Saumer v. Cliffs Natural Resources, Inc.

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.