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With months of discovery and depositions yet to be completed, the Totowa attorney has requested mass-tort treatment, arguing that coordinated discovery and special masters would move things along, instead of taking each claim individually.
What the Supreme Court decides could not only affect this massive case: It could also set a precedent for others of its kind. Mass torts are associated more with claims that medical products are defective — in which case, everyone affected has shared an extremely similar experience — not with fraud, bribery, collusion, or discrimination.
The employees first filed suit seven years ago last month, claiming that Prudential basically bribed the law firm chosen to represent them, leading to a settlement far short of what the workers were entitled to.
In order to make their claim, the employees say, the court must compel the Newark-based insurance company to turn over documents it has so far withheld. These, the workers claim, will prove the Pru’s footsie-playing with the legal eagles.
Prudential has its own “dream team” of nearly three dozen lawyers. They contend that information is privileged.
The saga began in the late 90s, when employee Larry Lederman accused Prudential of redlining minorities. Originally, more than 350 employees joined Lederman in claiming similar pressure to discriminate.
They later agreed to confidential arbitration, a decision that would come back to haunt them. They hired Leeds, Morelli & Brown, agreeing to pay a third of whatever the court awarded.
Records show Prudential offered $10.5 million to settle confidentially, of which $500,000 was to go to Lederman. Keeping things quiet this way was good for the company’s image, critics and supporters alike agreed.
Weeks later, a former insurance agent said he was told that Prudential had quietly paid Leeds, Morelli $5 million up front, ostensibly for the employees’ legal fees.
To Lederman and others, the payment amounted to a bribe — claims Prudential called untrue.
An Essex County judge ordered Lederman’s suit sealed at the requests of Prudential and Leeds, Morelli, citing the original promise of confidentially but, more importantly, the potential embarrassment to Prudential and the law firm.
He even sealed his reasoning for sealing the decision, creating a Gordian legal knot that left several media organizations fighting to make the entire episode public.
(Full disclosure: I was part of that effort when I worked as the Law & Order editor at the Bergen Record).
Finally, in May 2006, a state appellate panel agreed. The public image of a company — not even that of the mighty Pru — outweighs the public’s right to access, the judges said.
The case has pinballed among different courts and different judges, including one who’s now dead and another who’s retired. To get it on the fast track, Roper says, will take special action by the Supremes.
Stay tuned.
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