Three former workers for the Church of Scientology have accused the organization of indoctrinating them as kids, making it physically and psychologically impossible for them to leave what they described as a human trafficking situation. In a lawsuit filed in Florida, the plaintiffs say they were raised within the organization and worked on its Freewinds ship after signing a standard-issue billion-year contract to provide free or underpaid labor. Aboard the ship for over a decade, the trio alleges they were prisoners in “a world filled with abuse, violence, intimidation and fear,” working for up to 18 hours at a time.

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.

A federal lawsuit in Tampa accuses Scientology leader David Miscavige and the church of forcing child staffers to work in Clearwater.

Gawain Baxter was 6 years old when he signed a contract agreeing to work for the Church of Scientology for 1 billion years.

He said he spent his childhood doing manual labor at Scientology’s Flag Land Base in Clearwater, and getting no education beyond basic reading, writing and math.

At 15, Baxter attempted to leave by writing a letter to a superior about constant abuse and intolerable living conditions. Instead, he said, church officials sent him to Scientology’s Freewinds ship in the Caribbean, where he worked for little or no wages for 14 years.

See the Tampa Bay Times for the full story.

A D.C. federal judge shot down an attempt by the Justice Department to throw out the bulk of a proposed class action by more than a dozen women alleging they were systematically driven out of the FBI agent training program and subjected to sexist double standards.

In a one-page order filed Friday, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb denied the federal government’s motion for partial dismissal of a proposed class action alleging the law enforcement agency allowed rampant bias in its trainee program in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The 17 plaintiffs, some proceeding pseudonymously, had claimed that the bureau cracked down on female trainees but let men off the hook for mistakes it cited to block most of them from becoming full agents.

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The current and former FBI employees are represented by Joseph M. Sellers and Christine E. Webber of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and by David J. Shaffer.

A proposal from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council to block state pension funds from selecting investments based on environmental, social and governance factors is being closely watched by benefits attorneys who say it echoes Trump-era regulations that evinced antipathy toward ESG investing.

The model policy, unveiled Wednesday, could give state legislatures a template for implementing similar restrictions on ESG investments that were proposed under the Trump administration in late 2020, though ALEC envisions restricting state-run retirement plans instead of employer sponsored ones. President Joe Biden’s Department of Labor has since backed off those rules.

The proposal’s main focus, and a major idea behind the Trump-era DOL rule, has to do with requiring fiduciaries of a retirement plan to explain why they’re choosing ESG-based investments over other comparable options.

In particular, the proposal would restrict investment by specifying that an option’s performance — not its environmental or social impact — should be the focus when a retirement plan manager is deciding whether it is right for a plan. That was the same process suggested by the Trump-era DOL.

And the ALEC proposal would go even further than Trump’s rule by, for example, expanding the definition of what constitutes a material financial risk to exclude uncertain events far in the future — which might include climate change.

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“To the extent this debate provides any guidance into the best thinking about the pecuniary benefits provided by ESG-type investments, I think, could have some tag-along effects about providing or dissuading fiduciaries from using those types of investments in plans,” said Daniel Sutter, an attorney at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll LLP.

“It may just reveal the best thinking on the ESG investment thesis and whether or not, you know, the individuals that spend a lot of their time studying the economic benefits of ESG, whether there’s a strong case that there’s a long-term pecuniary benefit,” he added.

As part of a settlement signed today with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality (DAQ), Chemours has agreed to further limit GenX emissions, conduct additional testing and pay the penalty assessed last year by DAQ.

The agreement will require Chemours to reduce GenX emissions from the Carbon Adsorber Unit in the Vinyl Ethers North manufacturing area to no more than an average of 1.0 pound per month between May and September 2022. Fugitive emissions from the Vinyl Ethers North area are primarily controlled by the Carbon Adsorber Unit which is a separate system from the onsite Thermal Oxidizer.  Chemours’ facility-wide emissions are limited to 23.027 pounds per year under the current air permit.

Cohen Milstein is Interim Co-Lead Counsel in this consolidated environmental toxic tort class action against E.I. DuPont de Nemours Company, and its former wholly-owned subsidiary, The Chemours Company.

Cohen Milstein’s team is led by Theodore J. Leopold, and includes S. Douglas Bunch, and Alison Deich.

Wells Fargo & Co. will pay $32.5 million to resolve litigation by workers who say the banking giant favored its own funds in their 401(k) plan over cheaper and better performing alternatives, settlement papers filed in Minnesota federal court show.

The deal is expected to benefit more than 400,000 people who invested in Wells Fargo target date funds through the company’s $40 billion 401(k) plan. The settlement amount represents 40% of the plan participants’ estimated damages, according to the filing.

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The Wells Fargo plan participants are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Zimmerman Reed LLP, and Keller Rohrback LLP. Wells Fargo is represented by Proskauer Rose LLP and Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

Read Wells Fargo Inks $32.5 Million Deal Over Affiliated 401(k) Funds.

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 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.