Weil was engaged by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of ARCP, a publicly-traded real estate investment trust, to conduct an internal investigation of allegations of accounting irregularities. The investigation resulted in a restatement and the separation from the company of several top executives. A multi-disciplinary Weil team advised the Audit Committee and the Board of Directors with respect to all aspects of the investigation and the resulting fallout.

Weil represented Elite Model Management Corp., one of the world’s most renowned modeling agencies, in a nationwide collective and New York class action involving an issue of widespread importance in numerous industries across the country, which has garnered significant media attention: whether unpaid interns are “employees” under the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA and under various states’ laws. In the Elite intern lawsuit – a case of first impression within the industry and also one of the earliest of this kind in any industry – without filing a motion to dismiss, Weil convinced Plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss various causes of action which alleged a variety of recordkeeping violations under the FLSA and New York law, and to file an amended complaint which yielded strategically useful information at an early stage regarding the Plaintiff’s hours worked. That information was critical to Elite’s defenses and litigation strategy, and is usually not disclosed by Plaintiffs, if at all, until the discovery phase of the case. Subsequently, Weil short-circuited the case for Elite by relying on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk – issued only two months after the Elite lawsuit was filed – which held that if the defendant makes an offer to the plaintiff that would result in the plaintiff’s “complete relief,” then the plaintiff does not have standing to continue the case on behalf of the class of potential plaintiffs. Armed with information from Plaintiff’s revised pleadings and Elite’s electronically stored information, Weil made small, four-figure offers of judgment to the representative plaintiffs. Weil then leveraged its offers of judgment (and the uncertainty those offers created for Plaintiffs’ claims under Genesis) to push the case into mediation, before discovery had taken place, and ultimately negotiated a settlement under which Elite paid only $90,000 in total to the class members, in a case in which Plaintiffs were seeking more than $50 million on behalf of the class.

Weil currently represents Elite in a putative class action that aims to take on the entire New York modeling industry by challenging the classification of models as independent contractors. The action, which also includes claims for conversion, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment, is brought against some of the leading model management firms in the world. The case is the first of its kind of New York state, and has the potential to alter the landscape of the entire modeling industry.

Weil advised global grocery giant A&P on multi-faceted labor and employment matters arising out if its chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.

Weil successfully represented Marsh in an action by two former executives seeking to obtain severance benefits and the value of stock options forfeited when they were terminated in the aftermath of a New York state investigation into the practice of “contingent commissions” and alleged bid-rigging. In June 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process on the pleadings. In its January 2015 decision granting Marsh’s motion for summary judgment, the Court dismissed Plaintiffs’ remaining claims for severance benefits under ERISA and for the value of their forfeited equity awards under state law. In June 2016, the Second Circuit affirmed the summary judgment decision in its entirety, and for the first time established a solid legal framework supporting the right of a company to terminate an employee who fails to cooperate in an internal investigation.

Weil successfully defended Merrill Lynch in multiple purported nationwide class actions alleging discrimination against financial advisors in all aspects of their employment.

Weil was retained by the Special Committee of the Board of Directors to conduct an independent investigation of whistleblower allegations regarding a relationship between the CEO and another employee. 

Weil represented SDBC, Inc. (a Brynwood portfolio company) in securing Second Circuit reversal of a significant National Labor Relations Board decision that held that SDBC engaged in unfair labor practices during the course of collective bargaining negotiations with a trade union.

Weil represents Sterling Jewelers in Jock v. Sterling, a class arbitration widely recognized as the largest private Title VII class action in the country, and a corresponding gender bias EEOC suit. In Jock, which is being litigated by the well-known plaintiffs’ firm Cohen Milstein, Weil successfully defeated class certification of all of the disparate treatment gender discrimination claims, substantially narrowing the scope of the remaining claims against Sterling. In late July 2017, Weil obtained a significant victory for Sterling when the Second Circuit vacated an earlier decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and remanded the case to Judge Rakoff to address whether the arbitrator in fact had the power to bind tens of thousands of absent class members who had never opted into the litigation.

