A New York federal judge agreed to revive in-court proceedings on a Luxottica ex-worker’s claims in a federal benefits lawsuit that she made on behalf of her pension plan, but held firm on the court’s earlier decision to compel individual arbitration of other claims.
In a 50-page opinion and order docketed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury partially granted Janet Duke’s motion for reconsideration of a 2023 order that had granted a motion to dismiss and to compel arbitration of her Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit.
Duke first sued Luxottica U.S. Holdings Corp., subsidiary Oakley Inc. and Luxottica’s pension plan and investment committee in 2021. Duke said the companies’ use of outdated mortality tables and an incorrect interest rate lowered pension plan participants’ joint-and-survivor annuity benefits below what they would have received if they elected a single-life annuity. Joint-and-survivor annuities provide an individual and their spouse benefits for life in exchange for lower payments, but ERISA requires that those pension plan benefits be actuarially equivalent.
Judge Choudhury said an arbitration provision in a dispute resolution agreement that Duke signed in 2015 was unenforceable as to claims brought on behalf of her pension plan. That’s because it would require Duke “to waive her statutory rights under Sections 409 and 502(a)(2) to bring representative claims on behalf of the plan and to seek plan-wide remedies,” Judge Choudhury said.
Judge Choudhury refers to the sections of ERISA that authorize individuals to sue on behalf of a benefit plan for fiduciary breach and for damages resulting from those breaches.
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Duke and the proposed class are represented by Michelle C. Yau, Daniel Sutter and Ryan A. Wheeler of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Todd Jackson and Nina Wasow of Feinberg Jackson Worthman & Wasow LLP, Peter K. Stris, Rachana A. Pathak, Victor O’Connell, John Stokes and Dana Berkowitz of Stris & Maher LLP and Shaun P. Martin of the University of San Diego Law School.
A Missouri federal judge granted final approval Tuesday to the National Association of Realtors’ antitrust settlement with home sellers, signing off on a $418 million payment and changes to broker commission rules, as NAR and the plaintiffs assailed the U.S. Department of Justice for raising last-minute concerns about the deal.
NAR announced U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough’s approval, which was issued from the bench during a fairness hearing. The association said a written decision is expected soon on a deal it said releases from liability more than 1.4 million trade group members as well as its local associations, multiple listing services and all brokerages helmed by NAR members with residential transactions of $2 billion or less in 2022.
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The settlement ends NAR rules that required brokers working for sellers to make an offer to compensate a buyer-side broker when listing a property. Home sellers contended the rules violated antitrust law by eliminating competition between brokers working for buyers and resulted in sellers paying inflated commissions of around 3% to each broker.
The litigation also contended the rules caused buyer brokers not to show homes with lower commissions being offered or to only show homes with higher commissions.
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The home sellers are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Susman Godfrey LLP, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Boulware Law LLC, Ketchmark & McCreight PC and Williams Dirks Dameron LLC.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has refused to let the federal government escape a suit filed by property owners who claimed that their properties were taken without just compensation due to years of destructive flooding caused by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In his Monday ruling, Judge Armando O. Bonilla denied the federal government’s judgment on the pleadings motion, which alleged that the court should toss claims made under the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause if those claims were based on “less than three floods” damaging the plaintiffs’ properties.
The plaintiffs began their suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 2014, claiming that the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers’ Missouri River Recovery Program caused flooding that damaged their properties. In November 2023, the Federal Circuit refused to rethink its June 2023 decision that affirmed an award of over $7 million in damages to three bellwether plaintiffs.
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The plaintiffs are represented by Seth C. Wright, David K. Schultz and E. Benton Keatley of Polsinelli PC and Benjamin D. Brown and Alexander J. Noronha of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
The company has also agreed to hire experts to address compensation disparities impacting roughly 9,000 women who said they’re being paid less than their male counterparts for similar work.
Disney will pay $43.25 million to settle a class action from roughly 9,000 female employees in California accusing the company of pay discrimination.
Under the deal, Disney will retain experts to address “significant pay differences” using a model commissioned by lawyers representing the women, they said in a statement.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, centered on claims from female workers employed by Disney since 2015, who said they’re being paid less than their male counterparts for substantially similar work. It was brought by LaRonda Rasmussen, a longtime product development manager at Walt Disney Studios, and Karen Moore, who has spent over two decades as a senior copyright administrator for Disney’s Hollywood Records. At the time, Disney denied allegations of pay bias across numerous corporate divisions in the class action seeking up to $300 million.
The settlement was reached in September, though terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Plaintiffs’ lawyers on Monday moved for approval of the deal. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu M. Berle is tentatively scheduled to consider the agreement at a Jan. 10 hearing.
