Weil successfully represented a number of Minor League Baseball teams in connection with high-profile litigation, including a cert petition before the U.S. Supreme Court, adverse to Major League Baseball and several of its clubs regarding MLB’s consolidation of the minor leagues, which could have resulted, absent a highly favorable settlement we reached while the appeal was pending, in a Supreme Court decision invalidating the MLB’s longstanding “exemption” to the U.S. antitrust laws.

Weil secured a 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court victory on behalf of our client, Kieran Buckley, who has been fighting to recover his losses since he was defrauded nearly 15 years ago, when the sellers of a property he purchased failed to disclose material defects in the house. The question presented in the Supreme Court was whether 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2)(A), which bars an individual debtor from discharging a “debt … for money … obtained by … actual fraud,” covers a debtor’s liability for money obtained by the actual fraud of their agent, even if the debtor did not personally perpetrate the fraud but is vicariously liable for it and shared in the proceeds. The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Barrett, unanimously affirmed the Ninth Circuit decision below that such a debt is non-dischargeable, signaling that the Bankruptcy Code cannot be used as a shield for those who profit from fraud.

Weil won a major victory before the Supreme Court of Washington State, on behalf of Washington State University and co-plaintiff Oregon State University, in a high-profile dispute regarding the future of the Pac-12 athletic Conference. The court’s ruling ensures that our clients have sole control over the Pac-12 moving forward, following the announced departure of 10 members from the Conference, even as the departing members sought to continue serving on the Conference’s board and influencing its governance and finances.

Following appellate briefing led by Weil, the court denied our adversaries’ motions for discretionary review of a lower court’s order that denied defendants’ motions to dismiss and granted our clients’ motion to preliminarily enjoin the 10 departing member universities from continuing to serve on the Conference’s board. This is the third consecutive victory Weil has secured for its clients in this dispute, following earlier rulings in which the trial court granted our request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction.

On behalf of BNSF Railway, Weil vacated a $228 million class action damages award and secured a new trial on damages in the first case ever to go to trial under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Weil served as lead appellate and strategic counsel to BNSF, which retained Weil before trial to take the lead on legal and appellate issues (a different firm served as lead trial counsel).

Before trial, Weil argued that statutory damages under BIPA are discretionary and must be determined by the jury. The court disagreed and, after the jury returned a liability verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, the court entered a $228 million damages award, which was the maximum plaintiffs could receive under BIPA.

In post-trial motions, Weil asked the court to vacate the award and grant a new trial on damages, relying in part on an intervening Illinois Supreme Court decision recognizing that statutory damages awards under BIPA are discretionary, just as Weil had argued before and during trial. In light of this decision, and following oral argument led by Weil, the district court granted BNSF a new trial on damages, vacating the prior $228 million award and agreeing with Weil that damages are discretionary and should be determined by the jury. With a new trial on damages set, the parties entered into a settlement.

WhereverTV had sued Comcast for allegedly infringing, through Comcast’s X1 platform, a patent claiming an interactive program guide that integrated both linear cable channels and other content sources. Originally filed in 2018, the case was finally set for a jury trial in April 2023.

Working alongside the client’s lead trial team at another firm, Weil guided the legal strategy with a view toward preserving important issues for any appeal, and played a lead role in important motion practice before and during trial, which we attended.

Weil prepared and filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law at the close of evidence, arguing that WhereverTV had failed to carry its burden of proving infringement as to two claim elements. The following day, after both sides rested (and plaintiff declined to present a rebuttal case), the court heard argument from Weil on the motion while the jury was at lunch. In dramatic fashion, the court granted Comcast’s motion and discharged the jury before closing arguments were delivered.

Weil won a once-in-a-generation interlocutory appeal for Brookfield and certain of its affiliates in a stockholder litigation before the Delaware Supreme Court that reversed Delaware’s oft-criticized 2006 precedent, Gentile v. Rosette – a ruling that will have a seismic impact on Delaware corporate law. The court’s unanimous, 52-page ruling struck down Gentile’s controversial “dual-natured” claims precedent, whereby certain claims may be both direct and derivative. In its opinion, the court unanimously held, in agreement with Weil’s arguments, that: “[W]e can properly say that the practical and analytical difficulties courts have encountered in applying [Gentile] reflect fundamental unworkability and not growing pains[.]”

Weil represents NBA All-Star Zion Williamson and his agency, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), in multi-jurisdictional litigation in North Carolina federal court and Florida state court against his former agent, Prime Sports Marketing (PSM). The disputes collectively implicate more than $100M.

In North Carolina, Zion commenced a lawsuit seeking to declare the contract illegal and void, and PSM responded with counterclaims for breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and misappropriation of trade secrets. Weil helped obtain a complete trial court victory, with the court first holding that the contract was illegal and then subsequently dismissing all of PSM’s counterclaims. PSM appealed, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed. In the first appellate precedent interpreting the Uniform Athlete Agents Act, the Fourth Circuit held that the contract was illegal and void and that the underlying claims lacked merit. 

Meanwhile, in Florida, Weil helped secure an appellate victory for Williamson that lead to the dismissal of all claims brought against him by PSM in Florida. Weil also helped obtain a February 2023 summary judgment victory for CAA that dismissed all claims against them as well.

Weil secured a significant Second Circuit victory for Sears Holdings in a $700M+ dispute arising in its chapter 11 restructuring that clarified an important issue of first impression regarding the valuation of Sears’s inventory – a major question in any retail bankruptcy.

Weil won a unanimous victory on an important and novel Fourth Amendment issue following oral argument in the Maryland Supreme Court, which held that an individual may withdraw consent to a search of his digitally stored personal information even after the government has made a forensic image of that information. The State of Maryland argued that because government agents had made a forensic image of the defendant’s laptop with his consent, the defendant had forfeited all of his privacy and Fourth Amendment interests in his personal information and could not thereafter revoke his consent to a search of that information. The Maryland Supreme Court disagreed, confirming that the ministerial act of making a forensic image does not affect an individual’s ability to withdraw his consent to a search.

This case has significant implications in the area of digital searches, where agents routinely seek individuals’ consent to sweeping and invasive searches of large swaths of personal information stored on digital devices. Several lower courts have ruled against defendants on this issue, but the Weil team was able to persuade the Maryland Supreme Court that controlling precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court dictated a different outcome.