Seven plaintiffs who teamed up to sue Cumulus Media over how the company’s 401(k) plan was administered have given their approval to a Class Action Settlement Agreement, putting the wheels in motion on concluding a civil case filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on December 15, 2022.
Meanwhile, there is a new development in an ongoing legal tussle between Cumulus and former Atlanta morning host William Choate, a.k.a. “Cadillac Jack.”
It concludes a legal battle between the publicly traded audio content creation and distribution company and Demarland Dean, Kimberly Van DeCreek, Bradley Kirk, Reynolds Leutz, Tondarious Rothchild, Jason Jones and John W. Bower.
Dean is the Senior Director of Brand Partnerships for MediaOne and served as Director of Sales for Cumulus Media in Chattanooga, Tenn., between February 2014 and January 2018.
Van DeCreek, today an ad sales representative for a newspaper in Dexter, Mich., served as a senior account executive for Cumulus in Ann Arbor from December 2013-January 2016.
Kirk, a.k.a. Brad Hansen-Kirk, left the radio industry in February 2021 and is now a public relations specialist in Greeley, Colo., for the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners. From May 2016-December 2018 he was Operations Manager for Cumulus’ Albuquerque station group.
Rothchild was a promotions assistant for Cumulus’ Mobile stations from June 2017-June 2019 and is now a data analyst in Redmond, Wash., working with Microsoft as an outside contractor.
Jones, not to be confused with the PREMION Director of Regional Sales who once served as a CBS Radio National Sales Manager, was a Cumulus Media Account Executive in Birmingham from October 2016-April 2018.
Information for Leutz and Bower could not be found in public internet searches by RBR+TVBR.
The settlement is a legal victory for not only the former Cumulus employees but also for Mark Gyandoh, of Philadelphia-area law firm Capozzi Adler P.A.
By having Cumulus decide to avoid court costs and a prolonged battle with the former employees, it is creating a settlement fund consisting of $1 million dollars in cash.
Importantly, the settlement clears Cumulus of any wrongdoing, and accusations from the seven plaintiffs that Cumulus breached fiduciary duties owed to the participants in and beneficiaries of its 401(k) plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Among other things, the plaintiffs accused Cumulus of failing to attempt to reduce the plan’s expenses or exercise appropriate judgment to scrutinize each investment option that was offered in the plan to ensure it was prudent.
Court approval is expected; the settlement and the plaintiffs’ approval were filed on Tuesday.
“Defendants strongly dispute each of the claims asserted in the Action and deny that they ever engaged in any wrongdoing, violation of law or breach of duty,” language in the settlement document states. At the same time, the 57-page settlement agreement states that the plaintiffs, “while believing that all claims brought in the action have merit,” said yes to the settlement because of the “inherent risks, difficulties and delays in complex ERISA litigation such as this.”
Meanwhile, Capozzi Adler can seek a court order awarding attorneys’ fees not in excess of $333,300, plus reimbursement of expenses not to exceed $50,000.
This was a third effort to get a federal court to consider the excessive fees to plan fiduciaries. A strikingly similar lawsuit against Cumulus was filed in February 2020 by two different plaintiffs; it was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in October 2021 thanks to a release agreement the named plaintiff signed when he exited the company. This followed an initial 2019 lawsuit that was dismissed as the claims alleged were not raised on a timely basis under terms of the plan.
CIVIL APPEAL FOR FORMER ATLANTA STAR
While Cumulus has reached a settlement on the ERISA matter, it is still dealing with an appeal of a lower court’s decision in a civil rights employment case filed against the company by the man radio listeners know as “Cadillac Jack.”
The host who is legally known as William Choate filed his appeal on January 20. A statement filed on Tuesday (2/14) confirms it is a Title VII violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Choate alleges, specifically noting “gender and sexual orientation discrimination.” Choate’s sexual orientation, he alleges, became a problem with the VP/Market Manager for Cumulus’ Atlanta stations circa spring 2015, Sean Shannon. Atlanta Journal-Constitution radio columnist Rodney Ho detailed Choate’s allegations in a January 2020 report that said Choate is bisexual.
There is also a well-documented July 12, 2019 Luke Combs concert altercation that some said cost Choate his job.
In November 2021, Choate resurfaced as an Atlanta-area personality after 25 years on Cumulus’ WKHX “Kicks 101.5” by joining WEKS “92.5 The Bear” in Zebulon, Ga., to the south of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
He took the job after a lawsuit had been filed against his former employer for wrongful termination. That resulted in a partial victory for Cumulus, with a December 2022 District Court ruling that dismissed the discrimination claims brought forward by Choate. Choate had 22 months remaining on his contract with Cumulus and sought $732,258.05 based on the contract’s terms, as he saw it.
Today, he can be heard in afternoons on WEKS.
