will share FIFA World Cup prize money and collect equal appearance fees, game bonuses, and shares of commercial revenue — despite international governing body FIFA’s practice of awarding larger prizes in men’s contests.

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“I saw somebody comment on the men’s team being willing to share their FIFA bonus with the women, but you’ve got to acknowledge that, historically, the women have been doing particularly well,” Christine E. Webber, co-chair of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC’s civil rights and employment group, told Law360. “There are going to be some years where the women do so well — and the men don’t — that they will have bonus money they share with men, even though FIFA prize money is smaller for women.”

The U.S. men’s team has never won a World Cup in the contest’s more than 90 years. The women’s team has taken the title four times since their cup’s inception in 1991 — including the last two held in 2019 and 2015.

They stand a better chance of bringing home a big prize, while the men are at least guaranteed relatively sizable bonuses for qualifying this year and for hosting in 2026, Webber and Bank said.

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Regardless, the deals provide a blueprint for achieving equal pay at other federations that are organized like U.S. Soccer.

“It’s very exciting and unique as far as I’ve seen in sports,” Webber said. “It really sets a model for any other instance where we have a single national federation like national soccer that fields both men’s and women’s teams. The real remaining barrier is what FIFA itself is doing as an organization.”

Since at least 2016, Ohio pharmacists have been accusing large companies acting as pharmacy middlemen of abusive practices, which they deny. And since 2019, the state has been accusing them as well, in the form of lawsuits.

Now, after years of wrangling in court, some of that litigation might be headed to trial.

The middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, operate behind the scenes, but they’re part of some of the largest corporations in the United States. And the big three, which handle prescription transactions for more than 70% of covered Americans, are part of companies that also own major insurers.

Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, negotiate rebates from drugmakers, in part by controlling which drugs are covered by insurance and at what level. They contract with networks of pharmacies and decide how much to pay them for the prescriptions they dispense.

In 2016, two of the big-three PBMs — CVS Caremark and OptumRx — were working for Ohio’s five Medicaid managed-care companies. Late that year, many Ohio pharmacists complained, the companies slashed their reimbursements and then CVS — which was also their biggest retail competitor — offered to buy them out.

CVS and OptumRx insist their reimbursements have been fair and that their actions have saved money for consumers and taxpayers. But amid a newspaper investigation and one by then-Auditor Dave Yost, the Ohio Department of Medicaid in 2018 commissioned an investigation that showed that in 2017, CVS and OptumRx charged taxpayers $244 million more for Medicaid drugs than they paid the pharmacies that dispensed them.

Click through to read: “After Years, Pharmacy-Middleman Suit Might Finally Come to Trial,” Ohio Capital Journal

Cohen Milstein is Special Counsel to the State of Ohio in these cases.

A group of home care workers suing a Medicaid-funded corporation over allegedly unpaid overtime won class certification after a Pennsylvania federal judge rejected the company’s argument that no evidence could point to it being the aides’ employer.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl disagreed with Public Partnerships LLC’s argument that there was no common evidence proving that each caregiver was its employee, pointing out that the company used a standard application for all its workers, set work rules, and maintained employee timesheets and other employee records like tax filings and payroll checks.

“All these materials, policies and practices apply uniformly to all proposed class members and are common evidence of the claim that PPL is a joint employer,” Judge Schmehl said Wednesday, referring to the caregivers as “direct care workers” or DCWs. “PPL has presented no evidence that it does not treat all DCWs uniformly.”

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Talarico and the class members are represented by Christine E. Webber of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Richard Katz of Arnold Beyer & Katz and Rachhana T. Srey and Caroline Bressman of Nichols Kaster PLLP.

The question of whether employers can short-circuit Employee Retirement Income Security Act class actions by tucking requirements that workers individually arbitrate their claims into plan documents is likely bound for the U.S. Supreme Court, benefits attorneys say.

The Seventh Circuit put a spotlight on this issue in September, when it declared arbitration agreements barring class claims were unenforceable because they limited rights to planwide relief under ERISA.

