Charles E. Tompkins
Charles Tompkins, a Partner at Cohen Milstein, joined the Firm in 1999 and is a member of the Antitrust and Civil Rights & Employment practice groups, with an emphasis on obtaining redress on behalf of employees who have not been paid all of the wages they are owed.
In the antitrust field, Mr. Tompkins currently represents Registered Nurses employed by hospitals in Albany, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, and San Antonio in lawsuits alleging that their employers unlawfully fixed their wages in violation of federal antitrust laws. Mr. Tompkins also is serving as a member of the co-lead counsel team in In Re Air Cargo Antitrust Litigation (E.D.N.Y.), a multi-billion dollar antitrust action alleging that the world’s major cargo airlines colluded in setting the amounts of various surcharges they imposed on their customers, and In Re Air Transportation Antitrust Litigation (N.D. Cal.), a federal antitrust action challenging a conspiracy among airlines to fix the amount of the fuel surcharge imposed on flights to and from Heathrow airport in London. Mr. Tompkins was a member of the trial team that, following a two-week jury trial, obtained a $56.4 million judgment on behalf of Maine wild blueberry growers who alleged their suppliers fixed the prices of wild blueberries. Mr. Tompkins also was a member of the team that litigated the federal antitrust action Paper Systems, Inc. v. Mitsubishi Corp. et al. (E.D.Wisc.), which settled for $20 million on the eve of trial.
In the employment field, Mr. Tompkins has represented a wide variety of employees, and twice obtained summary judgment on behalf of nationwide classes of Auto Damage Adjusters whose employer, GEICO, refused to pay them overtime. See Robinson-Smith v. GEICO (D.D.C.); Lindsay v. GEICO (D.D.C.). GEICO began paying overtime shortly after the adjusters’ victory, and the United States Department of Labor has since cited Robinson-Smith in an official opinion letter. Mr. Tompkins also was part of the legal team that obtained a $10 million settlement on behalf of chicken-processing workers who were not paid for the time they spent putting on and taking off their required safety equipment, Trotter v. Perdue Farms, Inc., et al. (D. Del.). Perdue Farms changed its practices as part of a global settlement and now pays its employees for this time. Mr. Tompkins also is a member of the team litigating Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (N.D.Cal.), the largest certified Title VII class action in history, in which female employees of Wal-Mart seek redress for unfair gender discrimination, and Hnot v. Willis, et al. (S.D.N.Y.), in which a certified class of over one hundred female insurance brokerage executives allege sexual discrimination in compensation and promotions. Mr. Tompkins also serves, on a pro bono basis, as a consultant for the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights And Urban Affairs, providing guidance and oversight in litigations brought on behalf of immigrant workers subject to wage and hour violations.
Mr. Tompkins has significant appellate appearance. He second-chaired the argument of Free v. Abbott Laboratories before the United States Supreme Court; briefed and successfully argued Lindsay v. GEICO before the United States Court of Appeals for the District Of Columbia Circuit; and briefed and argued Manchester v. Primerica Financial Services, et al., which was successfully settled prior to the issuance of a decision, before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Mr. Tompkins is the author of "Damages Issues in Fair Labor Standards Act Collective Action Litigation," which is scheduled to appear in Volume 10, Issue Number 2, of the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal of the Chicago-Kent School of Law; and the co-author, with Michael Hausfeld and Kalpana Kotagal, of "Innovation, Economics and the Law: The Health Care Industry’s Exposure to Antitrust Liability," to be published by the ABA Antitrust Law Section in 2007. He has been asked on several occasions to lecture on employment law matters by both the American Bar Association and the National Employment Law Association.
Prior to joining Cohen Milstein, Mr. Tompkins was an associate with the Washington, D.C. office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. He graduated magna cum laude from Colgate University and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is licensed to practice in New York and the District of Columbia.
Contact:
ctompkins@cmht.com Practice Areas: 
