Michael J. Mueller

Mike has 36 years of experience with class actions and other complex cases, including wage-hour class actions, consumer products class actions, racketeering (RICO), and labor disputes with unions and employee groups.

He has tried more class actions to verdict than perhaps any other attorney in the country, including the defense of nine private class actions, a Secretary of Labor enforcement action against a major battery manufacturer, and a Secretary of Labor enforcement action against a Fortune 100 food manufacturer.

Focusing on clients who create and sell goods and services, Mike helps his clients to avoid litigation and, if they are sued, to successfully navigate pretrial proceedings, trials and appeals. Mike has spent 215 trial days in court, participating in a dozen class actions or other representative actions tried to verdict, the majority of which have resulted in zero recoveries by the plaintiffs. In many other cases, he has successfully avoided trial by defeating class treatment or winning dismissal on the pleadings or on summary judgment.

Mike has earned multiple awards for his aggressive, innovative and successful track record, including The American Lawyer’s 2015 “Litigator of the Week,” The National Law Journal’s 2016 “Litigation Trailblazer” and Law 360’s 2016 “Class Action MVP.”

In every matter, he develops a strategy that is tailored to the client’s business needs, offering various AFAs (alternative fee arrangements) to suit the overall matter or project. His long-term knowledge of a client’s business and litigation leads to proactive strategies, efficiency, and client satisfaction; he represented one Fortune 100 company on its class actions for 19 years.

Mike’s experience covers a broad spectrum and includes unmanned aircraft systems, antitrust law, bankruptcy, corporate takeover, and valuation disputes and claims against former officers/directors, consumer products law, contract disputes, credit counseling law, foreign military sales, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, labor and employment law, media law, racketeering (RICO) and securities law.

Mike has litigated at all levels of the federal court system and in the state courts of California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. He is admitted to practice in the following jurisdictions: US Supreme Court; US Court of Appeals for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Circuits; US District Courts for the District of Columbia, the Middle, Northern, and Southern Districts of Florida, the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, and the Central and Northern Districts of Illinois. He held a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Avern Cohn, US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

A regular speaker and writer on the topics of class actions or RICO, Mike has been quoted and mentioned frequently in media coverage of litigation matters and has appeared on CNN and PBS. He is a contributing author to the firm’s retail industry blog.

Relevant Experience

• Currently representing a battery manufacturer against one of the Department of Labor’s top enforcement actions for alleged wage-hour violations at 24 factories. In May 2023, jury returned a verdict that rejected all of the government’s claims on behalf of non-uniformed employees, rejected the government’s claim that the employer willfully violated the law, and rejected 80% of the government’s claimed damages. The district court called the trial probably the largest ever under the FLSA, and it was the longest case in the judge’s 20 years on the bench. In post-trial rulings, the Court limited injunctive relief to the new pay practices developed in consultation with counsel, and denied the Secretary’s motion for liquidated damages of $22.25 million (constituting the largest dollar value loss in history for a DOL claim for liquidated damages).
• Lead counsel in more than 70 class actions for clients in various industries, including consumer products manufacturers and sellers, food processors, security guard service providers, hospitals, and restaurants.
• Successfully represented a consumer products manufacturer and distributor in settlement negotiations and obtained settlement approval over the objections of well-known objector’s counsel Ted Frank. In Re: Samsung Top-Load Washing Machine Marketing, Sales Practices And Products Liability Litigation, MDL Case No. 17-ml-2792-D, 2020 WL 2616711 (W.D. Okla.), aff’d, 997 F.3d 1077, No. 20-6097 (10th Cir. May 7, 2021).
• Successfully represented a producer of premium poultry products in a claim by a New York grocery store chain that the producer was discriminating against it due to its customers being located primarily in majority-minority neighborhoods, whereas the producer sold to other grocery store chains in primarily white-majority neighborhoods. Citing U.S. Census data, demonstrated that publicly available facts of which the court could take notice disproved the allegations. In addition, court dismissed the complaint in its entirety for failure to plausibly plead discriminatory intent, or the existence of a contract or prospective contractual relations with wholesalers.
• Successfully represented a consumer products manufacturer and distributor in putative class actions in multiple states challenging out-of-warranty repairs for consumer products under state deceptive trade practice and replacement parts statutes.
• Successfully represented a policyholder against a major insurance carrier to recover for damages sustained in Hurricane Irma.