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The long-running case cleared a major hurdle last year when a judge certified a diverse class of employees who work across the company’s movie production arm, record labels, theme parks and home distribution subsidiaries, among various other units including broadcast and research and development. It’s believed to be one of the largest classes ever suing under an equal pay act claim. The group comprised women employed by Disney between April 2015 and three months before trial, which was scheduled to start in May, below the level of vice president.
“This settlement would not be possible without these courageous women. Because of them, women can expect equitable treatment at Disney in the future,” said Christine Webber, a lawyer for the women and partner at Cohen Milstein. “I am hopeful the court will move swiftly to approve the settlement, so these hard-working women can move forward with confidence that best practices will be used and unencumbered by further litigation.”
The U.S. Department of Justice warned the National Association of Realtors that changes to broker commission rules agreed to in a settlement with home sellers does not shield the industry from government antitrust scrutiny.
The DOJ filed a statement of interest on Sunday in Missouri federal court ahead of a fairness hearing scheduled Tuesday for a settlement over NAR rules that required agents listing homes to offer compensation to brokers that work for the buyers on a sale.
NAR and several large brokerages have agreed to pay around $1 billion and to make a number of changes over claims that the rules have inflated broker commissions.
The DOJ’s statement noted that it has an ongoing antitrust investigation into NAR’s rules and said the settlement with home sellers should not be used as “a shield against a future enforcement action by the United States.”
“For this reason, the United States respectfully requests that if the court approves the settlement, it should clarify that such approval does not address whether the proposed settlement prevents and restrains current antitrust violations, remedies past violations, or contains revised policies and practices that comply with the antitrust laws,” the statement said.
Enforcers said they take no position on most aspects of the settlement but are concerned about new requirements for brokers to obtain a written agreement from prospective buyers before showing a home.
The DOJ said the new provision limits how brokers compete for clients and bears a close resemblance to prior restrictions among competitors that courts have found violate the antitrust laws, including a case involving an agreement that prohibited certain information from being distributed through a multiple listing service, or MLS.
Other changes being made as a result of the settlement would bar Realtors from including the commission a buyer’s broker would be paid on an MLS, though the DOJ said brokers would still be able to publicly post the commission offers elsewhere.
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The home sellers are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Susman Godfrey LLP, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Boulware Law LLC, Ketchmark & McCreight PC and Williams Dirks Dameron LLC.
Fox Corp. “demonstrated willingness to republish demonstrably false material” promoting bogus 2020 election conspiracies to bolster its market share, a class attorney said during dismissal arguments Friday in a Delaware Court of Chancery suit seeking billions of dollars in damages.
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The derivative suit named Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, and his son Lachlan as well as Fox News’ CEO, and Fox’s top legal officer and four directors. Among the allegations were claims that Fox’s multiple politically clouded damage payouts in recent years resulted from an utter failure of oversight and knowing breaches of duty, factors required to overcome Delaware charter protections for company directors.
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The plaintiffs are represented by Joel Friedlander, Jeffrey M. Gorris and Christopher M. Foulds of Friedlander & Gorris PA, Ellen Rosenblum and Brian A. de Haan of the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, Julie Goldsmith Reiser, Molly J. Bowen and Brendan Schneiderman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Katherine Lubin Benson of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP.
Michelle Yau of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC helped to secure multiple multimillion-dollar settlement deals as lead counsel on class actions from workers alleging retirement plan mismanagement, including deals with New York Life Insurance Co. and Citgo Petroleum Corp., earning her a spot among the 2024 Law360 Benefits MVPs.
Her biggest accomplishment:
Yau said the high value and number of settlements Cohen Milstein has reached in class actions alleging violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, have made 2024 “the most fulfilling year of my career.”
Among the highlights for Yau is a $19 million deal to end an ERISA class action against New York Life — which got final approval in July from a New York federal court.
“That’s real money for employees,” Yau said.
Yau and Cohen Milstein also saw key developments in May toward an ERISA class action settlement with Citgo, securing class certification for the plaintiffs and defeating a summary judgment motion. An unopposed motion for preliminary approval of the deal, which increased the value of pensioners’ retirement funds by more than $10 million, was filed in Illinois federal court in October.
Her proudest moment:
Yau said that while there’s not one particular moment from the year that stands out, she is proud of the strong cooperation among attorneys in Cohen Milstein’s employee benefits and ERISA practice group that she leads. The multiple ERISA class action settlements reached this year are a “direct result” of that cooperation, she said.
“We’re all working our butts off, and it’s making a difference,” Yau said.
Another major deal was a $14.8 million settlement to end a proposed class action from ex-workers for a retail display manufacturing company called Triad Manufacturing Inc. The deal received final approval in Illinois federal court in August 2023.
Yau said getting settlements on multiple ERISA class actions over the past year was like “hitting the top of the mountain and then getting to stay there.”
Her advice for junior attorneys:
Yau, who has three children, said that as a junior attorney she struggled with juggling family responsibilities alongside a deep commitment to her work.
