Ann M. St. Peter-Griffith has a national practice that focuses on all aspects of complex commercial litigation, including health care, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, False Claims Act, product liability, constitutional, and employment discrimination cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts. Ann has substantive first chair jury and bench trial experience, having tried a number of cases in federal and state courts. Ann has served as first chair trial counsel representing Liggett Group in several extended multi-week, multi-defendant Engle progeny tobacco product liability jury trials, where she secured complete defense verdicts.
Ann also represents health care clients in civil and criminal matters throughout the United States. She frequently consults on significant health care matters including, qui tam, False Claims Act, Medicare fraud, pricing, Stark, Anti-kickback, HIPAA, and HITECH.
Ann also has experience with ERISA litigation defending plans. On behalf of employers and major insurers, she has litigated numerous cases in U.S. District courts brought by both individual and class plaintiffs challenging various types of ERISA plans. She has strategized and engaged in extensive dispositive motion practice to successfully defeat a range of assaults on coverage limits and plan management asserted on ERISA administrative records, and thwarted plaintiffs’ attempts to seek discovery outside of ERISA’s statutory limits.
In addition, Ann lectures on health care and Medicare fraud topics. Prior to joining the firm, Ann was an Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) for the Southern District of Florida, where she was responsible for a major multi-district litigation relating to hundreds of millions of dollars of Medicare and Medicaid pharmaceutical pricing fraud. Ann received the United States Attorney’s Team Award for Exceptional Performance in Civil Health Care Fraud, as well as two United States Attorney’s Special Service Awards. In addition, as an AUSA, she represented the United States through jury trials in complex employment discrimination cases. She successfully defended the constitutionality of a federal enforcement statute, and Department of Justice employees against constitutional challenges brought by a notorious drug kingpin.
Ann devotes a significant amount of time to pro bono matters. She was a member of the litigation team that received the Florida Supreme Court’s Voluntary Bar Association Pro Bono Service award for its representation of 34,000 Cuban detainees held at the Guantanamo Naval Base. She has also represented guardians ad litem and served as a guardian ad litem for numerous severely abused and neglected children.
She has been recognized with an AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell for her legal ability and ethical standards. Ann is also a recommended lawyer in the area of Corporate Investigations and White-Collar Criminal Defense in The Legal 500 US.
Work Highlights
- A criminal defendant in a large Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecution, and a criminal defendant in a health care fraud matter involving tens of millions of dollars of alleged fraudulent claims.
- Lead arbitration counsel for a pharmaceutical provider in a health care contract and collection dispute arbitration that resulted in a favorable settlement.
- Lead trial counsel for Liggett Group in Fannie Collar v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., et al., obtaining a complete defense jury verdict after a three-week jury trial in a multi-defendant Engle progeny case in Circuit Court, Indian River County, Florida.
- Lead trial counsel for Liggett Group in Rachel Baum as personal representative for the Estate of Paul Baum v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., et al., obtaining a complete defense jury verdict after a three-week jury trial in a multi-defendant Engle progeny case in Circuit Court, Miami-Dade County Florida.
- Lead trial counsel for Liggett Group in Robert LaMotte as personal representative for the Estate of Vivian Kemp v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co, et al., obtaining a complete defense jury verdict after a five-week jury trial in a multi-defendant Engle progeny case in Circuit Court, Escambia County Florida.
- Trial co-counsel for Alltel Communications (acquired by Verizon Wireless), successfully obtaining complete defense verdict after a three-week bench trial in a deceptive trade practices action brought by Florida’s Attorney General on behalf of approximately 500,000 Florida subscribers to Alltel’s roadside assistance program. Florida’s Attorney General sought more than $20 million in damages and billions in additional statutory penalties. For her work on the case, Ann was one of three Kasowitz lawyers named by the Daily Business Review as South Florida’s “Most Effective Lawyer” for 2011 in the category for Complex Business/Civil Litigation.
- Lead counsel who secured a favorable settlement for a family of real estate investors in a specific performance equitable action brought to force the sale of certain valuable commercial and residential property in downtown Miami.
- Lead co-counsel in nationwide health care multi-district litigation against Abbott Laboratories for average wholesale drug pricing fraud that resulted in a $126.5 million settlement.
- Lead counsel in 24 coordinated health care fraud cases under Operation Equity Excise, successfully obtaining judgment of hundreds of millions of dollars resulting from defendants’ fraudulently-submitted claims to Medicare for durable medical equipment and unperformed medical procedures.
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