Another Stacked Lineup of Litigation of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs
Our first runners up this week are Sam Baxter of McKool Smith and Jason Sheasby of Irell & Manella, who won Litigator of the Week honors last year for landing a $506 million damages verdict for PanOptis in patent litigation against Apple. In a damages retrial. they won $300 million.
August 20, 2021 at 07:30 AM
5 minute read
Quick Takes
Our first runners up this week are Sam Baxter of McKool Smith and Jason Sheasby of Irell & Manella, who won Litigator of the Week honors last August for landing a $506 million damages verdict for PanOptis after a jury in the Eastern District of Texas found that Apple had willfully infringed five patents essential to the 4G LTE wireless standard. After U.S. District Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap ordered a retrial on damages, a separate East Texas jury hit Apple with another 9-digit damages award of $300 million this week. The trial team also included Annita Zhong, Ingrid Petersen and Andrew Strabone of Irell & Manella and Steve Pollinger, Jennifer Truelove and Jonathan Yim of McKool Smith.
A trial team at Kirkland & Ellis led by Hariklia "Carrie" Karis, Rush Howell and Rachel Haig lands a runners-up spot this week for getting a defense win for Actavis in a case where an Illinois man was seeking more than $78 million in damages. Plaintiff Brad Martin claimed that Actavis's testosterone replacement product Androderm caused his 2013 heart attack. But after two weeks of trial and less than an hour of deliberations, a federal jury in Chicago on Tuesday returned a complete defense verdict for Actavis. This marks the first defense victory in a testosterone replacement therapy trial involving a heart attack after two prior 9-figure verdicts.
Andrew Gordon and Jaren Janghorbani of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison also get runners-up honors this week for their trial win for Symbiont.io Inc., a blockchain-backed "smart securities" startup. Symbiont was up against financial data analytics company IHS Markit Ltd. and Ipreo Holdings, a financial services software company Markit acquired in 2019. Symbiont and Ipreo previously had a joint venture. Symbiont claimed that the acquisition by Markit violated a non-compete agreement that was part of the joint venture. After a four-day remote trial conducted in December, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery sided with Symbiont and awarded $142 million in damages to the joint venture, which Symbiont half-owns. The Paul Weiss team includes counsel Daniel Mason and associates Maia Usui, Katarina Broeksmit and Rich Medina. William Lafferty, Susan Waesco and Sara Toscano of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell were Symbiont's Delaware counsel.
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J. Brugh Lower of Gibbons has entered an appearance for industrial equipment supplier Devco Corporation in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit. The suit, accusing the defendant of selling knock-off Graco products, was filed Dec. 18 in New Jersey District Court by Rivkin Radler on behalf of Graco Inc. and Graco Minnesota. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, is 3:24-cv-11294, Graco Inc. et al v. Devco Corporation.
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Rebecca Maller-Stein and Kent A. Yalowitz of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer have entered their appearances for Hanaco Venture Capital and its executives, Lior Prosor and David Frankel, in a pending securities lawsuit. The action, filed on Dec. 24 in New York Southern District Court by Zell, Aron & Co. on behalf of Goldeneye Advisors, accuses the defendants of negligently and fraudulently managing the plaintiff's $1 million investment. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick, is 1:24-cv-09918, Goldeneye Advisors, LLC v. Hanaco Venture Capital, Ltd. et al.
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Attorneys from A&O Shearman has stepped in as defense counsel for Toronto-Dominion Bank and other defendants in a pending securities class action. The suit, filed Dec. 11 in New York Southern District Court by Bleichmar Fonti & Auld, accuses the defendants of concealing the bank's 'pervasive' deficiencies in regards to its compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and the quality of its anti-money laundering controls. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, is 1:24-cv-09445, Gonzalez v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank et al.
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Crown Castle International, a Pennsylvania company providing shared communications infrastructure, has turned to Luke D. Wolf of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani to fend off a pending breach-of-contract lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 25 in Michigan Eastern District Court by Hooper Hathaway PC on behalf of The Town Residences LLC, accuses Crown Castle of failing to transfer approximately $30,000 in utility payments from T-Mobile in breach of a roof-top lease and assignment agreement. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Susan K. Declercq, is 2:24-cv-13131, The Town Residences LLC v. T-Mobile US, Inc. et al.
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Wilfred P. Coronato and Daniel M. Schwartz of McCarter & English have stepped in as defense counsel to Electrolux Home Products Inc. in a pending product liability lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 26 in New York Eastern District Court by Poulos Lopiccolo PC and Nagel Rice LLP on behalf of David Stern, alleges that the defendant's refrigerators’ drawers and shelving repeatedly break and fall apart within months after purchase. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack, is 2:24-cv-08204, Stern v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc.
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