News : December 2006
CWPB Attorneys recognized as "Top Lawyers"
Attorneys Steve Bach and Lester Pines were recognized as "Top Lawyers" in Madison, as chosen by their area peers in a survey conducted by Madison Magazine. Results were published in its January 2007 issue. Attorney Steve Bach was identified for his work in Family law, and Attorney Lester Pines was identified for his Criminal Defense work.
December 2006
Class action lawsuit filed against the Carrier Corporation
Cullen Weston Pines & Bach, along with Lieff, Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLC , of San Francisco, and Tousley Brain Stephens PLLC, and Edwards & Hagen PS of Seattle are plaintiffs' counsel in a Michigan class action lawsuit filed against the Carrier Corporation for marketing and selling high efficiency furnaces with defective secondary heat exchangers. Attorney Tamara Packard, who is admitted to practice in Michigan, is the lead Michigan attorney on the case.
December 2006
Another Victory for Professional Police Association
In another victory for a Wisconsin Professional Police Association bargaining unit, Attorney Tamara Packard won in part an arbitration brought on behalf of the unit representing the Department of Public Works employees of the City of Baraboo. The unit had grieved the City's decision to hire a non-City employee to operate a street sweeper after the 2004 Great Circus Parade. Applying the clause in the collective bargaining agreement which strictly limits the City's ability to hire non-City employees to perform bargaining unit work, and recognizing that the operation of sweeping equipment is work regularly performed by DPW employees, Arbitrator Sherwood Malamud ordered the City to pay the employee who would have driven the sweeper his lost wages. December 2006.
Victory for Professional Police Association
Contributing another chapter in the ongoing debate over the Constitutional powers of Sheriffs, the Juneau County Circuit Court ruled that two deputies are entitled to utilize the arbitration process negotiated between their union, the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, and the County, after the Sheriff assigned the detectives to perform the duties of jailers. The Court agreed with the WPPA, represented by Attorneys Lester Pines and Tamara Packard, holding that the deputies are entitled to arbitrate the question of whether the assignments were demotions or disciplinary, and the Sheriff could not avoid arbitration and act unilaterally by simply citing to his Constitutional powers to assign deputies to specific tasks. "The sheriff's power to demote is not constitutionally protected and, here, the assignment to the jail, alleged to be a demotion[,] is arbitrable." Read the Court's entire decision. December 2006
