Anne Johnson Palmer

Johnson Palmer’s complex commercial litigation practice centers on class actions and corporate disputes. She is part of Ropes & Gray’s working group focused on the California Consumer Privacy Act, and she’s a member of the Women’s Forum Steering Committee.

“Our offices in California are very much in work-remote mode,” she said in early October. “We’ve learned there’s a lot you can accomplish with technology. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Court appearances and depositions are interesting, but they really work out as business as usual.”

Among her clients is REV Group Inc. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a specialty vehicle manufacturer that makes fire trucks, ambulances, street sweepers, recreational vehicles and buses. She is guiding the company through uncharted litigation territory in its home state, a situation created by a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision called Cyan Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund, 15-1439, that allowed federal securities claims arising from securities offerings to be brought in both state and federal court.

The suits Johnson Palmer is defending were filed in both courts in Wisconsin to challenge allegedly misleading disclosures REV Group made regarding its IPO and a secondary offering in 2017. Three federal actions were consolidated in Bitar v. REV Group Inc., 2:18-cv-01268 (E.D. Wisc., filed July 19, 2018); Yandoli v. REV Group Inc., 2018-CV-001163 (Waukesha Co., Wisc., Cir. Ct., filed June 26, 2018).

“The cases gave rise to some procedural complexities,” Johnson Palmer said, “and this is the first of this kind of parallel filing situations in Wisconsin. The plaintiffs elected to try to do a divide-and-conquer strategy.” When the judge declined to stay the state court case pending rulings in the federal action, she appealed and obtained a reversal, putting the requested stay in place.

Johnson Palmer argued to the state appellate court that the trial judge had failed to consider the efficiency implications of litigating the same class claims in two courts. She pointed out that the appeal would “clarify how the Wisconsin courts…should manage competing class litigation in this and future cases.”

She got strong backing from the state Chamber of Commerce and another pro-business group. They warned in an amicus filing that allowing parallel suits to proceed would leave Wisconsin law “tilted in favor of class action plaintiffs’ lawyers,” leading to “a deluge of meritless, copycat lawsuits” that would “benefit no one except opportunistic law firms.”

The appellate court’s reversal “was a real defense-side victory, very satisfying to see,” Johnson Palmer said. Her latest move is a motion to dismiss the federal suit, which is pending. “It’s rare to see these issues become a focus. By pressing back strenuously, we may be able to achieve a settlement quickly.”

— John Roemer