A former name partner at Philadelphia-area trial firm Williams Cuker Berezofsky will not be required to share fees from a class action over water contamination in Flint, Michigan, with her former partners.

In an order entered Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania affirmed an arbitration award from last year, which said litigator Esther Berezofsky was not obligated by a dissolution agreement to include her former partner, Mark Cuker, in the Flint litigation.

Cuker and Berezofsky were partners at Williams Cuker Berezofsky from 2000 to 2017, Cuker's complaint said, along with Gerald Williams. The firm broke up in September 2017, and each of its name partners either affiliated with a new firm or founded one.

Cuker alleged that Berezofsky excluded Cuker from the Flint class action when the dissolution agreement said they would serve as co-counsel in that litigation. He had also alleged that Berezofsky breached the dissolution agreement with regard to disbursements from the dissolved firm's operating account.

In an opinion Nov. 19, the arbitration panel said Berezofsky was not required to share fees from the Flint matter, Kearney's opinion said. Cuker asked for reconsideration of that decision, but it became final in January, and Kearney confirmed it Tuesday.

The arbitration panel rejected, among other arguments, Cuker's intentional interference with contractual relations claim, Kearney's opinion said, because “while Ms. Berezofsky had an obligation not to interfere with Mr. Cuker's efforts to obtain a leadership role in the consolidated class action in the Flint litigation, she did not have an obligation to assist him in gaining a leadership role.”

As to the firm's dissolution, the opinion said, there were eight categories of bills considered, and the arbitration panel decided some should be paid by Berezofsky, some by both Cuker and Berzofsky, and some by the partnership. The parties in arbitration agreed to those terms, the opinion said.

According to Cuker's complaint, Williams Cuker Berezofsky exhausted its credit line in January 2017 and lacked adequate cash flow to continue operating without employee layoffs or partner contributions. Cuker and Williams contributed $300,000 between the two of them, but Berezofsky did not, the complaint said. Instead, Cuker alleged, Berezofsky continued to take a $4,000 weekly draw, for a total of about $80,000 during that period.

Ultimately, the partners chose to dissolve the firm and executed a dissolution agreement in September. That agreement included provisions for the amounts each partner should be paid, the complaint said, based on their contributions, which was over $181,000 for Williams, over $143,000 for Cuker, and just under $8,800 for Berezofsky.

Cuker has alleged that Berezofsky violated the dissolution agreement by refusing to authorize Cuker's and Williams' disbursements. Cuker also alleged that Berezofsky misappropriated fees from medical device settlement claims that came in after the dissolution.

The three-arbitrator panel consisted of lawyer Angelo Scaricamazza, retired Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Richard Klein and retired Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Sandra Mazer Moss.

Attorney Carlo Scaramella, who represented Berezofsky, said in a written statement that Tuesday's order was a “complete vindication.”

“It is our belief that one cannot read Judge Kearney's opinion confirming the arbitration awards and those awards themselves without coming away with the firm belief that Cuker's allegations, some of which may be viewed as inflammatory, fundamentally lacked merit and were utterly defeated,” the statement said.

Cuker, who represented himself in the case,did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

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