Short Hills Litigator Achieves More Than $8M in Two Settlements

Mandelbaum Salsburg P.C., one of New Jersey’s oldest and largest full-service law firms, announced that Michael A. Saffer, a partner and Co-Chair of the firm’s Commercial and Banking Litigation Departments, obtained more than $8 million in settlements for clients in the past 12 months. The settlements were secured despite court closures and limitations due to the pandemic.

One noteworthy $5 million settlement for the longtime Short Hills resident was achieved on behalf of a Connecticut-based anesthesiology practice which sued the surgery center where the anesthesiologists provided exclusive services. The dispute arose because a contract between the parties included a provision that gave the surgery center a say in whether the doctors could assign their contract to a third party purchaser of the anesthesiology practice. After the surgery center blocked the sale of the anesthesiology practice, an arbitrator found the surgery center acted unreasonably and awarded Michael’s client $6.7 million. When the surgery center refused to pay the award, the anesthesiology practice filed an action in Superior Court in New Haven, which confirmed the award. The surgery center then appealed, but settled the case before the appellate court ruled. “This case was challenging because we had to establish and prove that the surgery center had no legitimate basis for blocking the sale,” Michael said. “We believed from the inception that the doctors had been wronged and we are gratified that the arbitrator and the trial court agreed with us.”

Michael, who has consistently been named to the Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers in the Metropolitan area and been listed as one of New Jersey’s top commercial litigators, also secured a $3.2 million settlement in a class action involving certain account executives of a Fortune 100 company who were wrongly classified as exempt from federal overtime laws. The successful settlement followed six years of federal litigation.

In addition to his work at Mandelbaum Salsburg, Michael is an active member of the Essex County community. He currently serves as the Vice Chairman and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kessler Foundation, a major New Jersey-based nonprofit. In that role, he furthers the Foundation’s mission to drive positive change for people with disabilities, through groundbreaking rehabilitation research and the funding of initiatives that provide access to job opportunities.

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