BG Wins $40 Million Jury Trial in Federal Texas Court


Washington, D.C.: On March 6, 2024, a Bailey & Glasser trial team won a $40 million jury verdict in Texas federal court in a fraud case against Mark Siffin and Paul Cyphers arising out of the bankruptcy of MTE Holdings, LLC. The case is Thomas Bennett, Trustee for the MTE Litigation Trust v. Mark Siffin et al., U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, 7:21-cv-00214-DC-RCG. 

The Bailey Glasser trial team consisted of partners Robert Bell, Cary Joshi, Elliott McGraw, and John Turner, along with paralegal Manny Rios.

Bailey Glasser’s client, the Trustee of the MTE Litigation Trust, asserted fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims against certain officers of MTE Holdings, LLC and their affiliated company MDC Energy LLC, an oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Midland, Texas. The beneficiaries of the trust are a group of financial institutions that had lent almost half a billion dollars to MTE Holdings before MTE filed for bankruptcy in October 2019. The group of lenders sued the individual officers of MTE for intentionally misrepresenting the financial health of the company in order to continue to draw on the loan.

After deliberating for just two hours, the jury awarded the plaintiff $40 million, finding both Mr. Siffin and Mr. Cyphers liable for fraud.

“The plaintiff’s interests have been vindicated,” said Cary Joshi, counsel for the MTE Litigation Trust. “Our client knew they had been defrauded and the jury knew it, too.”

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month. Traumatic Brain Injuries (an injury also known as a “TBI”) can occur in many ways – through sports, a car accident, a simple fall, or from an assault. In the military, one statistic from the Department of Defense estimated that close to 500,000 service members have suffered some degree of TBIs between 2000 and 2023.

According to a report from UC Davis Health: “A brain injury can happen to anyone, but most brain injuries occur in people ages 15-19. Children under 5 and adults over 75 are also at higher risk due to falls. Men are nearly twice as likely to be hospitalized and three times more likely to die from a brain injury than women. Among children under 14, brain injury leads to an estimated 2,685 deaths, 37,000 hospitalizations, and 435,000 emergency department visits annually in the U.S. One of every 60 people in the U.S. lives with a brain injury-related disability.”

According to the CDC, certain populations are more likely to be impacted by TBIs, including: racial and ethnic minorities; service members and veterans; unhoused people; incarcerated individuals; survivors of intimate partner violence; and people living in rural areas.

To learn more how to keep children and teens safe from brain injuries, visit the “Heads Up” resources page from the CDC here.

To learn more about how Bailey Glasser helps people with TBI, please visit here.

#BrainInjuryAwareness #TraumaticBrainInjury #TBI #BaileyGlasser

Arthur Bryant Speaking at Class Action Law Forum

BG’s Arthur Bryant is speaking at next week’s 6th annual Western Alliance Bank Class Action Law Forum (CALF) held in collaboration with the University of San Diego School of Law. Attendees will hear insights and take part in discussions on the most important developments and issues surrounding class actions and mass torts, with panelists including sitting federal judges and top defense and plaintiffs’ attorneys.

For more information and to register, please visit: https://events.westernalliancebank.com/2024-CALF

WaPo: “Mike Lindell Must Pay Man $5M in ‘Prove Mike Wrong’ Challenge, Judge Says”

Mike Lindell, MyPillow founder and 2020 election conspiracy theorist, has lost his challenge to the multi-million-dollar arbitration award made in favor of Robert Zeidman, a respected cyber expert. BG’s Brian Glasser and Cary Joshi represent Mr. Zeidman in this matter, as well as partner Lori Bullock and paralegal Manuel Rios.

Following the 2020 election, Lindell prominently trumpeted the false theory that the 2020 presidential election involved alleged Chinese government hacking that resulted in votes cast for Donald Trump being switched to Joe Biden. In July 2021, Mike Lindell sponsored his own so-called “Cyber Symposium”, which he said would provide an opportunity for technical experts in cyber forensics to examine and evaluate the evidence presented by Lindell. Lindell was so confident in the validity of his so-called “evidence” that, as part of his Cyber Symposium, he held the “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge” and offered a $5 million prize to anyone who could prove the data was not valid.

