Diogenes P. Kekatos

Diogenes (Dion) Kekatos' significant experience in civil litigation enables him to skillfully assist clients on diverse cases in a variety of venues. He handles complex and class action litigation in both state and federal courts in such areas as ERISA, civil RICO, consumer fraud, environmental, antitrust, and mass tort litigation and he has immeasurable knowledge in class certification motion practice. As a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of the Southern District U.S. Attorney's Office, Dion honed his appellate skills, arguing nearly 130 appeals and motions before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Few, if any, attorneys in the country have practiced as extensively in that federal appellate court. Dion has also made hundreds of district court appearances and tried a number of cases to verdict, and as a result of his experience, is called upon by clients to provide high profile trial and appellate strategy, particularly in the Federal courts.

A lifelong New Yorker, Dion's career began in private practice, followed by a position at the New York Regional Counsel's Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. From 1986 - 1988 he served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and, for the following 12 years, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in that office, where he was Chief of the Financial Litigation and Immigration Units and handled an extensive and wide-ranging caseload of complex and class action litigation involving immigration, employment and age discrimination, extradition, debt collection, judgment enforcement, Social Security, Veterans Benefits, Freedom of Information Act, and tax liability.

Dion's appellate experience has earned him many accolades, including a highly unique Letter of Commendation written by the Second Circuit's Staff Counsel to United States Attorney Mary Jo White, as well as a commendation from Attorney General Janet Reno. In addition to these distinctions, Dion earned the Executive Office for United States Attorneys Director's Award for Superior Performance and a commendation from U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White for exceptional achievement. He was also nominated for the Attorney General's John Marshall Award for Handling of Appeals and for Participation in Litigation, as well as the EOUSA Director's Award for Outstanding Work in Financial Litigation. Then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani also nominated Dion for the Federal Bar Association's Younger Federal Lawyer Award.

Dion's knowledge of appellate law, blended with his broad base of civil litigation experience, includes the following matters:

• Lead attorney in In re Delta Air Lines, Inc., in which Seeger Weiss recovered $16 million in pension benefits on behalf of retired Delta pilots.
• Principal drafter and editor of numerous briefs in the trial and appellate courts in the class certification proceedings in a nationwide action against Merck, brought on behalf of all non-governmental health plans that paid for their members' Vioxx prescriptions, and which asserted claims under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act to recover losses incurred in purchasing the now-withdrawn painkiller for their health plans. (International Union of Operating Engineers Local No. 68 Welfare Fund v. Merck & Co.). The firm secured the certification of a nationwide class in the trial court and successfully defended it in the New Jersey Appellate Division, which unanimously affirmed the trial court’s ruling. Despite the New Jersey Supreme Court’s subsequent reversal of the ruling, the firm achieved a settlement providing for an $80 million recovery for the plans.
• Successful defense of deportation proceedings stemming from the mass smuggling of hundreds of Chinese nationals into the United States aboard the vessel "Golden Venture." (Zhang v. Slattery, 55 F.3d 732 (2d Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1176 (1996))
• Successfully petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to rehear a 2-1 decision of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan that had denied the Government’s request to extradite an accused IRA terrorist in connection with the bombing of a British Army barracks, on the grounds that the 1986 supplemental U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty was an unconstitutional bill of attainder. After the court agreed to rehear the case en banc – something that court rarely does – it reversed the district court’s ruling by a resounding 10-2 majority.
• Won an expedited appeal of a preliminary injunction in a nationwide class action that challenged the enforcement of a VA disability benefits statute on Equal Protection grounds. (Disabled American Veterans v. U.S. Dep't of Veterans Affairs, 962 F.2d 136 (2d Cir. 1992))