Emily J. Henn

As co-chair of her firm’s class action and antitrust litigation practices, Henn frequently is called on to block or blunt putative class actions, which she has done recently for major clients including Facebook, Clorox and Expedia.

“Class actions are powerful weapons, but they’re also supposed to be used in very specific circumstances,” she said. Her job is to encourage courts to determine whether a case fits within those circumstances.

She scored a big win for Clorox in January when a judge dismissed a mislabeling complaint involving the company’s “Splash-less Bleach” just five months after the suit was filed. The plaintiff claimed she was misled to believe the viscous bleach would work as a disinfectant against the coronavirus, even though the label stated it was not for sanitization or disinfection. Gudgel v. The Clorox Co., 4:20-cv-05712 (N.D. Cal, filed Aug. 14, 2020).

She reached two interesting settlements in April. She defeated a proposed damages class in an action against Expedia claiming the site listed some hotels as full when the hotels’ own websites showed available rooms. The settlement calls for an injunction telling Expedia to “do its best to … show the inventory it was supposed to show,” she said. Buckeye Tree Lodge v. Expedia Inc., 16-cv-04721 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 17, 2016).

For Facebook, Henn and her team reached an innovative settlement on behalf of the site’s content moderators, who said they were injured just by viewing some of the disturbing postings they took down. The settlement provides benefits to help them get care they need. Scola v. Facebook Inc., 18CIV05135 (S.M. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 21, 2018).

In mid-August, she won final dismissal of a pair of lawsuits accusing web analytics company FullStory Inc. of privacy violations as it analyzed client companies’ web traffic. She said the plaintiffs’ alleged a novel legal theory that “doesn’t acknowledge the practical realities of how the internet works.” Saleh v. Nike Inc. 2:20-cv-09581 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 19, 2020).

Henn also serves on Covington’s management committee and its three-member executive committee. She said she is particularly pleased that the firm expanded its mental health offerings during the pandemic.

The management work takes time, she said but added, “I’ve enjoyed that I can still maintain a practice but learn more about the business of the firm and flex different muscles than you do litigating cases.”

— Don DeBenedictis