As described in this Washington Post article, Zeidman compiled a report of his findings and sent a letter to Lindell’s firm asking for the reward, and filed for arbitration after Lindell denied his payment request. The arbitration panel required Lindell to pay Zeidman within 30 days, and when it was not paid Zeidman asked a federal court to confirm his arbitration award. On Wednesday, the federal district judge in Minnesota upheld the previous ruling from the arbitration panel and Zeidman is now owed the $5 million payout plus interest.

“The chances of a confirmation were in Zeidman’s favor,” Brian Glasser said, as arbitration rulings are upheld unless they are found to be obtained by “corruption, fraud or undue means.”

Read the full Washington Post article here.

To learn more about this case please visit here.

#ProveMikeWrong #BaileyGlasser #Electionfraud #Arbitration #Litigation

Op-Ed: “Without Funding, Student Discipline Bill Will Hurt the Kids Who Need the Most Help”

“This bill gives just half the solution: it relieves the teacher and protects the other kids, but in the majority of counties, steers the disruptive child out of the classroom and into a void where much-needed help simply does not exist.”

In their second op-ed, Sharon Iskra, BG’s Institutional Abuse & Neglect team leader, and Kellie Caseman, Executive Director of Think Kids in West Virginia, provide a persuasive analysis of a new West Virginia discipline bill they say will hurt the kids who need the most help.

The op-ed published in News From The States, points out that to many, Senate Bill 614 seems to be a balanced solution, allowing elementary teachers to remove disruptive students ages 5-12 from the classroom, however, it “puts nothing in place to help them,” they argue.

The article details important underlying facts to consider: only 13 of the state’s 55 counties have an elementary alternative discipline program, and many of the schools lack the proper program resources, which requires significant funding. Other factors such as law enforcement involvement and childhood poverty rates have considerable implications for the children subjected to these disciplinary actions and must also be addressed, they contend.

Read the full op-ed here.

To learn more about Sharon, follow this link.
To learn more about the firm’s Institutional Abuse & Neglect practice, visit here.

University of Iowa Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Attracting Media Coverage

A Bailey Glasser lawsuit filed last week against the University of Iowa on behalf of a former professor for sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination, and unequal pay, is gaining local media attention – most recently by the Iowa Capital Dispatch, The People’s Network, and The Gazette.

The lawsuit alleges that Mélisse Brunet, the former Director of Orchestral Activities, was the victim of repeated sexual advances by Associate Director Alan Huckleberry, and also alleges she was subjected to gender-based discrimination and retaliation resulting in her resignation.

Partner Lori Bullock, who is representing the plaintiff said, “These disparities, are not only a violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act but also a reflection of the school’s ongoing failure to make the cultural changes necessary to address gender discrimination throughout the university.”

The lawsuit “has sent shockwaves through the University of Iowa’s School of Music and the broader academic community,” according to the article by the People’s Network.

Read this article and other news coverage of this lawsuit below:

The People’s Network

Iowa Capital Dispatch

The Gazette

#EmploymentDiscrimination #GenderEquality #SexDiscrimination

BG ESOP Lawsuit Noted in New York Times Article

The New York Times reported on a lawsuit filed by Bailey Glasser. The article, titled “He Grew Up in the Shadow of the ‘Wolf of Wall Street.’ Then He Got Into Debt Settlement” (Saturday, February 10, 2024), details a debt settlement operation run by Ryan Sasson (the stepson of Stephen Drescher, a close associate of Jordan Belfort, the self-proclaimed “Wolf of Wall Street”) across several states and involving various entities and law firms – and even shoe designer Steve Madden – now facing serious civil fraud changes brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the attorneys general of New York, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

To cash out his stake in the company before the regulators pounced, Sasson sold the company to “to its employees, through a financial transaction known as an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). The deal valued the company at $242 million. Mr. Sasson described the transaction as something of a gift to the employees — ‘our Strategic family,’ he called them — who had built the company. Mr. Sasson had, effectively, cashed out. His employees now owed 100 percent of Strategic.”

