The firm recovered $44 Million for a Class of Senior Pilots of United Air Lines. According to published reports, this settlement represents the largest amount ever paid by a union for violation of the duty of fair representation. The defendant in the case, the Air Line Pilots Association International, commonly referred to as ALPA, settled the case shortly before trial and after it had, reportedly for the first time in its existence, lost its motion for summary judgment under the Railway Labor Act, which requires unions to treat their members fairly. The facts of the case involved the improper use of favoritism toward Junior Pilots in determining accrued benefits and related distributions under pension law.
The settlement was reported in a number of news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Crain’s, Bloomberg and the National Law Journal.
We were one of several firms spearheading a class action case challenging the constitutionality of a state statute enabling municipalities to enact ordinances imposing a fee or tax on wireless telephone users. After the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s declaration that the fee was unconstitutional, we were instrumental in obtaining a partial settlement valued at approximately $30 Million. After that, we successfully obtained not only class certification with respect to the plaintiffs, but also obtained certification of a defendant class. We then obtained summary judgment on each of the affirmative defenses asserted by the defendant class, which they contended would bar relief even if the fee was unconstitutional, and settled the remaining claims against the municipalities in the defendant class for approximately $18 Million.
The firm was appointed to the executive committee of attorneys representing defrauded purchasers of advertising space in a major newspaper. The claims alleged involve widespread submission of false information by the defendant that negatively impacted the market price paid by plaintiffs for advertisements. The alleged overpayments amounted to tens of millions of dollars and the case was settled for a substantial portion of that sum.
The firm has been involved as counsel in several other class action lawsuits, for both plaintiffs and defendants, in a variety of different substantive areas of the law.