And the LOTW Runners Up...
Honorable mention goes to lawyers from Quinn Emanuel; Cleary Gottlieb; Kirkland & Ellis; O'Melveny & Myers and Sidley Austin.
December 13, 2019 at 01:35 PM
3 minute read
Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's Alex Spiro and William Price. They scored a huge win for Elon Musk, who faced a $190 million defamation claim by a British caver after the Tesla co-founder called him "pedo guy" in a tweet.
A jury in Los Angeles federal court on Dec. 6 took just 30 minutes to side with Musk. The case is now officially over—in a joint stipulation filed on Monday, plaintiff Vernon Unsworth agreed to forego an appeal and Musk agreed not to seek legal fees.
Cleary Gottlieb partners Matthew Slater, Lewis Liman, Carmine Boccuzzi and Alexis Collins won summary judgment for Robert Bosch GmbH and Robert Bosch LLC, defeating claims for billions in damages by Volkswagen franchised dealerships stemming from the diesel emissions scandal.
VW itself promptly settled with the dealers for $1.2 billion in 2016. But Bosch, which supplies auto parts and technology, fought back against allegations that it conspired with Volkswagen to develop and conceal the non-compliant technology. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco on Dec. 6 sided with Bosch, ruling that the "dealers have not submitted proof of any damages that are recoverable under their causes of action against the Bosch defendants."
At Kirkland & Ellis, Joshua Rabinovitz, Robert Kopecky, Nathaniel Kritzer and Stacy Pepper persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to affirm dismissal with prejudice of a putative securities fraud class action against poultry producer Sanderson Farms.
The decision clarifies the pleading standard for securities cases that are premised on an alleged failure to disclose other unlawful conduct—in this instance, alleged anti-competitive conduct.
O'Melveny & Myer partner Daniel Petrocelli notched a win for Twentieth Century Fox in a fight with Netflix over executive poaching.
On Tuesday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge enjoined Netflix from luring away executives working under contract in what the Los Angeles Times called "a significant win for Fox in a legal fight that has highlighted a growing arms race for talent in Hollywood."
And at Sidley Austin, a pro bono team led by Daniel Spira, Julie Becker and Elizabeth Chiarello won one of the largest verdicts ever awarded under prisoners' rights statute 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the Southern District of Illinois. The team won a verdict of $450,000 on behalf of an incarcerated client who had been beaten by four prison guards.
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