Ryan M. Duffy

Washington, D.C. partners Ryan Duffy and Kathleen Warin secured an appellate victory on behalf of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) after obtaining dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims in federal district court. The plaintiff brought a number of claims against FINRA, including defamation related to a prior arbitration held in FINRA’s arbitration forum. After years of motions practice in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the court granted FINRA’s motion to dismiss, found the plaintiff’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations and arbitral immunity, and denied the plaintiff’s requests for leave to further amend the complaint. The plaintiff appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where the Wilson Elser team obtained summary affirmance in a per curiam decision. The D.C. Circuit found that the district court properly concluded that the statute of limitations barred the claims at issue and that the plaintiff-appellant failed to plausibly allege any exceptions to avoid application of the statute of limitations. This led the D.C. Circuit to grant FINRA’s motion for summary affirmance.

Washington, D.C. partners Ryan Duffy and Kathleen Warin and associate Nate Lefko obtained summary judgment in the District of Columbia Superior Court on behalf of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The plaintiff sought to expunge decades-old customer complaints from his registration records and requested wide-ranging equitable relief, including equitable expungement, declaratory judgment, and a permanent injunction. The Wilson Elser team successfully demonstrated that the doctrine of laches barred all the plaintiff’s claims. In granting summary judgment, the Superior Court found that the plaintiff delayed in bringing his claims and material evidence had been lost, which resulted in prejudice to FINRA.  

Washington, D.C. partners Ryan Duffy and Kathleen Warin obtained a precedent-setting decision in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on behalf of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The case involved the plaintiff’s attempt to remove information from her registration records, which are maintained by FINRA under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The plaintiff asserted claims for equitable expungement, declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction. The District of Columbia Superior Court dismissed the plaintiff’s claims based on collateral estoppel. On appeal, the parties engaged in several rounds of briefings after oral argument related to numerous complex issues raised by the plaintiff-appellant’s claims. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals found the Superior Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the claims at issue arose under federal law and were within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal district courts. Importantly, the court also concluded that the plaintiff-appellant’s equitable claims alleged remedies rather than proper causes of action under District of Columbia law. As a result, the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims in favor of FINRA. This hard-fought decision provides significant precedential guidance under District of Columbia law and will have a substantial impact on many other equitable expungement claims filed in the District of Columbia.