A Stoked Batch of Litigator of the Week Runners-Up
Solid results from Goodwin Procter, Mayer Brown, Hogan Lovells, Latham & Watkins, Paul Hastings, and White & Case,
March 26, 2021 at 07:25 AM
9 minute read
Our first runner-up this week is the Goodwin Procter team led by partners Doug Kline and Robert Frederickson, who on March 19 won a $308.5 patent infringement verdict for Personalized Media Communications against Apple in the Eastern District of Texas. PMC accused Apple's FairPlay digital rights management technology which iTunes and the App Store use to decrypt content like movies, music, and apps of infringing claims of its 2012 encryption patent. Apple succeeded in invalidating the asserted claims at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, but the Goodwin team got most of that decision reversed on appeal. The jury trial, one of the first held since the Eastern District suspended trials due to the pandemic, began on March 15. The Goodwin team at trial also included J. Anthony Downs, Kevin Martin, Lana Shiferman, Sarah Fischer, Andrew Ong, Alexandra Valenti, Naomi Birbach and Autumn Soucy.
Mayer Brown partner John Nadolenco gets a runner-up nod for his work in an 11-year battle involving one of Hong Kong's wealthiest families. This week Nadolenco scored a $69 million judgment for the firm's client, Rostack Investments Inc. The case involved a $30 million loan that Rostack made to its deceased founder's daughter, Angela Sabella, who claimed her father gifted her the funds via a hand-written note at a family meeting on February 8, 2005. During a nine-day bench trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, Nadolenco proved that no family meeting occurred on that date since a key participant was 7,000 miles away at the time. When Sabella tried to change her story claiming the meeting took place a day earlier, the Mayer Brown team was able to show that her father's writing had been on the underlying document since at least November 2003. The trial court concluded Sabella was not credible due to "multiple drastic and contradictory changes in testimony" and this week entered judgment for Rostack for the principal sum of $28 million plus $41 million interest.
Also scoring a runner-up spot this week is an appellate team at Hogan Lovells including partners Neal Katyal, Mitchell Reich, and senior associate Sundeep Iyer who scored an en banc ruling from the Ninth Circuit upholding Hawaii's open carry gun restrictions. The Hogan Lovells team was hired to represent the state after an earlier divided three-judge panel struck down Hawaii's public-carry law as a violation of the Second Amendment. The 127-page decision, written by George W. Bush-appointee Judge Jay Bybee, found "overwhelming evidence" in 700 years of English and American legal history that individuals do not "have an unfettered right to carry weapons in public spaces."
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Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
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