A California federal judge certified a class of Facebook advertisers that claim they were deceived about the company’s “potential reach” tool, ruling that parent company Meta Platforms inc. made an unfocused “blunderbuss of objections” to certification that did not hold up to scrutiny.
Tuesday’s order from U.S. District Judge James Donato certified a class of all U.S. residents and incorporated entities that purchased at least one advertisement on Facebook or Instagram through Facebook’s Ads Manager or Power Editor from Aug. 15, 2014, through the present.
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The class is represented by Eric A. Kafka and Geoffrey A. Graber of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Charles Reichmann of the Law Offices of Charles Reichmann.
A radiology company and its founders must face a proposed class action alleging they overcharged their employee stock ownership plan in a $163.7 million sale, a Colorado federal judge ruled, saying the company can’t enforce an arbitration agreement because it conflicts with federal benefits law.
U.S. District Judge Regina M. Rodriguez on Thursday said the agreement between Envision Management Holding Inc. and Robert Harrison conflicts with an Employee Retirement Income Security Act provision allowing plan participants to sue fiduciaries to seek relief on behalf of the entire plan. The Federal Arbitration Act permits a court to overrule an arbitration agreement if it blocks a party from being able to bring claims under federal law.
“The arbitration provision is therefore invalid, and the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration is denied,” Judge Rodriguez said.
She pointed to the Seventh Circuit’s September decision in Smith v. Board of Directors of Triad Manufacturing Inc. , a case that she said is “substantively identical” to that of Harrison. In Smith, the court found that the arbitration provision made it impossible for the plaintiff to effectively argue their claims.
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Harrison is represented by Michelle C. Yau, Mary J. Bortscheller and Ryan Wheeler of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
An Ohio federal judge on Friday denied Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.’s bid to toss a proposed class action alleging the company breached its fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act through the mismanagement of employees’ pension plan.
In a 14-page opinion, U.S. District Judge James L. Graham denied a request by Nationwide Mutual, its subsidiaries and benefit committee members to end the proposed class action alleging they violated ERISA by transferring assets from the pension plan — called the Guaranteed Investment Fund, which is an investment option under Nationwide’s larger savings plan — to a Nationwide Mutual subsidiary that serviced the plan.
The judge held that the most recent rendition of the complaint sufficiently alleges a fiduciary breach by stating “outright” that the defendants favored the economic interests of Nationwide Mutual over plan participants.
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The plan participants are represented by Eric H. Zagrans of the Zagrans Law Firm LLC and Karen Handorf, Michelle C. Yau, Scott M. Lempert and Daniel R. Sutter of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
A bench trial starting Monday in Connecticut federal court will determine if a third-party company’s conduct while screening tenants was racially discriminatory in violation of the Fair Housing Act, a claim that is typically leveled at individual housing providers.
The 2018 suit against CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, which has since been spun off as SafeRent Solutions LLC and is no longer connected to CoreLogic, was filed by the Connecticut Fair Housing Center and Carmen Arroyo, mother and conservator of a young man who saw his rental application rejected in 2016 based on an unspecified criminal record.
The plaintiffs argue that SafeRent violated the Fair Housing Act, which outlaws denying housing based on race or national origin, because its algorithmic CrimSAFE product can disqualify a renter simply based on the existence of a criminal record such as a charge or conviction, disproportionately denying housing to Black and Latino renters.
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Arroyo and Connecticut Fair Housing Center are represented by Christine E. Webber, Brian C. Corman and Joseph M. Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Greg Kirschner, Salmun Kazerounian and Sarah White of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, and Eric Dunn of the National Housing Law Project.
Citgo Petroleum Corp. must face a proposed class action claiming it shortchanges the pensions of certain married retirees by calculating their benefits using outdated lifespan data, according to a Chicago federal court ruling issued Tuesday.
Citgo retirees Leslie Urlaub and Mark Pellegrini are moving forward with claims that the pensions they received from Citgo, which include post-death benefits for their surviving spouses, aren’t the “actuarial equivalent” of a traditional, single-life pension as required by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Citgo argued that the statute doesn’t expressly prohibit employers from using unreasonable lifespan data when making these calculations, but the court disagreed, saying it “cannot possibly be the case that ERISA’s actuarial equivalence requirements allow the use of unreasonable mortality assumptions.”
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Urlaub and Pellegrini are represented by Feinberg Jackson Worthman & Wasow LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Stris & Maher LLP, and the University of San Diego Law School.
A New Jersey federal judge adopted a special master’s report Tuesday approving two settlements totaling over $23 million to resolve claims that the former Valeant Pharmaceuticals used a “secret network of captive pharmacies” to stifle generic competition, driving up prices for third-party payors.
The approval ends what U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp in his memorandum opinion called “lengthy and robust” litigation accusing the drug company of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act with an alleged scheme to block its drugs from generic competition.
