Pamela Gilbert is the 2019 recipient of the Public Interest Network’s Alumni Achievement Award, which is designed to recognize outstanding contributions to the public interest.
January 7, 2020: Pamela Gilbert is quoted in Consumer Reports magazine about the settlement of a lawsuit involving the death of a two-year-old killed by the tip-over of an Ikea dresser that did not meet voluntary industry safety standards.
https://www.consumerreports.org/furniture/ikea-settlement-furniture-tip-over-death/
Petersen v. Chase Card Funding, LLC et al., Case No. 19-cv-00741 (U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York)
Cohen et al. v. CapitalOne Funding LLC et al., Case No. 19-cv-03479 (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York)
CGL attorneys have filed cases on behalf of certain New York individuals paying interest above 16% on credit card loans. The cases allege that through the process of credit card securitization, the defendant non-bank entities have acquired “all right title and interest” in class members’ credit card receivables, and have violated New York’s longstanding usury law by charging, taking or receiving interest above 16%. The complaints seek disgorgement of wrongfully obtained interest charges and an order prohibiting these defendants from continuing to violate the New York law.
For more information, contact Bill Frick or Charles LaDuca at 202-789-3960 or bill@cuneolaw.com or charles@cuneolaw.com.
CGL on path to prove industry-wide conspiracy rigged prices of generic drugs
August 15, 2019: CGL sustained claims of an overarching conspiracy in the generic drug market against a motion to dismiss filed by 29 generic drugmakers. CGL defeated the drugmakers’ motion by showing that their price-fixing scheme was an overlapping, interdependent conspiracy (an illegal agreement) with a common goal: to make billions of dollars by overcharging pharmacies and patients for basic generic drugs. Price fixing is a federal crime. The federal court in Philadelphia ruled that CGL had discovered enough evidence of an overarching conspiracy to sustain the theory that all the defendant drugmakers should be held jointly liable for their scheme to divvy up drug markets and increase prices.
On April 29, 2019, CGL, working with other law firms around the country, filed a lawsuit on behalf of thirty-seven hospitals in West Virginia and Kentucky against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and their co-conspirators. The case was filed in Marshall County, West Virginia. The Complaint charges that the Defendants committed a variety of illegal acts in marketing and distributing opioids throughout the Appalachian region. The Complaint also seeks damages and injunctive relief on behalf of the hospitals that incurred millions of dollars of increased and unreimbursed costs as a direct result of the opioid epidemic created and engineered by Defendants. This epidemic has taxed the hospitals’ resources and threatened their ability to provide quality health care to all in need. Ron Pellegrino, chief operating officer at West Virginia University Hospitals, which joined the lawsuit, said that the lawsuit was “a big step toward asking the responsible parties be held accountable for the role they played in this crisis.”
http:// https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/04/30/us/ap-us-opioid-lawsuit-hospitals.html
Pamela Gilbert is quoted in a New York Times article about lobbying efforts by Juul regarding e-cigarette regulations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/health/juul-lobbying-states-ecigarettes.html
Pamela Gilbert is quoted in the New York Times about the need to recall an infant product that has led to multiple deaths.
Breaking News:
On March 13, 2019, United States District Judge Vince Chhabria, certified a Nationwide Class of hotels in Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca’s (“CGL”) case against Expedia under the Lanham Act.
CGL represents a group of hotels challenging Expedia’s misleading advertising tactics, which direct consumers away from hotels that cannot be booked through Expedia or will not pay commissions to it, and toward hotels where Expedia can earn a commission.
“Expedia misleads consumers by publishing fake telephone numbers for hotels and making false statements that they are sold out when, in fact, they have rooms available,” said Joel Davidow from CGL. In so doing, Expedia re-directs consumers to hotels that Expedia is able to book and earn a commission.
The US District Court for the Northern District of California’s ruling granted CGL’s motion to certify a class of hotel owners who are seeking an injunction and will help to put a stop to this practice.
Pamela Gilbert comments on the impact of the federal shutdown on product safety.
Michael J. Flannery, Katie Van Dyck, and Michael Smith of Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP and Gary Burger of the Burger Law Firm, a well-known St. Louis trial attorney, announce that they obtained a $113,714,632 verdict for wages that the Missouri Department of Corrections had failed to pay a class of 13,000 Corrections Officers. A jury in Jefferson City, Missouri, agreed that the Department of Corrections had unlawfully refused to pay those employees for hundreds of thousands of hours worked by them since 2007. These men and women had their day in court after six years of litigation, overcoming many legal obstacles. The case is now on appeal.
Provide Or Update Your Information For Hootselle v. MDOC
On August 13, 2018, CGL attorneys Jonathan Cuneo and Joel Davidow filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the American Antitrust Institute, Consumers Union and Public Knowledge in United States of America v. AT&T, Inc., et al. This brief supported the Antitrust Division’s challenge to the merger between Time Warner and AT&T.
Automotive Parts Antitrust Litigation Update. On July 23, 2018, Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP, Larson King, LLP, and Barrett Law Group, P.A. announced a new proposed settlement for Automobile Dealerships.
