John C. Hueston

Los Angeles

Trials & Complex Civil Litigation

John C. Hueston co-founded the business litigation firm Hueston Hennigan LLP in 2015 and serves as its trial practice chair. The former Enron lead prosecutor also has worked as chair of the business trial and crisis management practices at Irell & Manella LLP.

"It's been busy," Hueston said, understating matters.

He obtained a combined half-billion dollars in 2022 for Monster Energy Co. in a jury trial and an arbitration on false advertising and trademark infringement claims against a rival, Vital Pharmaceuticals, Inc., known as VPX, and its Bang Energy brand.

"VPX has attempted to escape into bankruptcy, but their CEO is still liable for the award," Hueston said. "And that gave us the opening for Monster to buy Bang for hundreds of millions of dollars less than it would have been worth. And that was just deserts."

Hueston this year has new challenges for clients McDonald's USA LLC, Medtronic LLC and Britney Spears' former manager, Lou Taylor.

A theme of the new representations is that in each, Hueston and his team replaced other firms as trial counsel. "We specialize in trial work," he said. "We are often asked to come in when serious cases look like they're going to go to trial, not settle."

He and his firm have a phrase for such cases: they're known as "higher yield to trial" matters.

In December 2022, McDonald's picked Hueston Hennigan to step in for a different firm as lead trial counsel in a bet-the-company race discrimination case brought by billionaire media mogul and entertainer Byron Allen, who is Black.

The suit seeks $10 billion in damages on claims that McDonald's discriminated against Allen's media companies by committing to a lower "advertising spend" than elsewhere, allegedly violating federal and state civil rights laws. Trial is set for early next year. Entertainment Studios Networks Inc. et al. v. McDonald's USA LLC, 2:21-cv-04972 (C.D. Cal., filed June 18, 2021).

Hueston said that other targets of Allen's campaign caved, "but McDonald's is standing its ground" due to Allen's companies' low viewership. "I'm looking forward to it."

Hueston Hennigan also replaced another firm for trial to defend Medtronic in a patent infringement suit over heart valve technology. The plaintiff seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Speyside Medical LLC v. Medtronic Corevalve LLC et al., 1:20-cv-00361 (D. Del., filed March 13, 2020).

And Hueston represents Britney Spears' former manager and Tri Star Sports and Entertainment group in upcoming conservatorship litigation, though both are non-parties. They replaced a former firm with Hueston in October 2022.

"It's been a great year," Hueston said.

--John Roemer