SUCCESS FOR OUR CLIENTS
A review of a few recent cases
TACKLING COMPLEX LABOR ISSUES
Our firm represented a major utility company in a lawsuit filed by 400 individual current and former employees who claimed they had been willfully misclassified as exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime pay requirements. Plaintiffs-who filed separately rather than as a class action, each demanding a jury trial-sought compensatory and liquidated damages totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. After five years of litigation, hundreds of depositions, numerous evidentiary hearings, and countless legal motions, the Sixth Circuit unanimously upheld the Federal District Court's grant of summary judgment for our client on all of the plaintiffs' salary basis claims.
SCORING VICTORIES IN ANTITRUST CASES
When the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, operator of the pre- and post-season National Invitational Tournaments, accused the National College Athletic Association of maintaining an unlawful monopoly in men's Division I post-season college basketball tournaments, we were called on to represent the NCAA in the antitrust action. With our help, the parties agreed to resolve their differences, and we assisted the NCAA in its $40 million purchase of the assets and rights to the NITs.
We recently defended the NCAA in four other significant antitrust matters. One involved a long trial dealing with the rules and testing of non-wood baseball bats; another a claim concerning a novel football glove. All resulted in decisions in favor of our client.
ARBITRATION SUCCESSES
We won a $2 million arbitration for our client-an international wealth management firm with offices around the world-against one of this country's top claimant lawyers. After a five-day hearing, our firm obtained a dismissal of the claim in its entirety.
Our litigators obtained and enforced an international arbitration award dismissing a multi-million damage claim by a terminated Illinois distributor against our client, a Polish brewery. The Court agreed with us that the distributor's claims under Illinois law had to be arbitrated in Poland, and rejected the distributor's argument that the arbitrators' award ignored Illinois law. The case involved important issues under the 21st Amendment and the international treaty governing foreign arbitration.
HANDLING PATENT INFRINGEMENT, TRADE SECRETS, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MATTERS
A complex, discovery-driven antitrust, trade secret and patent infringement litigation between two of the country's most prominent computer companies gave us an opportunity to serve as co-counsel. During the case, we reviewed one of the largest document productions in history.
In a lawsuit alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of multiple contracts, and false claims of inventorship, we helped our client-a company specializing in industrial applications of lasers-win a multimillion settlement against a well-known computer company.
We defended an international manufacturing company in a multimillion-dollar patent infringement action. The plaintiff had alleged that our client used a patented molding process used by automotive part suppliers. After extensive discovery, the court granted our client's motion to dismiss all of the claims.
ABLY REPRESENTING MUNICIPALITIES
In a critical case for Downtown Development Authorities (DDAs), our firm successfully represented the Michigan Municipal League, obtaining a Court of Appeals reversal of a decision that had threatened the viability of the Authorities' financing. At stake was the ability of a taxing unit to opt out of a DDA's tax capture.
DEFENDING AGAINST CRIMINAL LIABILITY
We helped a major Canadian agricultural chemical company avoid criminal prosecution for the alleged acts of employees at an indirect subsidiary in Michigan. When employees were accused of engaging in a fraudulent scheme, the prosecutor charged the parent company with serious felonies-larceny and operating a criminal enterprise-rather than charging the subsidiary. We persuaded the judge that the parent corporation could not be held criminally liable for the alleged acts of subsidiary employees without evidence that it had knowledge of the acts or was directly involved and, as a result, the judge dismissed all charges against our client.
We also successfully defended a wrongful death case brought against a state university. When a student drowned in the university pool, the plaintiff claimed lifeguards and employees had been grossly negligent and the pool was defective. In a motion for summary disposition, we argued that university lifeguards were protected by governmental immunity, there was no evidence of negligence, nor any defect identified. The court granted our motion for summary disposition on all claims.
ADVOCATING FOR THE COMMON GOOD
When a health plan denied coverage for a physician-recommended medical treatment, our firm represented, pro bono, an individual with a serious life-threatening illness. Following a preliminary injunction evidentiary hearing, the court granted our motion and ordered that coverage for the procedure be provided.
SETTLING CONSTITUTIONAL DISPUTES
Our firm obtained a favorable judgment in a wine distribution case on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court had found unconstitutional the Michigan statute favoring in-state wineries over out-of-state wineries by allowing only the former to distribute directly to consumers. When the Supreme Court remanded for the remedies phase, we moved to intervene. Representing three winery trade associations, we opposed the state's effort to remedy discrimination by ending all direct shipments to consumers and instead convinced the court to uphold the statute to the extent that it reflected a public policy allowing for direct sales-by in-state wineries and out-of-state as well.
PROTECTING BUSINESS START-UPS
When a fledgling Internet applications and solutions company was sued for $25,000 by its former investors, it lacked financial resources to handle the intensely contested lawsuit. Our firm agreed to represent the start-up on a contingent fee basis. Following a four-year legal dispute-during which we countersued the investors for interfering with our client's business, preventing them from taking their products to a broader market, and jeopardizing their credit rating-the court entered a summary judgment against the former investors for breach of fiduciary duties. They agreed to settle for $2.5 million.
Results were dependent upon the facts in these specific cases. No guarantee or prediction is implied regarding the outcome of other legal matters.