Pamela Gilbert is the 2019 recipient of the Public Interest Network’s Alumni Achievement Award, which is designed to recognize outstanding contributions to the public interest.
January 7, 2020: Pamela Gilbert is quoted in Consumer Reports magazine about the settlement of a lawsuit involving the death of a two-year-old killed by the tip-over of an Ikea dresser that did not meet voluntary industry safety standards.
https://www.consumerreports.org/furniture/ikea-settlement-furniture-tip-over-death/
Petersen v. Chase Card Funding, LLC et al., Case No. 19-cv-00741 (U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York)
Cohen et al. v. CapitalOne Funding LLC et al., Case No. 19-cv-03479 (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York)
CGL attorneys have filed cases on behalf of certain New York individuals paying interest above 16% on credit card loans. The cases allege that through the process of credit card securitization, the defendant non-bank entities have acquired “all right title and interest” in class members’ credit card receivables, and have violated New York’s longstanding usury law by charging, taking or receiving interest above 16%. The complaints seek disgorgement of wrongfully obtained interest charges and an order prohibiting these defendants from continuing to violate the New York law.
For more information, contact Bill Frick or Charles LaDuca at 202-789-3960 or bill@cuneolaw.com or charles@cuneolaw.com.
CGL on path to prove industry-wide conspiracy rigged prices of generic drugs
August 15, 2019: CGL sustained claims of an overarching conspiracy in the generic drug market against a motion to dismiss filed by 29 generic drugmakers. CGL defeated the drugmakers’ motion by showing that their price-fixing scheme was an overlapping, interdependent conspiracy (an illegal agreement) with a common goal: to make billions of dollars by overcharging pharmacies and patients for basic generic drugs. Price fixing is a federal crime. The federal court in Philadelphia ruled that CGL had discovered enough evidence of an overarching conspiracy to sustain the theory that all the defendant drugmakers should be held jointly liable for their scheme to divvy up drug markets and increase prices.
On April 29, 2019, CGL, working with other law firms around the country, filed a lawsuit on behalf of thirty-seven hospitals in West Virginia and Kentucky against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and their co-conspirators. The case was filed in Marshall County, West Virginia. The Complaint charges that the Defendants committed a variety of illegal acts in marketing and distributing opioids throughout the Appalachian region. The Complaint also seeks damages and injunctive relief on behalf of the hospitals that incurred millions of dollars of increased and unreimbursed costs as a direct result of the opioid epidemic created and engineered by Defendants. This epidemic has taxed the hospitals’ resources and threatened their ability to provide quality health care to all in need. Ron Pellegrino, chief operating officer at West Virginia University Hospitals, which joined the lawsuit, said that the lawsuit was “a big step toward asking the responsible parties be held accountable for the role they played in this crisis.”
http:// https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/04/30/us/ap-us-opioid-lawsuit-hospitals.html
Pamela Gilbert is quoted in a New York Times article about lobbying efforts by Juul regarding e-cigarette regulations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/health/juul-lobbying-states-ecigarettes.html
Pamela Gilbert is quoted in the New York Times about the need to recall an infant product that has led to multiple deaths.
Breaking News:
On March 13, 2019, United States District Judge Vince Chhabria, certified a Nationwide Class of hotels in Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca’s (“CGL”) case against Expedia under the Lanham Act.
CGL represents a group of hotels challenging Expedia’s misleading advertising tactics, which direct consumers away from hotels that cannot be booked through Expedia or will not pay commissions to it, and toward hotels where Expedia can earn a commission.
“Expedia misleads consumers by publishing fake telephone numbers for hotels and making false statements that they are sold out when, in fact, they have rooms available,” said Joel Davidow from CGL. In so doing, Expedia re-directs consumers to hotels that Expedia is able to book and earn a commission.
The US District Court for the Northern District of California’s ruling granted CGL’s motion to certify a class of hotel owners who are seeking an injunction and will help to put a stop to this practice.
Pamela Gilbert comments on the impact of the federal shutdown on product safety.
Michael J. Flannery, Katie Van Dyck, and Michael Smith of Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP and Gary Burger of the Burger Law Firm, a well-known St. Louis trial attorney, announce that they obtained a $113,714,632 verdict for wages that the Missouri Department of Corrections had failed to pay a class of 13,000 Corrections Officers. A jury in Jefferson City, Missouri, agreed that the Department of Corrections had unlawfully refused to pay those employees for hundreds of thousands of hours worked by them since 2007. These men and women had their day in court after six years of litigation, overcoming many legal obstacles. The case is now on appeal.
Provide Or Update Your Information For Hootselle v. MDOC
On August 13, 2018, CGL attorneys Jonathan Cuneo and Joel Davidow filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the American Antitrust Institute, Consumers Union and Public Knowledge in United States of America v. AT&T, Inc., et al. This brief supported the Antitrust Division’s challenge to the merger between Time Warner and AT&T.
Automotive Parts Antitrust Litigation Update. On July 23, 2018, Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP, Larson King, LLP, and Barrett Law Group, P.A. announced a new proposed settlement for Automobile Dealerships.
