Diana Berber v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., et al.
Securities
Did the Eleventh Circuit, by denying Ms. Berber's petitions for rehearing en banc, so far depart from the accepted and usual course of judicial administration as to call for an exercise of this Court's supervisory jurisdiction?
QUESTION PRESENTED Throughout the four years of proceedings in this case before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (“the District Court”) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (“the Eleventh Circuit”), and until February 20, 2020, Respondent Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., and its publicly-traded parent, Wells Fargo & Co. (“Wells Fargo”), insisted that the rights of its employee, Petitioner Diana Berber (“Ms. Berber”), had not been violated by Wells Fargo’s retail sales practices. In a stunning about-face, on February 20, 2020, Wells Fargo publicly confessed to its many years of retail sales practices wrong-doing by executing three agreements with the United States Government: (1) a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“the DOJ”); (2) a Settlement Agreement with the Civil Division of the DOJ; and (3) a Settlement Agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“the SEC”). Pursuant to the foregoing agreements, Wells Fargo paid $2,500,000,000.00 to the DOJ and $500,000,000.00 to the SEC in fines, penalties and restitution to investors. Ms. Berber, on February 24, 2020, moved in the Eleventh Circuit for leave to file a second amended petition for rehearing en banc which cited and relied upon Wells Fargo’s executions of the foregoing agreements. On March 24, 2020, the Eleventh Circuit denied all of Ms. Berber’s petitions for rehearing en banc. Did the Eleventh Circuit, by denying Ms. Berber’s petitions for rehearing en bane, so far depart from the accepted and usual course of judicial administration as to call for an exercise of this Court’s supervisory jurisdiction?