Select Cases & Results
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
This post-conviction case involved a request under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 for relief from judgment and sentence after judgment and sentence had already been affirmed on direct appeal. Section 2255 functions much like the writ of habeas corpus, though it applies only to those convicted in federal court. Emmett’s clients were two pharmacists who also owned a medical clinic. They were convicted at trial of three counts of health-care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud. The government alleged that the petitioners had defrauded Medicaid and several managed-care organizations in their billing for certain prescriptions, counselling sessions, and other services.
Success rates on § 2255 motions are low. Statistics are hard to come by, but Department of Justice data for one year—1995—show that federal district courts dismissed 65% of all § 2255 motions. For the 35% of § 2255 motions that were not dismissed, district courts entered judgment in favor of petitioning defendants only 13% of the time. In other words, the overall success rate for petitioning defendants was just under 4.6%. And that number is likely even lower today, given that Congress passed AEDPA—a statute that further restricts the availability of § 2255 relief—in 1996. But here the district court, while keeping the convictions in place, vacated both petitioners’ sentences and ordered resentencing based on arguments that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to properly challenge certain aspects of the loss amount attributed to the petitioners. This loss amount was key to calculating petitioners’ sentencing ranges under the United States Sentencing Guidelines.
United States Supreme Court
Emmett was retained by The Babylon Bee, the world’s largest satirical news site, to write an amicus brief on its behalf for submission to the United States Supreme Court in this case. The case concerns Anthony Novak, a resident of Parma, Ohio, wrongly prosecuted for creating a Facebook parody page mocking the Parma Police Department. At issue is whether the doctrine of qualified immunity bars Mr. Novak from suing Parma and the police officers who arrested and jailed him. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said yes: Mr. Novak cannot hold the city and police officers accountable in civil court. Mr. Novak has asked the Supreme Court to review and reverse that decision. The case has major First Amendment implications, especially for parodists like The Bee. Emmett’s brief garnered significant press attention. The accompanying parody brief is also definitely worth a read!
Case Documents
Supreme Court of Ohio
This precedent-setting mandamus case was a major victory for press freedom and public access to government records. Emmett represented Scioto Valley Guardian editor-in-chief Derek Meyers, who asked the Ohio Supreme Court to compel the City of Chillicothe, Ohio and its police chief, Ron Meyers, to turn over copies of police incident reports that the City had withheld. Emmett argued that the City was required to turn over the withheld reports under Ohio’s Public Records Act. The City had provided Mr. Myers with partial reports but had concealed the substance of the reports—the portions that mattered most to the public and media—in a separate section the City called a “supplement narrative,” arguing that this separation meant that the “investigatory work-product” exception to the Public Record’s Act shielded the information from release. The Ohio Supreme Court, in a 5-2 vote, disagreed, and, by a 4-3 vote, clarified 30-year-old precedent, holding that “officers’ reports that contain their observations at the time that they are responding to an incident, along with initial witness statements taken at the time of the incident or immediately thereafter, are . . . public records and may not be withheld from disclosure.” The Court ordered the City to pay damages and court costs to Emmett’s client.
Case Documents
U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota
Emmett’s client, Architectural Busstrut Corporation, is a premier supplier of commercial lighting systems. Busstrut had a contract with Target to supply its system for installation in hundreds of Target stores nationwide. Target jilted Busstrut for another supplier, and Busstrut filed suit in Minnesota federal court. Busstrut retained Kirkland & Ellis, a top-ranked national firm boasting over 2,700 attorneys. Unhappy with the representation, Busstrut terminated Kirkland and hired Robinson Law Firm to lead the charge in drafting Busstrut’s opposition to Target’s motion for summary judgment. Target argued that the parties’ contract—composed of a number of complex, interrelated documents—was not a requirements contract obligating Target to purchase all of the goods it required from Busstrut but rather was a mere “firm offer” or options contract. After briefing led by Emmett and oral argument by Minnesota-based co-counsel, the District Court adopted many of the arguments Emmett raised in Busstrut’s brief and denied Target’s motion for summary judgment.
Target’s previous settlement offer had been in the low-six-figures range. But victory on summary judgment increased the value of the case dramatically. Ultimately, Busstrut was able to leverage the summary-judgment victory into a $4 million payout from Target.
Supreme Court of Ohio
Emmett was retained to present oral argument in this Ohio Supreme Court appeal on behalf of the plaintiff, who sought to hold caseworkers from the Hamilton County, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services accountable after her granddaughter was murdered. Because the caseworkers were government employees, they were entitled to certain protections from liability under a statute providing for government-employee immunity in many circumstances. The Ohio First District Court of Appeals had previously ruled against Emmett’s client, but the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding that plaintiff did not have to meet special “heightened” pleading requirements in order to initiate suit against the caseworkers.
Case Documents
Supreme Court of Ohio
Appellee Kayleigh (Bruns) Paul sought to terminate a shared-parent plan and decree and to be named sole residential and legal custodian of her daughter. She prevailed and was granted sole custody, but the child’s father appealed to Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals and, ultimately, to the Ohio Supreme Court, where Emmett represented Mrs. Paul. Following oral argument via video, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Mrs. Paul’s favor, adopting the arguments advanced by Emmett in his brief to the Court concerning statutory interpretation and application of Ohio Supreme Court precedent.
Case Documents
Select Additional Experience
- Represented an affiliate of a top-20 national bank in actions brought against the affiliate by a state worker’s compensation board. Emmett drafted the motion to dismiss in the first-filed case which induced the worker’s compensation board to settle on terms favorable to Emmett’s client.
- Represented a top-five national bank in a series of cases stemming from the 2008 financial crisis.
- Won dismissal of a securities class-action against a major manufacturing corporation and its CEO and CFO. The case arose from an accounting restatement that had caused the company’s stock price to drop dramatically. Emmett argued that the misconduct of a single low-level employee had necessitated the restatement and that the employee’s guilty state-of-mind—or scienter—should not be imputed to the company or its CEO and CFO. Emmett was the lead author of the successful briefs.
- Represented a client, convicted of murder in 1998, who sought exoneration based on the results of new DNA testing. The case involved multiple rounds of briefing before both the Ohio Ninth District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court.
- Emmett defended a major health care provider in a qui tam action brought under the federal and Indiana False Claims Acts. The case, in which Emmett drafted numerous briefs, was resolved on terms favorable to the client.
- Secured complete forgiveness of hundreds of thousands of dollars in National Health Service Corps scholarship debt owed by client to the Health Resources and Services Administration. Client was granted the scholarship on the condition that he serve as an NHSC dentist for a set number of years but was unable to complete dental school due to a troubling health diagnosis.