John F. Stoviak

Experience

Significant Business Litigation

In December 2013, John successfully concluded the representation of Cantor Fitzgerald in its effort to recover for business interruption losses due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed 658 Cantor employees. John was lead trial counsel for Cantor in its suit in federal court in New York City charging American Airlines with negligence in its handling of checkpoint security at Logan Airport on the morning of September 11, 2001. On the eve of the trial in January 2014, Cantor and American Airlines' insurers reached a settlement for Cantor to receive $135 million. This settlement was widely reported in the national media including articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, among others. The case involved novel issues regarding American Airlines' duties in operating checkpoint screening at Logan Airport, the impact of a planned terrorist attack on negligence liability, the applicable standard of care and the ways to measure business damages separately from the tragic loss of life of so many Cantor employees.
John previously achieved another $100 million recovery for the Trust Preferred Holders in the Conseco bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy court in Chicago in 2005. John led a team that tried a business valuation case concerning the value of the entity to emerge from bankruptcy. On the day before the bankruptcy court was to issue a ruling, the parties reached a settlement. The settlement provided that the Trust Preferred Holders, who were scheduled to receive nothing under the debtor's proposed plan, would receive $100 million as part of a revised plan based on a higher valuation.
Also, in the last decade, John has led a trial team which tried two federal superfund cases to verdict in federal courts in New York. He also was lead trial counsel in a six-month trial in which he and his team successfully defended a public company and its former CEO and CFO against fraud and negligent misrepresentation claims. This case settled after completion of the trial and statements by the trial judge that she would not find fraud against the clients.
In addition to these major business valuation cases, recently, John won a defense verdict as the lead trial lawyer in a complex products liability claim asserted by a Tyco subsidiary in Centre County, Pennsylvania.

Energy and Environmental Litigation

In 2018, John was co-lead trial counsel working with an outstanding team in a CERCLA contribution case tried before the Northern District of Oklahoma. The court issued a verdict for an award in excess of $14 million in favor of the client in 2021. In 2022, John argued the appeal from this verdict before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals which affirmed the trial court’s ruling in a precedential opinion.
In 2013, John led a trial team representing Kinder Morgan subsidiary Tennessee Gas Pipeline in its effort to defeat a series of challenges by environmental groups attempting to stop construction of a natural gas pipeline across northern Pennsylvania into New Jersey. John and his team tried and successfully defeated the environmental groups' effort to get a supersedeas from the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board and they won a preliminary injunction from federal court in Pennsylvania to stop the challenges by the environmental groups other than appeals authorized by federal statute in the federal courts of appeal.
Recently, John has defended various public utilities in Superfund contribution claims arising out of the operation of former manufactured gas plants in federal courts in Delaware and New York. He was the lead lawyer and head of the Industrial Solvents & Chemical Group of companies that successfully worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to implement a timely and cost effective remediation of #1 Pennsylvania Superfund Site in York County. This case, which initially involved over 1,000 potentially responsible parties, was managed by John and PaDEP to a cooperative clean-up which minimized the cost exposure of the companies that agreed to cooperate and fund the emergency removal of over 4,000 drums and over 100 silo tanks.

Higher Education

In addition to his considerable trial and litigation experience, John provides corporate governance and business advice to universities, colleges and private businesses. In the past few years, he has helped universities with mergers of professional schools, issues of fraternities on campus and transitions from single sex to co-ed undergraduate programs. John also has conducted various confidential, highly sensitive investigations for certain college and university clients.