Morgan Lewis partners Scott Schutte, Phil Miscimarra, and Stephanie Sweitzer along with associates Kevin Gaffney, Elizabeth Philipp, and Heather Nelson earned a shoutout from Litigation Daily after convincing an Illinois federal judge to deny certification of a class of tenants of 20 Chicago office buildings. They alleged that building manager Jones Lang LaSalle had entered into an illegal agreement with two labor unions to freeze out non-union workers from doing construction and office-move work for tenants.
US Magistrate Judge Sunil Harjani of the Northern District of Illinois issued a 50-page opinion on April 7, 2022, finding the plaintiff did not show substantial evidence of the so-called common question of whether there was an agreement between Jones Lang LaSalle and the unions. Judge Harjani also found that, even under the plaintiff's damages model, individual damages issues predominated over any common issues.