Notable Cases
During the savings and loan crisis, the FDIC sued O'Melveny & Myers for providing incompetent legal advice to one S&L. In the resulting U.S. Supreme Court case, O'Melveny & Myers v. FDIC, 512 U.S. 79 (1994), the firm won on the narrow issue of whether federal or state law should govern the firm's defense that the FDIC was estopped from pursuing it because the FDIC was the S&L's successor-in-interest.
In January 2008, the Interim Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Peter Nickles, selected O’Melveny & Myers partner Walter E. Dellinger III to defend the constitutionality of the District's handgun ban before the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. In March 2008, Dellinger argued that the city's ban on the possession of handguns and its trigger lock requirement is not implicated by the Second Amendment. However, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's "right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."
In February 2008, Dellinger argued before the Supreme Court in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, on behalf of Exxon regarding the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision (Justice Alito had recused himself), reduced the $2.5 billion punitive damages award against Exxon to $507.5 million, holding that in maritime cases there should be a 1:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory (actual) damages.
The firm represented the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in the lawsuits over the Belmont Learning Center in Los Angeles in the 1990s. LAUSD later sued the firm for alleged malpractice due, in part, to the involvement of its attorneys on all sides of the negotiations. The lawsuit eventually settled, with the law firm paying $3 million towards completion of Belmont.
In September 1991 the firm represented, pro bono, community gang abatement specialist Ronald Lazar, StreetPeace, and nine other plaintiffs in a precedent-setting consolidated small claims action on appeal, Rawlings, et al v. Crumpton, establishing an important, powerful tool in crime prevention.
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Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or cases:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)