Earle Miller
Biography
Overview
Mr. Miller practices commercial litigation and employment law. His commercial litigation practice emphasizes contractual disputes and business torts including lender liability, banking litigation, and franchise and distributor relations. He has represented national and international clients in numerous industries including financial services, energy, semiconductors, consumer products, manufacturing, and retailing.
In the employment arena, Mr. Miller represents employers in wrongful discharge, discrimination, and wage and hour litigation, including government investigations and class actions spanning the gamut of claims including overtime, meal and rest breaks, misclassification, and joint employment. He counsels employers on all aspects of day-to-day employment relations, including employment contracts, individual discipline and terminations, reductions in force, internal investigations, wage and hour compliance, unfair competition and solicitation, and executive non-competes. He has also represented unionized employers in grievance arbitrations arising under collective bargaining agreements.
Mr. Miller also practices trust and estate litigation, representing both institutional trustees and beneficiaries; and represents retailers and other commercial enterprises in matters involving ADA compliance for both their physical premises and their websites.
Mr. Miller's experience includes court and jury trials as both first and second chair, in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts; arbitrations under both commercial contracts and collective bargaining agreements; appellate briefing and argument; and extensive motion and writ practice.
Before joining White & Case, Mr. Miller practiced from 1984 to 2002 at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in Los Angeles.
Experience
Representative matters include:
- the representation of a foreign bank in the pursuit of fraud claims arising from a circular transaction scheme across multiple jurisdictions;
- the representation of a civil rights organization in its successful facial constitutional challenge to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and policy, which barred open service by homosexuals in the US armed forces. In the wake of a worldwide injunction issued after trial, at which Mr. Miller was assistant lead trial counsel, Congress repealed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" statute;
- the representation of a nonprofit corporation in class action litigation challenging its statewide wage and hour practices involving a diverse workforce comprising over 25,000 individuals;
- the representation of a semiconductor chip manufacturer in multiparty litigation over warranty and product liability claims, with a substantial international discovery component;
- the successful defense of major national banks in three lender liability trials, one of which was the first trial defeat for what was then the preeminent plaintiff's lender liability firm in California, and another of which was the first jury trial conducted in bankruptcy court in the Central District of California;
- the representation of major energy corporations in litigation under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, obtaining defense judgments both at trial and on summary judgment.
His reported cases include:
- Wilkerson v. Wells Fargo Bank, 212 Cal. App. 3d 1217, 261 Cal. Rptr. 185 (1989)
- Unocal Corp. v. Kaabipour, 177 F.3d 755 (9th Cir. 1999)
- Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America, 716 F. Supp. 2d 884 (C.D. Cal. 2010), on appeal 658 F.3d 1162 (9th Cir. 2011)
Unenforceable Provision in Overly Broad Employee Release is a Nullity, Not a Tort, California Litigation Report, September 2008
Employer Gives Hair Model the Brush-Off, Lands in a Tangle, California Litigation Report, September 22, 2006