A federal judge has rejected efforts by former President Donald Trump to toss out conspiracy lawsuits filed by lawmakers and two Capitol police officers, saying in his ruling that the former president’s words “plausibly” led to the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said in his Friday ruling that Trump’s words during a rally before the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol were likely “words of incitement not protected by the First Amendment.”
“Only in the most extraordinary circumstances could a court not recognize that the First Amendment protects a President’s speech,” Mehta wrote. “But the court believes this is that case.”
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During a planned rally on the Ellipse just hours before Congress was to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump told his supporters to “Fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He said, “(We’re) going to try to and give (weak Republicans) the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country,” and then told the crowd to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Mehta said Trump’s speech could have directed people to break the law. But the judge dismissed similar charges made against Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, saying their speech was protected by the First Amendment. Mehta did not yet rule on another motion to dismiss from Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, also named in the suits.
Lawyer Joseph Sellers, who along with the NAACP is representing that group of House Democrats, said the ruling was “a major victory for the rule of law, and demonstrates just how important the courts are for ensuring accountability.
The ruling means the plaintiffs in three civil cases will likely be able to seek information from the former president over his role in the attack on the Capitol.
A federal judge in Washington ruled on Friday that three civil lawsuits against Donald J. Trump related to the attack on the Capitol last January were able to move forward, saying that the former president was not shielded by the normal protections of immunity or the First Amendment.
The ruling by the judge, Amit P. Mehta, meant that the plaintiffs in the suits — several members of Congress and police officers who served at the Capitol during the attack — will likely be able to seek information from Mr. Trump about the specific role he played in fostering the chaos at the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
If ultimately found liable, Mr. Trump could also be on the hook for financial damages.
Judge Mehta’s order capped a difficult week for Mr. Trump, one in which a judge in New York ruled that he had to answer questions from state investigators examining his company, the Trump Organization, for evidence of fraud. Officials at the National Archives also said that Mr. Trump had taken classified national security documents from the White House to his private club in Florida.
The lawsuits, all of which were filed last year, accused Mr. Trump of overlapping charges of conspiring with several others — people like his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, his son Donald Trump Jr. and extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia — to sow doubts about the 2020 election, culminating in the violent storming of the Capitol. Judge Mehta allowed the suits to go ahead against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, but dismissed them against Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump’s son.
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“Above all else, it’s about accountability,” said Joseph Sellers, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. Representatives for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A federal judge on Friday ruled that former President Donald Trump must face allegations that he stoked violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and conspired with extremist groups to disrupt Congress.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of the District of Columbia found that the plaintiffs, which include Democratic members of Congress and U.S. Capitol police officers, plausibly alleged that Trump had a “tacit agreement” with the leader of the far-right Proud Boys group and members of the Oath Keepers militia to stop the election certification. Mehta determined that Trump’s appeal to his supporters on the morning of Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” against the certification could plausibly be considered incitement to violence.
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The 112-page ruling came in response to three lawsuits filed in the months after the attack on the Capitol that alleged Trump, his associates and members of right-wing extremist groups violated the Ku Klux Klan Act by conspiring to disrupt Congress’ certification and storm the Capitol.
“Today is a major victory for the rule of law, and demonstrates just how important the courts are for ensuring accountability,” said Joseph Sellers, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, who is the co-lead counsel for a group of Democratic members of Congress in one of the cases. “This decision exhibits the finest tradition of our legal system – evaluating cases on their merits, not politics. We will continue to pursue justice through the courts and ensure accountability for this attack on our democracy.
Civil lawsuits seeking to hold Donald Trump accountable for the January 6, 2021, insurrection can move forward in court, a federal judge said Friday in a ruling outlining how the former President could conceivably be responsible for inciting the attack on the US Capitol.
Trump’s statements to his supporters before the riot “is the essence of civil conspiracy,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote in a 112-page opinion, because Trump spoke about himself and rallygoers working “towards a common goal” of fighting and walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.
“The President’s January 6 Rally Speech can reasonably be viewed as a call for collective action,” Mehta said.
Democratic members of the House and police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6 sued Trump last year, claiming he prompted his supporters to attack. Friday, Mehta wrote that the three lawsuits could move to the evidence-gathering phase and toward a trial — a major loss in court for Trump.
“To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step. The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent,” Mehta wrote.
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Two of the lawsuits were brought by Democratic House members, while a third was filed by Capitol Police officers.
The lawmakers allege that they were threatened by Trump and others as part of a conspiracy to stop the congressional session that would certify the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021, according to the complaints. They argue that Trump should bear responsibility for directing the assaults.
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Lawyers for the Democratic lawmakers and police were elated with the ruling Friday, though they likely face a long road of additional court tangles ahead.
“Today is a major victory for the rule of law, and demonstrates just how important the courts are for ensuring accountability,” said Joseph Sellers, who represents a group of Democratic members of Congress that was first to allege a civil conspiracy against Trump in court.
The NAACP, working alongside Sellers, also applauded the ruling, and the group’s president Derrick Johnson called for accountability for Trump and the right-wing groups.