“I think it took a little bit of a leap of faith to see that it was all OK,” she said.
Yau encouraged attorneys to communicate with their families. She added that while she might not have 100% confidence every day that she’s doing enough in both her career and family life, “you can absolutely do both.”
“At least in my family experience, because I’m working, because I actually love my work just like I love my children, they understand that there’s something else in my life other than them, and that’s OK,” Yau said.
SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, will no longer use AI-powered “scores” to evaluate whether someone using housing vouchers would make a good tenant. On Wednesday, US District Judge Angel Kelley issued final approval for a roughly $2.3 million settlement to prevent SafeRent from discriminating against tenants based on income and race.
The settlement stems from a 2022 class action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts. The suit alleged that SafeRent’s scoring system disproportionately harmed people using housing vouchers — specifically Black and Hispanic applicants. In addition to violating Massachusetts law, the complaint also accused SafeRent of breaking the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination.
As outlined in the initial lawsuit, SafeRent’s scoring algorithm uses factors like credit history and non-rental-related debts to assign a SafeRent Score to potential tenants. Landlords can then use this score to determine whether to accept or deny someone’s rental application. The lawsuit claimed the process isn’t transparent, as SafeRent doesn’t tell landlords how it came up with a person’s score. And the system allegedly assigned lower scores unfairly for Black and Hispanic tenants, as well as people who use housing vouchers, leading landlords to deny their housing applications.
Under the five-year settlement, SafeRent will no longer display a tenant screening score for applicants using housing vouchers nationwide, nor can it include a score when landlords use its “affordable” SafeRent Score model. SafeRent’s service also can’t display recommendations on whether to “accept” or “deny” someone’s application if they use housing vouchers. This means landlords will now have to evaluate renters who use housing vouchers based on their entire record — rather than just using their SafeRent score.
Mary Louis’ excitement to move into an apartment in Massachusetts in the spring of 2021 turned to dismay when Louis, a Black woman, received an email saying that a “third-party service” had denied her tenancy.
That third-party service included an algorithm designed to score rental applicants, which became the subject of a class action lawsuit, with Louis at the helm, alleging that the algorithm discriminated on the basis of race and income.
A federal judge approved a settlement in the lawsuit, one of the first of it’s kind, on Wednesday, with the company behind the algorithm agreeing to pay over $2.2 million and roll back certain parts of it’s screening products that the lawsuit alleged were discriminatory.
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The lawsuit alleged SafeRent’s algorithm didn’t take into account the benefits of housing vouchers, which they said was an important detail for a renter’s ability to pay the monthly bill, and it therefore discriminated against low-income applicants who qualified for the aid.
The suit also accused SafeRent’s algorithm of relying too much on credit information. They argued that it fails to give a full picture of an applicant’s ability to pay rent on time and unfairly dings applicants with housing vouchers who are Black and Hispanic partly because they have lower median credit scores, attributable to historical inequities.
Christine Webber, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, said that just because an algorithm or AI is not programmed to discriminate, the data an algorithm uses or weights could have “the same effect as if you told it to discriminate intentionally.”
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Louis’ attorneys, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, which submitted a statement of interest in the case, argued that SafeRent’s algorithm could be held accountable because it still plays a role in access to housing. The judge denied SafeRent’s motion to dismiss on those counts.
The settlement stipulates that SafeRent can’t include its score feature on its tenant screening reports in certain cases, including if the applicant is using a housing voucher. It also requires that if SafeRent develops another screening score it plans to use, it must be validated by a third-party that the plaintiffs agree to.
Investors in a December 2020 blank-check company merger that took hybrid-car retrofit venture XL Fleet public have preliminarily settled a four-count fiduciary duty breach suit in Delaware’s Court of Chancery for $4.75 million.
The deal, which would end a lawsuit filed in September 2021 if approved, emerged from final settlement talks underway since at least September of this year, when the parties asked Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick to take a proposed trial off the court’s calendar.
A brief in support of the agreement had yet to be filed on Thursday afternoon, but a stipulation noted the deal was reached in September after two negotiation sessions, in May 2023 and July 2024, mediated by Jed Melnick of JAMS that ended without a resolution.
Surviving to settlement were all or most of five counts in the original six-count suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment against company directors, officers and controllers, as well as a direct claim for beach of contract against the SPAC, Pivotal II, which became XL Fleet in a reverse merger.
According to the complaint, Pivotal II breached a representation that it would enter into a merger with a company having a fair market value of at least 80% of the assets held in Pivotal’s trust account, or $178.4 million. “Legacy” XL, the company taken public, was valued at only $55 million.
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The stockholders are represented by Michael J. Barry, Casimir O. Szustak and David T. Wissbroecker of Grant & Eisenhofer PA, Richard A. Speirs and Alexandra Gray of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, and Peretz Bronstein and Eitan Kimelman of Bronstein Gewirtz & Grossman LLC.