The American Small Business League (ASBL) has won release of all substantive information contained in the 2013 Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation small business subcontracting plan (plan) filed with the Department of Defense (DOD), after a 4 ½ year Freedom of Information Act battle. Most of the plan was released November 10, 2017, with the remaining substantive portions released March 15, 2018.
On December 7, 2017, DOD and Sikorsky filed a motion for summary judgment (the second) as to the remaining information it had withheld from ASBL. On January 23, 2018, the Court substantially denied the motion, including as to all issues pertaining to purportedly proprietary commercial information, holding that Sikorsky was only entitled to keep from the public images of certain signatures.
Following that decision, DOD elected not to proceed to trial, and to release all remaining substantive information that it had withheld from ASBL, as reflected in a notice filed with the Court on March 8, 2018. DOD then released a substantially complete version of the Plan on March 15, 2018, with the only redactions relating to images of signatures and personal contact information of individuals. Click here for a copy of that document:
Lex Machina’s “2018 Top Law Firm Report” identified Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP as the second busiest plaintiff-side antitrust firm in the nation from January 2013 through December 2017. The study used data from U.S. district court cases, which were categorized into practice areas such as patent, trademark, copyright, securities, employment, product liability, and antitrust, to identify which firms have filed or defended the most cases.
Among the 168 antitrust cases the study identified that CGL’s antitrust practice handled during the last five years are several massive multidistrict cases, including In re: Automotive Parts Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 12-md-02311 (E.D. Mich.); In re: Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 15-md-02670-JLS-MDD (S.D. Cal.), and In re: Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 16-md-2724 (E.D. Penn.). CGL attorneys hold court-appointed leadership positions in all of these cases.
On Friday, February 5, 2018, Judge Madeline Cox Arleo issued an order upholding four of six counts in Noble v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (Samsung Gear S Watch Batteries). This first-of-its-kind litigation challenges Samsung’s battery life assertions for the Gear S smartwatch. Judge Arleo’s decision follows a long and unsuccessful appeal by Samsung which sought to force Plaintiff Noble to arbitrate his claims rather than pursue them on behalf of the class. The litigation will now proceed with discovery and active litigation. Should you have any questions about this matter, please contact Charles LaDuca. at 202-789-3960 or charles@cuneolaw.com.
DOJ & Sikorsky update. On January 23, 2018, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco denied, in principal part, a motion for summary judgment filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) & Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation (Sikorsky) in the four-year-long Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation concerning Sikorsky’s small business subcontracting plan. The Court ruled that the case would go to trial as to whether information being withheld by DOJ & Sikorsky could continue to be withheld from public view on the basis that its release would reveal trade secrets. CGL’s client, the American Small Business League (ASBL) has been seeking an unredacted version of Sikorsky’s small business subcontracting plan since August 2013. The Court held that disputed issues of fact require a trial, and that DOJ and Sikorsky were not entitled to a judgment based on the factual record presented to the Court. 01/23/2018.
WEN: Settlement Final
On December 29, 2017, the final two appeals were dismissed and the Settlement became final. Checks were mailed to all Tier 1 claimants by January 12, 2018. WEN settlement checks will be mailed to all Tier 2 claimants on or before March 9, 2018.
On December 27, 2017, CGL and three other firms filed a massive derivative and taxpayer suit to protect the Kentucky Retirement System. The Plaintiffs in the case are participants in the plan; the Defendants include three large hedge fund sellers as well as advisors to the plan. The Kentucky Retirement System Law Suit is potentially a landmark case.
Pamela Gilbert comments on the record of President Trump’s nominee to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the New York Times.
Pamela Gilbert comments on the pace of regulatory activity in the Trump administration in Bloomberg Government.
On July 26, 2017, Pamela Gilbert will be participating in a panel discussion hosted by the Center for American Progress about the devastating implications of President Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Additional information on the event can be found in the link.
Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP is proud to announce that on December 1, 2016, Charles J. LaDuca was awarded The “Top 100 Plaintiffs Lawyers in America” award from the National Trial Lawyers Association. This award is a peer based award. Over Mr. LaDuca’s career here at CGL, some of the cases he has had a lead role in have helped to recover almost $2 billion dollars for our clients.
Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP is pleased to announce that effective January 1, 2017, Charles J. LaDuca will be taking over as Firm Chairman. Mr. LaDuca’s 22 year career here at CGL, starting as a messenger in college, has given him the experience it will take to continue CGL’s long history of fighting and winning for our clients.
Pamela Gilbert is quoted in two articles on House passage of legislation that would make it virtually impossible to bring class action lawsuits against corporate wrongdoers. 03/10/2017
Pamela Gilbert is quoted about President Trump’s positions on civil justice legislation pending in Congress in the third and final BNA article on legislation to weaken the civil justice system.
LET’S WORK TOGETHER
CGL is currently engaged in dozens of cases from product defect class actions to antitrust litigation to civil rights advocacy.
If you feel we could represent you in any of our current cases or in a new case, we would love to hear from you.