Bailey Glasser’s highly experienced ESOP team filed a lawsuit challenging the fair market value of the $242 million ESOP transaction, which the Times linked to in its article. In 2019, the ESOP trust allowed Sasson and others to reap an additional $104.5 million from the ESOP, supposedly because the company met certain targets. Sasson and the other defendants are trying to move the lawsuit to a secret arbitration proceeding and limit the damages to a fraction of the excess money paid to Sasson and others. A decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on that issue is forthcoming.

Our award-winning and nationally ranked ERISA/ESOP team has deep experience in handling matters such as the one described by the New York Time article and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of employees and retirees. To learn more about our ERISA group visit here.

To read the New York Time article, visit here

Partner D. Todd Mathews Named a “Super Lawyer”

BG partner Todd Mathews has been named a 2024 Super Lawyer. Todd dedicates his career to fighting for people injured by defective products like asbestos, hernia mesh, 3M’s combat earplugs, as well as on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse. We thank everyone who took part in Todd receiving this recognition. For more about Todd and his work, please visit here.

In addition to this accolade, Todd is a member of the National Trial Lawyers Top 100, an invitation-only organization composed of premier trial lawyers from each state or region, and is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, one of the most prestigious groups of trial lawyers in America. In 2024 he was also recognized by Best Lawyers in America in three categories: Mass Tort Litigation / Class Action – Plaintiffs, Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs, and Product Liability Law – Plaintiffs.

Law360 Covers ERISA Team’s Win Over Attempted Motion to Dismiss

Bailey Glasser’s ERISA team achieved another litigation win in the fight to protect employee retirement funds. In an order issued Tuesday, a North Carolina federal judge denied industrial refrigeration company, Morris & Associates’ motion to dismiss former CEO Bryan John’s ERISA case that alleged the company mismanaged an employee stock ownership plan by grossly undervaluing the business.

According to a Law360 article covering the ruling, the court found that the plaintiff could still sue on behalf of the plan even if he’s no longer a trustee because he is still a plan participant.

Bailey Glasser partner Mark Boyko, who is representing Mr. Johns, told Law360 he is “looking forward to seeing the case resolved on the merits.”

Originally filed in June, the lawsuit against Morris & Associates and nine ESOP trustees, alleged that the family company’s patriarch used the company and the plan to benefit himself and his family by undervaluing the company and issuing bonuses and high salaries not approved by the ESOP trustees, which hurt employee shares.

In addition to Boyko, the plaintiff is represented by Bailey Glasser partner Gregory Porter, associate Laura Babiak, as well as attorneys from Tuggle Duggins PA.

Read the full Law360 article here.

To learn more about our ERISA, Employee Benefits & Trust Litigation practice, please visit here.
#ERISA #ESOP #BaileyGlasser

Luke Thomas Joins BG Corporate Practice Group

We warmly welcome new partner Luke Thomas to our Corporate Practice Group. Luke has over 15 years of private practice experience handling both transactional and litigation matters, and joins us after serving as an Associate General Counsel at ASTEC Industries, a publicly traded, billion-dollar international heavy equipment manufacturer. In his new role, Luke is handling a wide range of transactional matters such as mergers and acquisitions, commercial real estate, banking and finance, commercial loans, commercial contracts, private equity, construction contracts and disputes, dealer agreements and disputes, land use and zoning, payment and performance bonds, and health care contracts. He routinely negotiates and drafts multimillion-dollar transactions and has extensive experience leading high-volume transactions.

Read the full announcement and learn more about Luke here.

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