The court’s decision, which involved a company called Triad Manufacturing, contrasts with a 2019 decision out of the Ninth Circuit that allowed Charles Schwab to bar class claims based on arbitration language added to ERISA plan documents.

An ERISA case against Argent Trust Co., currently on appeal to the Second Circuit, hinges on a district court’s denial of Argent’s motion to kick a proposed class action into arbitration. Workers in that suit allege they were overcharged for company stock.

The Tenth Circuit also has a chance to mull a trial court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration of ERISA claims involving an employee stock ownership plan, in a case involving a company called Envision Management.

Michelle Yau, chair of the benefits practice group at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, represents the plaintiffs in the Envision case. She said she’s keeping an eye on a similar case against Wilmington Trust at the Third Circuit.

“The area of arbitration and class action waivers has been so active,” Yau said.
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The Seventh Circuit’s 2021 Triad decision was particularly important because it followed the Schwab ruling. The Triad opinion showed how “courts of appeals have been, thus far, recognizing the differences between ERISA planwide claims — [such as] representational claims of the plan — and your average class action,” Yau said.

Consumers might be able to recover damages for the inherent value of their personal information stolen during the breach based upon Marriott’s own valuation of that same data.

A federal judge in Maryland has granted class certification in a data breach impacting over 133 million American consumers against hotel chain Marriott and its data security vendor Accenture, clearing the way for the litigation to move forward.  The Court will allow the case to proceed as a class action on behalf of the first group of claimants the parties selected – an initial group of approximately 45 million consumers in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and New York. The lawsuit stems from a data breach Marriott discovered in 2018 after it acquired Starwood, in which, by its own admission, 133.7 million guest records of Starwood customers were compromised. Marriott acknowledged in 2019 that the records included approximately 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 20.3 million encrypted passport numbers, among other sensitive personal information regarding hotel stays.

In granting class certification, Judge Paul Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Maryland issued a 70-plus page opinion that made clear he was certifying the case for potential trial, rather than for a pending settlement (as occurs in most other data breach cases). The opinion allows the plaintiffs to seek damages related to overpayment for hotel rooms, as well as statutory and nominal damages. The Court also found that consumers might be able to recover damages for the inherent value of their personal information stolen during the breach based upon Marriott’s own valuation of that same data.

DiCello Levitt Gutzler partner Amy Keller, Hausfeld partner James Pizzirusso, and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll partner Andrew N. Friedman are Co-Lead Plaintiffs’ counsel in the case. They issued the following joint statement:

“After three years of hard-fought litigation, the Court issued a well-reasoned opinion which provides a path forward to hold Marriott accountable for its egregious, four-year data breach. While many companies do the right thing and work to help their customers after a data breach, Marriott and Accenture chose to deny responsibility, vigorously attempting to convince the Court that they cannot be held liable to anyone impacted by the breach. We look forward to presenting our evidence to a jury.

The valuation of personal information is still fairly new territory for many Courts, and this is the first case to reach class certification on the issue. While the Court precluded our expert on this point, it also recognized that we might have the ability to introduce the value that Marriott itself derived from its customers’ data at trial as a component of damages the class sustained. The Court also accepted our experts’ damages methodology that Marriott and Starwood guests overpaid when making hotel reservations because of substandard security. Finally, the Court found that we could seek to recover nominal damages and statutory damages in some states. Marriott and Accenture are facing significant liability here, and we look forward to holding them to their legal and moral responsibilities.”

Filed in January 2018, the lawsuit alleges that Starwood, and later Marriott, took more than four years to discover the long-running data breach. Marriott became the world’s largest hotel chain when it acquired Starwood that same year.

Some Marriott International Inc. guests were granted class status by a Maryland federal judge in litigation over a major data breach that compromised the personal information of 133.7 million guests at its Starwood-branded hotels, while others classes were denied certification.

Plaintiffs filed a would-be class action alleging that Marriott took more than four years to discover the breach and nearly three months to notify its customers of their exposed information.