Weil also secured a major victory for Sterling in the EEOC litigation by obtaining a complete dismissal on the basis that the EEOC had failed to produce any evidence demonstrating that it had complied with its Title VII pre-suit obligation of conducting a nationwide investigation of Sterling’s employment practices. This decision was subsequently overturned by the Second Circuit in September 2015, thereby reviving the EEOC’s nationwide gender bias suit. Weil petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to undo this Second Circuit decision. Weil successfully negotiated a virtually unprecedented settlement of the EEOC’s largest matter with no payment to the government being required by our client.

Weil was retained to defend Tuesday Morning Inc., a national retailer, in a large putative California wage and hour class action involving nearly 4,000 potential class members in a matter before Judge Edward Chen in the Northern District of California (McMahon v. Tuesday Morning, Inc.). Plaintiff asserted class claims for failure to provide rest breaks, failure to timely pay all final wages, violation of California’s unfair competition law, and civil penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), seeking to recover substantial eight-figure damages. At an early court-ordered mediation, Plaintiff’s counsel refused to settle the case for less than eight figures, but following a big victory by Weil on a key dispositive motion, Plaintiff agreed to settle the case for a six-figure number. This case also involved a ground-breaking ruling on how PAGA settlement funds should be allocated to the class versus the state of California.

Weil obtained the dismissal, with prejudice, of a separate putative California wage and hour class action filed against TMI, in which plaintiffs asserted class claims for failure to pay wages without discount in violation of California Labor Code Section 212 on behalf of TMI’s entire California workforce based on TMI’s use of payroll debit cards, failure to provide meal and rest periods, and failure to pay hourly wages, as well as other derivative California wage-based claims. Plaintiff then filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but before TMI was required to file its response, the parties reached a settlement whereby the matter was resolved on an individual basis for a nominal sum.

Weil was also hired as replacement counsel in a third California state court wage and hour class action following a series of adverse rulings – including the granting of Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification and the denial of Defendant’s subsequent motions for decertification and summary judgment. Among other California wage and hour claims, plaintiffs challenged TMI’s practice of providing “on-duty” meal periods to its California Senior Sales Associates, an issue that is not frequently litigated and on which there is limited and ambiguous legal authority. The certified class included current and former employees of all 87 of TMI’s California-based stores. Following our retention as counsel, we negotiated an extremely favorable resolution for our client by, among other things, developing and marshalling the discovery record in a manner that evinced compliance on TMI’s part with the DLSE’s standards for “on duty meal periods” and virtually eliminating any PAGA penalty exposure through a novel but substantiated interpretation of that statute.

Weil also successfully settled another California-based putative wage-and-hour class action filed against the company, and obtained an early dismissal on a motion to dismiss of another California-based putative class action brought against TMI involving claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the California corollary background and credit check statutes.

Weil serves as lead counsel for UnitedHealth in a nationwide putative class action in Arizona federal court brought by a physical therapy provider who purported to have received an assignment of the rights and benefits of at least 60 plan participants and/or beneficiaries, two individuals treated by the plaintiff provider, and the Arizona Chiropractic Society. Weil also represents 35 of the 45 employer-sponsored health plans named as co-defendants. The Ninth Circuit, in its November 5, 2014 opinion reviewing the district court’s grant of summary judgment in defendants’ favor on all claims, expressed its views on several distinct issues likely to recur in ERISA lawsuits throughout the country, including assignments of benefits, constitutional standing, the enforceability of limitations periods stated in the plan, and whether a claims administrator of a self-funded ERISA plan may be sued for benefits. Following the Ninth Circuit’s decision – which affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded – defendants petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which was denied on October 13, 2015. Defendants then again moved for partial summary judgment, raising several arguments including constitutional and statutory standing, Arizona’s statute of limitations for ERISA benefits claims, the enforceability of limitations periods stated in different plans, and anti-assignment provisions precluding a provider from filing a civil suit on behalf of a participant. In December 2017, the court granted in part and denied in part defendants’ motion, agreeing with the defendants’ arguments regarding the proper statute of limitations and the enforceability of anti-assignment provisions, and considerably narrowing the case. A settlement is pending.