Brian Danitz

Overview

Brian Danitz is a partner at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP. Brian has substantial experience representing clients in state and federal litigation, arbitration, internal investigations, and government investigations, involving commercial disputes, corporate and securities fraud, shareholder litigation, consumer class actions, antitrust actions, and employee whistleblower complaints. His practice includes all aspects of civil litigation in state and federal courts, in matters involving complex issues including allegations of securities law violations, shareholder disputes including involving breach of fiduciary duty and corporate governance, trade secret violations, and commercial disputes.

Brian is actively involved in the California and Bay Area legal communities. He has served on the State Bar of California’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and is selected annually as a Northern California Super Lawyer.

Prior to joining CPM, Brian worked at a large law firm in Silicon Valley, representing clients in commercial litigation, securities litigation, and government enforcement matters.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Brian was a documentary filmmaker and producer of new media. Brian was the cinematographer for the Oscar-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, Oscar-nominated film Sound and Fury, and Emmy Award winner TV Nation, and directed Ecological Design: Inventing the Future, Objects and Memory, and N is for Nuclear, among other films.

Brian received his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, cum laude, where he was the Symposium Editor of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. Brian received B.F.A. and M.P.S. degrees from New York University.

Experience

Representative Actions:

In re Bank of America California Unemployment Benefits Litigation, co-lead counsel in multidistrict litigation for a class of hundreds of thousands of Californians who receive unemployment benefits on the bank’s prepaid debit cards. On June 1, 2021, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction, finding Plaintiffs have a “strong likelihood of success on their claims” that the bank violated federal and state statutes and breached its contract with cardholders by summarily denying plaintiffs’ claims of fraudulent transactions and freezing cardholder accounts.

In re Google RTB Consumer Privacy Litigation, represent nationwide putative class of Google account holders alleging that, every second of every day, Google shares and sells its users’ personal information, without informed consent, to participants in its real-time bidding auctions for targeted advertising.

In re Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation, co-lead counsel for putative class of iPhone6, SE and 7 owners involving computer intrusion and trespass claims related to the alleged throttling of device performance. The district court recently approved the class settlement of $310 million to $500 million in that multidistrict litigation.

Wozniak, et al. v. YouTube, et al., represent tech pioneer Steve Wozniak and seventeen victims of a fraudulent Bitcoin Giveaway scam in a lawsuit against YouTube and Google currently pending in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

In re Slack Technologies, Inc. Shareholder Litigation, co-lead counsel for putative class of investors who bought stock in the initial public offering of Slack, a San Francisco-based technology company that offers a cloud-based productivity platform, alleging that that the registration statement and prospectus contained misleading information about the company’s condition. The case is currently pending in San Mateo County Superior Court.

In re Facebook Inc. Shareholder Derivative Privacy Litigation, lead counsel in derivative litigation regarding alleged breaches of fiduciary in connection with the Cambridge Analytica data breach, currently pending in the Northern District of California.

Morgus v. Page, et al., represent shareholder in derivative litigation regarding alleged breaches of fiduciary in connection with the approval of payments to executives accused of sexual harassment and other misconduct, currently pending in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

Tribble v. Gerrans, et al., plaintiffs’ counsel in shareholder derivative action on behalf of biomedical device company Sanovas, Inc., alleging that the former CEO stole company funds and was able to do so because the company lacked meaningful internal controls. After issuing temporary restraining orders against the defendants, the Marin County Superior Court entered a stipulated judgment establishing significant governance reforms, including the addition of independent directors, an audit committee, board observer rights, required board meetings and annual shareholder meetings to elect directors. The former CEO was tried and found guilty on multiple criminal counts in federal court.

John’s Grill v. Hartford Financial Services Group, et al., plaintiffs’ counsel for iconic San Francisco restaurant John’s Grill and other businesses in a series of cases alleging bad faith refusal to provide insurance coverage for business interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and related civil authority shutdown orders.

Morning Star Fisheries, et al. v. San Mateo County Harbor District, lead trial counsel representing San Mateo County Harbor District in a series of commercial disputes with fisheries located at Johnson Pier in El Granada, California. After an eleven day hearing, the Arbitrator ruled in favor of the District on all claims and ordered the fisheries to pay the District over $500,000 in attorney fees and costs for defending the lawsuits.

Rubin v. Peters, et al., represent plaintiff in litigation alleging legal malpractice and fraud in connection with a prenuptial agreement in San Mateo County Superior Court. The case settled on favorable terms after the court unsealed the complaint and denied defendants’ demurrers to nearly all counts in the complaint.

Nuts for Candy v. Visa, Inc., et al., plaintiffs’ counsel for putative class of California merchants involving claims that merchants paid excessive fees to accept Visa payment cards because Visa violated the antitrust laws. The case resolved in conjunction with the $5.54 billion class settlement in the multi-district litigation In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation.

JD Brothers LLC et al. v. Liberty Asset Management Corporation et al., plaintiffs’ counsel in a case involving a real estate Ponzi-scheme involving multiple shell companies and multiple transactions. The case settled after jury selection and the district court eventually entered stipulated judgments totaling $10 million in favor of plaintiffs.

City of San Jose v. Donald J. Trump et al., counsel for the City of San Jose in a case seeking to stop the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program, which shields hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. On June 18, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 majority opinion vacating rescission of the program.