Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout-Outs
Accolades | April 10, 2026
The AmLaw Litigation Daily
First up is a team led by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partners Theodore Boutrous Jr. and Blaine Evanson and Stoel Rives partner Brad Daniels that secured a significant appellate win for the Oregon utility company PacifiCorp in a wildfire class action. Plaintiffs whose property was damaged in four wildfires that burned over Labor Day weekend 2020 have already won more than $1 billion in total verdicts in follow-on, individual damages trials, with dozens more on the calendar. But this week the Oregon Court of Appeals held that the judge in the initial class action trial establishing PacifiCorp’s liability and negligence erred by instructing jurors to “assume that the evidence in the trial applies to all class members.” The appellate court reversed and remanded the initial class action verdict and invited the trial court to reconsider whether a single class was the appropriate vehicle to consider claims from four burn areas separated by well over 100 miles. The question of what sparked the largest of those fires is still contested by the parties. The team included Gibson Dunn partner Joseph Edmonds and associates Jacob Arber, Branton Nestor, James Rex Lee, Robert Frey and Varant Anmahouni.
A Sidley Austin team led by Daniel Feith worked alongside a separate appellate team at Gibson Dunn challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of small-refinery exemptions to their clients under the Clean Air Act’s Renewable Fuel Standard program. A unanimous D.C. Circuit panel held this week that the EPA’s interpretation of its own regulation—that the refineries were required to comply with the 75,000-barrel “small refinery” limit in 2023 as well as 2024—were contrary to the plain language of the statute, which indicated they need only comply in 2024. Feith argued on behalf of both petitioners. The Sidley team representing Alon Refining Krotz Springs Inc. also included Peter Whitfield, Cody Akins and Peter Bruland. The Gibson Dunn team representing HF Sinclair Parco Refining included Christine Buzzard, Robert Frey, Stephen Hammer, Allyson Ho, Lavi Ben Dor and M. Christian Talley.
Shout-out to litigators at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom representing Amadeus Hospitality and its parent company Amadeus IT Group SA in an antitrust class action claiming the company conspired with eight luxury hotel brands to inflate prices using the company’s Demand360 software platform. U.S. District Judge Joan Gottschall in Chicago last week dismissed the suit with prejudice, finding no evidence of any enforcement mechanism that would be needed to plausibly sustain a “price stabilization cartel.” The Skadden team leading the briefing on the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss included Karen Lent, Matt Martino, Amy Van Gelder, Sammuel Auld, Michael Lanci and Madeleine Gramigna. Douglas Litvack and Lindsay Harrison of Jenner & Block represented Hyatt Corp. Christopher Curran, J. Mark Gidley and J. Frank Hogue of White & Case represented Four Seasons Hotels Ltd. Carrie Mahan, Benjamin Mundel, Nicole Booth and Noah Fitzgerel of Sidley Austin represented Accor Management US Inc. Tammy Adkins of McGuireWoods and Jarrett Arp, Mari Grace, Neal Potischman and Tina Hwa Joe of Davis Polk & Wardwell represented Hilton Domestic Operating Co. Jeffrey Cashdan, Emily Newton, Lohr Beck, Caroline Buyak and Zachary Fardon of King & Spalding represented Six Continents Hotels Inc. Kristen Limarzi, Melanie Katsur and Sarah Akhtar of Gibson Dunn and Jeffrey Hansen and Matthew Kramer of Actuate Law represent Marriott International Inc., The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Katherine Forrest, Matthew Robinson and Paul Brachman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison represented Loews Hotels.
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