Nicholas Anaclerio

Nick’s practice focuses primarily on employment and general litigation matters. He has successfully represented diverse business, industrial, professional, institutional, and public sector clients in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, security, gaming, retail, food services, brokerage, and transportation fields before federal and state trial and appellate courts, and federal, state, and local administrative agencies. He defends clients’ interests in a wide range of employment matters, including cases of alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, gender, race, age, national origin, disability, and religion discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Illinois Human Rights Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. He is experienced in handling litigation involving the non-compete and non-solicitation provisions of employment contracts. He provides clients with ongoing human resources counsel directed at employment claim avoidance and containment, negotiates employee separation agreements, and also conducts training seminars to ensure employment law compliance and to further minimize clients’ employment liability exposure.

In addition to his employment litigation and counseling practice, Nick also represents clients in general commercial litigation, contract disputes and charges of unfair competition. He also defends clients in tort actions alleging catastrophic injuries and has successfully tried numerous jury cases through verdict.

His recent successes include:

• Yancy v. UHS of Hartgrove, Inc., Circuit Court, Cook County, Illinois Case No. 2006-L-007948, March 2008. During trial Nick won his psychiatric hospital client judgment as a matter of law in the workers’ compensation retaliation case of a mental health specialist terminated after on-the-job injuries rendered him unfit for full work duties. Based largely on Nick’s cross examination of the Plaintiff, the court found that the Plaintiff had offered insufficient evidence of retaliatory motive as a matter of law, and directed the case dismissed with prejudice, and taxed costs of suit in favor of Nick’s client and against the Plaintiff.
• Lowe v. Terminix International Company, L.P., 2005-SOX-089, Lowe v. The ServiceMaster Company, 2006-SOX-128. In two separate Sarbanes Oxley retaliatory discharge claims by a supposed whistleblowing employee against our clients The Terminix International Company, Limited Partnership and The ServiceMaster Company, the complainant alleged that he was fired for reporting accounting fraud. Nick prevailed at the initial administrative level in both cases, showing that the complainant was discharged only for insubordination and neglecting his duties, and then won summary judgment in subsequent proceedings before a Louisiana administrative law judge.
• Gaffney, et al v. Riverboat Services of Indiana, Inc., 451 F.3d 424 (7^th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, S.Ct. 933, 166 L.Ed.2d 703 (2007). Nick’s clients settled this unusual whistleblowers’ suit under the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1984 on favorable terms before trial. As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs, licensed merchant marine officers formerly employed as captains, chief engineers, assistant engineers or deck officers on a large Great Lakes gaming vessel, executed a loan receipt agreement entitling our clients to participate in their eventual recoveries at trial against certain codefendants. Nick’s clients won summary judgments dismissing the codefendants’ indemnification claims, after which plaintiffs proceeded to trial against the codefendants alone, taking substantial judgments, including punitive damages, against them. Nick successfully defended our clients’ summary judgments on the codefendants’ indemnification claims on appeal, while in the same appellate proceedings the plaintiffs’ judgments against the codefendants were affirmed and augmented.
• Tate et al v. Showboat Marina Casino Partnership, et al., 431 F.3d 580 (7th Cir. 2005). Nick won the dismissal of admiralty wage claims by marine crewmembers of a gaming vessel seeking a maritime lien against the vessel, obtained dismissals of 16 more FLSA overtime claims on limitations grounds and secured eight more claims' dismissal as a discovery sanction. He then obtained summary judgments against the remaining 50 Plaintiffs by successfully arguing that their overtime claims were barred as a matter of law by the FLSA's "seaman" exemption, though the boat on which they worked rarely ever sailed. During the course of this litigation, Nick won several monetary sanctions awards against certain plaintiffs and their counsel, one of which our client waived to secure the settlement of an unrelated employment discrimination suit brought separately by one of the numerous Tate plaintiffs. Finally, he successfully defended our clients’ comprehensive victory in the appellate court.
• Harkins, et al. v. Riverboat Services of Indiana, Inc., et al., 385 F.3d 1099 (7th Cir. 2004). Based on the Fair Labor Standards Act’s consent-filing requirements and statute of limitations, Nick obtained summary judgment for the defendants in 18 of the overtime claims joined in this FLSA collective action. At the subsequent trial of the same case, he won judgments as a matter of law for one of two clients before the case was submitted to a federal jury and then tried three surviving overtime claims, 13 related retaliatory discharge claims and a constructive discharge claim to jury verdicts in favor of his other client. In a precedent-setting case, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed these verdicts.
• Bruno et al. v. M/V Winstar. Before his client incurred any discovery expense, Nick won the dismissal of this in rem wage suit by members of a gaming boat's marine crew who sought to impress a lien for unpaid overtime wages on the vessel. The case was an in rem Federal Maritime Lien Act overtime wage matter that would have presented substantial discovery expenses had it proceeded.
• Tate et al. v. M/V Winstar. At the case's outset and without incurring any discovery expenses, Nick won the dismissal of this in rem Federal Maritime Lien Act overtime wage case on the grounds that the court lacked federal admiralty jurisdiction.
• McDowell v. Showboat Marina Casino Partnership. Nick won summary judgment in an unusual patron sexual harassment case.
• Bick v. Harrah’s Illinois Corporation, et al. Nick first obtained a summary judgment for his client in this Fair Labor Standards Act retaliatory discharge matter, and then won its affirmance following the plaintiff’s appeal to the Seventh Circuit.
• DeFalco v. Oak Lawn Public Library. After winning a dismissal with prejudice of the plaintiff’s reverse gender discrimination case as a discovery sanction, Nick succeeded in obtaining the Seventh Circuit’s affirmance of the unusual result.
• Wolz v. Deaton-Kennedy Company. After winning partial summary judgment for the defendant/employer on the plaintiff’s sexual harassment, gender, and pregnancy discrimination claims, Nick negotiated a stipulated dismissal with prejudice of the remaining disability discrimination claim. The sole consideration for the dismissal was the defendant’s agreement not to seek sanctions against the Plaintiff.
• Voogd v. The Pavilion Foundation. In a novel application of Illinois procedural rules requiring diligence in the plaintiff’s service of summons to a removed federal ADA case, we obtained the dismissal with prejudice of all of the Plaintiff’s claims against his client, then won the plaintiff’s appeal.
• Shuta-Neumann v. Hartgrove Hospital. We successfully tried to a defense jury verdict this age discrimination and wrongful discharge case by the hospital’s former business manager.