First up are Matthew Hellman, Lindsay Harrison and their team at Jenner & Block who got a precedential ruling from the Fourth Circuit reversing a decision certifying damages classes against client Marriott International Inc. in the massive data breach MDL facing the hotel chain. The appellate court held that Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm of Greenbelt, Maryland erred by granting class certification before considering whether the plaintiffs had signed valid and enforceable class-action waivers. “The time to address a contractual class waiver is before, not after, a class is certified,” Circuit Judge Pamela Harris wrote for the panel. The decision also reversed the lower court’s decision certifying an issue class against Accenture LLP, an IT service provider that managed the hacked database at issue in the case. Accenture is represented by a Kirkland & Ellis team led by partners Craig Primis and Devin Anderson, who argued the case before the Fourth Circuit alongside Jenner’s Hellman.
Also getting a runner-up spot is the team at Wiggin and Dana led by Joe Casino and Nathan Denning whose work for the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut we featured in yesterday’s column. U.S. District Mary McElroy in Providence, Rhode Island last week granted summary judgment to the museum agreeing with its reading of a 1989 agreement with storied naval architecture and shipbuilding company Sparkman & Stephens. The judge was persuaded that the agreement allows the museum to sell copies of S&S drawings it has been entrusted with to people using them to restore existing boats. The Wiggin and Dana team representing the museum also includes partner Frank Duffin and associates Hannah Blonshteyn, Sean Vallancourt and Evan Bianchi.
