Select Cases & Results
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
In this challenging habeas corpus case, Emmett represented a client who had been convicted in Michigan state court a decade earlier of assault with intent to commit murder. The conviction had previously been affirmed by the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the Michigan Supreme Court had refused Mr. Thomas’s request for direct review. The Michigan courts also denied Mr. Thomas’s later requests for collateral review, and his habeas corpus petition was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Mr. Thomas appealed the district court’s decision to the Sixth Circuit, and Emmett was appointed as appellate counsel during this final stage of litigation. The Sixth Circuit ultimately affirmed the lower court’s ruling but did so over a lengthy, persuasive dissent by Judge Ronald Gilman. Though at least a dozen judges had previously reviewed the case, following Emmett’s briefing and argument, Judge Gilman was the first to side with Mr. Thomas.
Northern District of Ohio; Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
In this case and roughly 20 others with which it was consolidated, the consumer plaintiffs argued that Experian had violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by treating as suspicious correspondence purportedly sent by the plaintiffs. The parties, with the trial court’s agreement, selected this case as the bellwether, and, upon completion of the briefing, the trial court granted Experian a complete victory on summary judgment. The trial court’s decision was affirmed by the Sixth Circuit, resulting in the dismissal of the entire set of cases.
Northern District of Ohio; Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals
Successfully defended Cliffs and certain current and former company executives in a putative ERISA “stock drop” class action. Plaintiffs—participants in the company’s 401(k) plan—alleged that their 401(k) accounts suffered significant losses due to a prolonged decline in the price of company stock. The trial court granted Cliffs’s motion to dismiss, and the Sixth Circuit, applying the pleading standards announced by the Supreme Court in Dudenhoeffer v. Fifth Third Bancorp, 573 U.S. 409 (2014), for the first time, affirmed without argument. Emmett was the main author of both the trial-court and Sixth-Circuit briefs.
Northern District of Ohio
In a suit challenging Goodyear’s decision to terminate its dealer contracts, Plaintiff Morgan Tire alleged breaches of contract, tortious interference, and violations of federal antitrust law and the California unfair competition statute. The trial court granted Goodyear’s motion to dismiss all but two extremely narrow claims. Morgan Tire promptly dismissed those remaining claims with prejudice, resulting in Goodyear’s complete victory.
Eastern District of Missouri
Trial court granted judgment on the pleadings in Experian’s favor. The plaintiff alleged that Experian had violated the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by reporting “stale” debts on which the statute of limitations for collections had supposedly expired.
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.