Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs
Just a little over a week before trial was set to start in the Eastern District of California, a Goodwin team got an anti-kickback class action in which plaintiffs were seeking almost $400 million in damages dismissed with prejudice against client Ocwen.
February 11, 2022 at 07:25 AM
6 minute read
Our first runners-up this week are Rich Strassberg, Sabrina Rose-Smith, Annie Railton and Valerie Haggans of Goodwin Procter representing affiliates of mortgage lender Ocwen. Just a little over a week before trial was set to start in the Eastern District of California, the Goodwin team got an anti-kickback class action in which plaintiffs were seeking almost $400 million in damages dismissed with prejudice. The Goodwin lawyers came into the case in September 2020 after it had already been underway for more than a decade. After the Supreme Court handed down its 2021 decision in TransUnion v. Ramirez, the Goodwin team pressed arguments that plaintiffs could not prove their "informational injury" theory of standing with class-wide evidence. Late last month, Judge M. Miller Baker, sitting by designation in the Eastern District from the U.S. Court of International Trade, precluded plaintiffs from relying on new evidence to allege monetary harm.
Rich Edlin, the vice chairman of Greenberg Traurig, also gets a runners-up nod this week for winning summary judgment for client Nomura Credit and Capital in a long-running case in New York state court centering around construction financing for a now-defunct mall in Rochester. The developer on the project claimed Nomura acted in bad faith when it failed to extend a $54 million draw request in 2009 on a $135 million loan agreement that was set to expire. The plaintiff was seeking lost profits from the project north of $1 billion. But Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Robert Reed held this week that the developer had failed to meet all the conditions for a loan extension and that Nomura had made a sufficient showing that there was no bad faith. Reed further held there was nothing in the loan agreement "which would support a finding that the parties contemplated lost profits as damages for breach."
Also getting a runner-up nod this week is Zach Schauf of Jenner & Block who represented the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters and others in challenging the new legislative map passed by the state's Republican-led General Assembly. In a 4-3 decision, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and found the new map "unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt." The ruling gives the General Assembly and plaintiffs until February 18 to submit fair maps for the court's consideration.
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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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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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