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Civil Rights, Human Rights, & Workplace Disputes

We are nationally recognized for our representation of plaintiffs in civil and international human rights class actions. Our work on behalf of Constitutional Rights in the United States and human rights abroad has earned our lawyers many accolades, including selection as finalists for Trial Lawyer of the Year. On the workplace front, we have great success representing plaintiffs in class actions brought under federal and state laws governing the payment of wages. We have successfully achieved millions of dollars for workers denied payment for overtime and "off-the-clock" work.

Constitutional Rights

Strip Search Cases

We have successfully litigated as co-lead counsel in twelve class actions against the unconstitutional practice in some county jails of strip searching arrestees charged with minor crimes. These cases demonstrate that the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, as nearly all federal appellate courts have interpreted it, prohibits detention facility officials from strip searching arrestees charged with minor crimes without having "reasonable suspicion" that they are carrying weapons or contraband.

We have successfully settled twelve cases for over $29 million dollars for people who were subjected to an unconstitutional search. For a complete list of past and current strip search cases, please see our current cases page.

Supreme Court Upholds Miranda Rights

House Democratic Leadership retained the firm to represent it in the Supreme Court case Dickerson v. United States, on the constitutionality of Miranda rights. The issue was weather a provision of a bill passed by Congress had overturned the Supreme Court's ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, which established the constitutionality of "Mirandizing" suspects.

In an amicus brief to the court, Jonathan Cuneo and Charles Tiefer presented "a specifically legislative viewpoint," arguing that Court's decades of reaffirming Miranda prevent Congress from superseding it with a mere legislative provision. The court upheld the requirement that police read citizens' their rights upon being arrested as a criminal suspect.

International Human Rights

Hungarian Gold Train

We are proud to have represented Hungarian Holocaust survivors whose fortunes were appropriated by the U.S. government in the final days of World War II. We served as co-lead counsel in this landmark class-action Rosner v. United States which alleged that the plaintiffs' personal property was loaded on a train by the Hungarian Nazi government during the waning days of WWII; that the U.S. Army later accepted the train and its contents into custody; and that, rather than returning the property to its owners, the Army misappropriated it.

In 2005, the court approved a $25.5 million settlement, which provided a minimum of $21 million for use by existing social welfare programs to aid Hungarian victims of Nazi persecution, allocated $500,000 to fund and create an archival collection of information and artifacts as part of the U.S. reckoning, and a first-of-its-kind statement by the U.S. government acknowledging its part in the events surrounding the Gold Train.

Securing Freedom for Kenyan Human Rights Activist Koigi Wa Wamwere

Jonathan Cuneo was instrumental in securing a freeing Kenyan writer, politician, and human rights activist Koigi Wa Wamwere. Put on trial in Kenya and sentenced to death for false charges, Mr. Cuneo worked was successful in getting him out of prison in Kenya.

Workplace Disputes and the False Claims Act

IIF Data Solutions

Mr. Cynkar was brought in at the eleventh hour as part of a new legal team to help defend a 600-employee government contractor from accusations that it had defrauded the government in its GSA Schedule Contract. With over $100 million claimed in damages, and the threat of debarment from government contracting if found guilty, this was a bet-the-company case.

Withdrawing a proposed settlement offer, the new legal team successfully defended the defendants in a jury trial. The Court then found, in response to a motion from the defense team, that the plaintiff was liable to pay some of the defendant's attorney's fees because he did not have any evidence to support most of his accusations. Proceedings on the amount of fees to be paid are continuing in the district court, while the plaintiff has appealed the substantive case to the Fourth Circuit.

Wage and Overtime Accomplishments

Mid-western Retail Convenience Store Managers Recover $13.1 million in Overtime

For tens of thousands of employees of a retail convenience store chain operating in the mid-western states, we won a significant amount of overtime compensation due them for their "off-the-clock" work. This $13.1 million settlement is one of the largest ever achieved in a case of this kind in the Midwest.

McDonnell Douglas Corporation - ERISA Settlement

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As co-counsel in Klien, et al v. McDonnell Douglas, we won a settlement under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), under which McDonnell Douglas Corporation, an aviation company that has since merged with Boeing, agreed to provide retirement health benefits to over 20,000 nonunion retirees.

Civil Rights, Human Rights, & Workplace Disputes

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