Cohen Milstein

Joseph Barton, a Partner at the Firm, joined Cohen Milstein in 2001 and is a member of the Employee Benefits practice group.
 
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Barton served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Lenore C. Nesbitt, United States District Judge for Southern District of Florida (2000-2001).  Since joining the firm, Mr. Barton has been actively involved in a variety of class action cases involving employee benefits as well as antitrust and securities cases.

Mr. Barton has been actively involved in a diverse number of employee benefit cases.  He has litigated or is litigating a number of private ESOP cases.  In litigation challenging the sale of stock for $25 million by the family shareholders to the Azon Corporation ESOP, Mr. Barton defeated defendants’ summary judgment motions and obtained partial summary judgment and obtained a settlement of $9.25 million for the ESOP participants. In litigation challenging a sale of stock to the Tharaldson Motels Inc. ESOP (one of the largest ESOP’s in the country) for $500 million, Mr. Barton obtained a determination that former employees had standing to sue as participants of the plan. Mr. Barton has also been involved in a number of cases alleging breach of fiduciary duty by investing the 401k plan in company stock of publicly traded companies.  Additionally, in Simpson v. Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company (N.D. Cal.), Mr. Barton represented a class of active and terminated employees alleging that FFIC’s policy of terminated persons on disability violated the discrimination provisions of ERISA, and obtained a settlement restoring their right to benefits for a period of years and also reimbursement of past expenses.  Finally, Mr. Barton led a trial team in Stoffels et al. v. SBC Communications (W.D. Tex.), that resulted in the determination that AT&T’s practice of providing cash payments to certain of its retirees to pay for their telephone expenses via a program known as Telephone Concession constituted a pension plan under ERISA. 

Mr. Barton has been active in a number of securities fraud lawsuits including In re Physician Corporation of America Securities Litigation (S.D. Fla.) (settlement of $10.2 million), and In re MCI Securities Litigation (D.D.C.) (settlement of $4.5 million) and also represented a small class of former Sterling shareholders who received Uniroyal stock in a merger in Avery v. Uniroyal Technology Corp., (M.D. Fla.) (settlement of $2.3 million).  Mr. Barton represents limited partners of Lipper Convertibles, a now-defunct hedge fund, in an arbitration against the fund’s former general partners, Levitt v. Lipper Holdings et al. (AAA), and in litigation against the outside auditor in federal district court, Levitt v. PricewaterhouseCoopers (S.D.N.Y.) in connection with their investments in the Partnership which were allegedly overvalued for over 5 years.

Mr. Barton has also worked on a number of antitrust actions.  Mr. Barton was a part of the team that engaged in intensive trial preparations in In re High Fructose Corn Syrup Antitrust Litigation, (C.D. Ill.), a class action alleging price-fixing by the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup, which settled for more than $500 million shortly before trial.  Mr. Barton litigated In re Mercedes-Benz Antitrust Litigation (D.N.J.), a class action alleging price-fixing of new Mercedes -Benz vehicles in the New York Region, that settled for $17.5 million or 50% of Plaintiffs’ calculation of actual damages. In connection with the Mercedes-Benz litigation, Mr. Barton briefed and argued and obtained summary judgment on an issue of first impression that established that lessee-plaintiffs had standing to sue as direct purchasers under the federal antitrust laws. 

Mr. Barton has also provided pro bono representation. Along with the non-profit law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates, Mr. Barton provided pro bono representation to the grassroots citizens action group Clean Water Action Council of Northeastern Wisconsin, in objecting to a settlement by the United States Department of Justice and the State of Wisconsin concerning natural resource damages in the Fox River area of Wisconsin.  Mr. Barton also represented a client in D.C. Superior Court against her former employer who refused to pay her wages and overtime, in which the Judge described Mr. Barton’s representation as follows: “everything done on behalf of the Plaintiff has been professional, timely and thorough.”

Mr. Barton received his undergraduate degree from the College of William & Mary (B.A. 1991) where he majored in History and minored in Classical Studies, and graduated Order of the Coif  from the College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law (J.D. 2000).  At law school, he received the Lawrence W. I'Anson Award for outstanding student scholarship, character and leadership, the William B. Spong Award for professionalism and ethics, the Robert R. Kaplan Award for excellence in legal writing and Order of the Barristers.  He served on the editorial board of the William & Mary Law Review and was a staff member of the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal.  Mr. Barton was a member of the William & Mary National Trial Team and served as Vice-President of the William & Mary Chapter of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Mr. Barton is the author of Determining the Meaning of “Direct Evidence” in Discrimination Cases Within the Eleventh Circuit: Why Judge Tjoflat was (W)right, 77 Fla. B.J. 42 (2003), Drowning in a Sea of Contract: Application of the Economic Loss Rule to Fraud and Negligent Misrepresentation Claims, 41 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1789 (2000), and Utilizing Statistics and Bellwether Plaintiff Trials: What do the Constitution and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Permit?, 8 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 199 (1999). Each of Mr. Barton's published articles has been cited by both courts and commentators. 

Mr. Barton is the current Secretary/Treasurer for the American Association of Justice (AAJ) Employment Rights section, which focuses on all aspects of employment and labor law including Title VII, ADA, ADEA, FMLA and wrongful discharge cases.

Mr. Barton is admitted to practice in the State of California and the District of Columbia and is listed in the Marquis’ Who’s Who in American and Who’s Who in American Law.