Murphy Anderson PLLC

Murphy Anderson is proud to announce it has been named the Judith M. Conti Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year by the DC Employment Justice Center (EJC). The Firm will receive the award at an EJC annual fundraising breakfast on Thursday, September 15, 2011. The EJC is an organization dedicated to ensuring all workers receive fair treatment in the workplace.

Murphy Anderson attorneys Joni Jacobs, Michelle Woolley, Renee Gerni and Lorrie Bradley regularly volunteer at the weekly workers’ rights clinic held at Bread for the City, providing much needed legal advice to Washington’s low income workers. Mark Hanna is a previous recipient of the EJC’s lawyer of the year award and decade of service award. Murphy Anderson lawyers have partnered with the EJC in bringing high impact cases on behalf of workers who are victims of wage theft and sexual harassment. Murphy Anderson is honored to receive this award. 

The DC Employment Justice Center has announced it will present Mark Hanna with its Decade of Service Award for his many years of volunteer service and leadership at the EJC’s workers rights clinic.  The EJC will present the award at its 10th Anniversary Dinner at the Capital Hilton on September 28.

The EJC has previously recognized the lawyers of Murphy Anderson for their pro bono work.  In 2007, Murphy Anderson lawyers received the EJC’s Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year award and Mark received the EJC’s first Volunteer of the Year award in 2002.

Murphy Anderson's Ann Lugbill moderated an expert panel at the Eighth Annual National Institute on the Civil False Claims Act and Qui Tam Enforcement Conference. Ann was chosen to field questions and to discuss the unique ethical issues that arise in False Claims Act litigation.

Sara is a law student at the University of Virginia, where she is the business editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Dallas with a double major in economics and political science. Sara does pro bono work through the UVA Innocence Project Student Group and the Migrant Farmworker Project, an organization that informs migrant workers of their rights as employees.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has accepted Murphy Anderson's amicus brief, filed on behalf of the Government Accountability Project, National Employment Lawyers' Association, National Whistleblowers Center and Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund in Gregory Perius v. Abbott Laboratories. The case raises the question whether the anti-retaliation provision of 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h) of the False Claims Act protects employee witnesses who cooperate with a Government investigation of potential false claims. The amicus brief argues that the District Court wrongly denied such protection where the employee-witness cooperated with the Government without making his own personal accusation of fraud. Amici urge that this subjective requirement has no basis in the statute. If the Government is investigating fraud, the False Claims Act requires that anyone assisting the Government be protected from retaliation.

Michael T. Anderson was the lead drafter of the brief with assistance from Ann Lugbill.

On June 10, 2010, the National Mediation Board will amend its rules to provide that, in representation disputes, a majority of valid ballots cast will determine the craft or class representative. The previous policy required that a majority of eligible voters in the craft or class must cast valid ballots in favor of representation. The former policy therefore automatically counted non-voters as "no" votes.

Jamin B. Raskin, of counsel to Murphy Anderson, submitted comments in his role as a legal scholar at American University. Out of approximately fifty briefs filed, Professor Raskin's comments were among the few cited by the NMB's rulemaking decision.

U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning in Chicago today ruled in favor of Murphy Anderson clients and denied an injunction against the affiliation of United American Nurses with two other nurses' unions to form a new union, National Nurses United.

Arlus J. Stephens made the argument and was aided by Michael T. Anderson and Keira M. McNett.

Today, Pfizer, the United States Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of many of the States announced a settlement of $2.3 billion, including resolution of multiple False Claims Act qui tam actions alleging violations of the False Claims Act related to Pfizer's provision of prescription pharmaceuticals to various government programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.

The settlement is part of an overall public-private partnership between False Claims Act qui tam whistleblower plaintiffs, like Murphy Anderson client, Glenn DeMott of Columbus, Ohio, one of the whistleblowers whose case is part of the overall settlement — and federal and state civil and criminal prosecutors.

With this settlement, the False Claims Act shows that it is a cost- effective way to attack and prosecute False Claims Act violations,” said Ann Lugbill, who is of counsel to Murphy Anderson, an active member of the watchdog group, Taxpayers Against Fraud, and co-author of the book, False Claims Act: Whistleblower Litigation.  Murphy Anderson attorneys Mark Hanna, of Washington, DC, and Michael Anderson of Boston, Massachusetts, and Ann Lugbill all represented Glenn DeMott in his qui tam whistleblower litigation.

“This record-breaking settlement is appropriately announced in the 200th anniversary year of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the father of the False Claims Act,” remarked Lugbill.

The American Bar Association's Labor and Employment Section invited Michael Anderson to speak at its March 3, 2009 Midwinter Conference in San Diego. Michael's paper, "The Top Ten Contradictions of American Labor Law," argues that the labor movement must not limit its legal agenda to reversing the decisions of the Bush era. He argues that union advocates must attack anomalies in the law that have existed since the 1930s. He argues, for example:

* that management should not have standing in representation cases
* that management has no constitutional right to worktime propaganda, and
* that management has no right to keep privileges like the power to implement its final offer on impasse, once it wins the equal right to preempt strikes with lockouts.

Murphy Anderson is proud to announce that Ann Lugbill is joining Murphy Anderson as of counsel. Ann is one of the deans of the whistleblower bar. She has filed dozens of whistleblowers claims under the False Claims Act. Her cases have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars recovered for the United States and for qui tam whistleblowers who blow the whistle on corporate fraud against the government.

Murphy Anderson's Mark Hanna moderated a DC Bar Labor and Employment Section program entitled, "Labor and Employment Law Priorities Under the New Administration". The roundtable discussion for the standing-room-only program focused on the legislative priorities of the new administration, including the Employee Free Choice Act and the Ledbetter Bill, as well as the priorities of the NLRB and the Department of Labor.

Murphy Anderson and the DC Employment Justice Center successfully partnered to obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars for thousands of employees of a DC building services company. The employer failed to pay overtime and consistently undercounted the hours worked by the low-wage workers.

The collective and class action was litigated by Joni Jacobs and Mark Hanna at Murphy Anderson and Art Rogers and Katie Laskey at the DC EJC.

The D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict for a Murphy Anderson client in a sexual harassment and retaliation case against her employer. Fred A. Smith Management Co. v. Cerpe, 957 A.2d 907 (D.C. 2008). Judge Farrell's opinion included several important holdings, including clarifying that plaintiffs are not required to prove psychological injury in order to demonstrate a hostile work environment. The Court also held there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that the plaintiff was subjected to a hostile work environment and retaliation and affirmed an award of punitive damages.

Murphy Anderson attorneys also prevailed on their cross-appeal challenging the trial judge's reduction to attorneys' fees sought under the D.C. Human Rights Act. The Court held that the trial court abused its discretion by reducing the fee award based on the number of claims that went to the jury (compared to the number of claims pled in the complaint) and the number of attorneys used to staff the case.

Keira McNett argued the case in the D.C. Court of Appeals. Mark Hanna managed the litigation from its inception.