Judge Paul W. Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland rejected Marriott’s argument that certification should be denied because not all of the class members have demonstrated that they’ve suffered an injury.

The plaintiffs don’t need to demonstrate that every class member has standing at the class certification stage, Grimm said in his Tuesday order.

Read “Marriott Guests Get Partial Class Certification in Breach Suit,” Bloomberg Law. (Subscription required.)

A Maryland federal judge certified eight classes of Marriott International Inc. guests in multidistrict litigation over a major data breach that compromised the personal information of more than 100 million guests at its Starwood-branded hotels, although some other classes were denied certification.

U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm granted certification on Tuesday to eight of 13 potential guest classes with claims against Marriott or Accenture LLP, a consulting company that worked with Marriott-owned Starwood Hotels and Resorts Inc. at the time the data breach was discovered in 2018.

The ruling certifies potentially millions of class members spanning six states that were included in an initial 10 bellwether cases and an estimated 47.7 million exposed customer records associated with the bellwether states, the judge said.

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The classes are represented by Andrew Friedman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Amy Keller of DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC and James Pizzirusso of Hausfeld LLP.

Click through to read “8 Classes of Marriott Guests Certified in Data Breach MDL,” Law360

More than 60 million Americans in the nonunion private sector workforce have been shut out of the court system by companies that force them to arbitrate in the event of a dispute, according to a 2019 study by Professor Alexander J.S. Colvin of the ILR School at Cornell University. But given the costs, many of those same workers are shut out of arbitration, too. Employment lawyers are often reluctant to take arbitration cases at all because the hours required don’t always justify the potential reward, particularly when low wage workers are seeking justice.

Joseph M. Sellers, co-chair of our Civil Rights & Employment practice, was quoted by Capital & Main in an article examining the impact of forced arbitration on the U.S. workforce. Currently, more than 60 million Americans are subject to forced arbitration, preventing them from using the court system to resolve work-related disputes.

“Low-wage workers have the least bargaining power. Whatever the employer insists on, they are going to agree to.”

Kigali (AFP) – The family of “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina announced Saturday it has filed a $400 million lawsuit in the United States over his alleged abduction and torture.

Rusesabagina is currently serving a 25-year prison term on terrorism charges after a trial his supporters say was a sham and riddled with irregularities.

“The complaint alleges that the Government of Rwanda and high-ranking Rwandan officials conspired to facilitate and execute an elaborate plot to lure Paul Rusesabagina from his home in Texas to Rwanda, where he would be tortured and illegally detained for the remainder of his life,” the family and his lawyers said in a statement.

A copy of the lawsuit seen by AFP indicates that it was filed in a Washington DC court on February 22. It was served on the Rwandan government on March 8.

Rusesabagina’s family and lawyers will hold a press conference in Washington on Wednesday to announce further details of the suit, which is seeking at least $400 million (380 million euros) in compensation as well as punitive damages.

The lawsuit names the government of Rwanda, President Paul Kagame and other figures including the former justice minister and intelligence chief.

Cohen Milstein is counsel to Paul Rusesabagina and his family in this FSIA, TVPRA human rights lawsuit.

When Laura Baxter was accused of monopolising the attention of actor Tom Cruise aboard Scientology’s Caribbean cruise ship in 2004, she says her punishment was to be locked in an “extremely hot” engine room of the Freewinds ship.

She was shouted at by church officials and then for three days she says she was only allowed to leave to eat for a few minutes at a time or return to her room to sleep for a few hours. She had to urinate in a bin out of fear of being punished for going to the bathroom unaccompanied, she alleges.

Cohen Milstein’s Theodore J. Leopold, Manuel J. Dominguez, and Brendan Schneiderman are representing three individuals in a human trafficking and forced labor lawsuit against the Church of Scientology and five Scientology-affiliated corporations for violations of the United States Code Chapter 77 of Title 18 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Read the complete case study for more information on Baxter, et. al. v. Church of Scientology International.