Partners Named to KC Business Journal’s Best of the Bar

08.29.2018

Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP partners Norman Siegel and Patrick Stueve have been named to the Kansas City Business Journal’s Best of the Bar, the publication announced Aug. 27.

Siegel and Stueve were selected for the annual award, which recognizes attorneys in private legal practice within the Kansas City metropolitan area. The honor is based on accomplishments and casework over the past two years.

For Siegel and Stueve, the recognition comes on the heels of success in litigation nationwide.

Among Siegel’s highlights:

  • In June, Siegel obtained a $34.3 million jury verdict in a class-action case on behalf of 24,000 current and former policy holders of State Farm universal life insurance in Missouri. The jury found that State Farm had been systematically overcharging those customers for 23 years.
  • Earlier in 2018, Siegel settled a similar case against John Hancock Life Insurance Company for $59.75 million and is leading several other related cases pending across the country.
  • In February, Judge Thomas Thrash of the Northern District of Georgia named Siegel as co-lead counsel on behalf of consumers in litigation over the Equifax data breach, which affected more than 145 million consumers – nearly half of the U.S. population – involving names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and more.
  • Siegel also was lead counsel in a case against The Home Depot Inc. that settled in August 2016. The settlement, related to a data breach affecting 40 million customers, created a cash fund of $13 million for customers who suffered out-of-pocket losses and provided 18 months of identity monitoring services.

For Stueve, recent accomplishments include:

  • Stueve was appointed as co-lead and class counsel for a case against agribusiness giant Syngenta on behalf of corn growers, grain-handling facilities and ethanol plants nationwide. In April, the MDL Court granted preliminary approval of a $1.51 billion settlement resolving thousands of cases nationwide against Syngenta related to its marketing and launch of Agrisure Viptera and Agrisure Duracade corn seed. The settlement is the largest in the history of GMO seed litigation.
  • In 2017, Stueve represented more than 7,000 Kansas corn growers in a related case against Syngenta. After a three-week trial, the jury returned a $217.7 million verdict in favor of the Kansas corn farmers – 100 percent of the compensatory damages requested. The jury verdict was the 10th largest verdict in the country in 2017 and the only case to reach a verdict before a global settlement was reached with Syngenta.
  • In late 2016, Stueve secured all $9.2 million sought by his clients related to their work in the Bayer Genetically Modified Rice Multidistrict Litigation case. In this instance, he represented plaintiffs’ lawyers from around the country who wanted to be paid for their work landing a massive settlement against Bayer on behalf of U. S. Rice Farmers.

Siegel and Stueve will be recognized in the Oct. 26 edition of the Kansas City Business Journal. More information is available here (subscription required). 

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