Jonathan K. Cohn (Jon) focuses on employment, employee benefits, and whistleblower cases. Jon also litigates individual employment discrimination actions in both federal and state court, advises executives and professionals concerning their employment and non-competition agreements, and negotiates severance packages.
Jon graduated cum laude from Fordham University School of Law in New York City in 1997. His accomplishments in law school include serving as a member of the Fordham Law Reviewand selection for the Order of the Coif.
After law school, Jon served as a Pro Se Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked in the general litigation department of Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel in New York City for four and a half years. After relocating to Pittsburgh in 2004, Jon focused his practice on plaintiff-side employment law and public and private sector union-side labor law.
Jon’s representative cases include:
• LaCava v. Pittsburgh Public Schools, 2014 WL 3748201 (W.D.Pa. July 29, 2014), a reverse discrimination, hostile environment, and retaliation case, in which the court denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment in all respects.
• Cheatham v. RCA Rubber Co., 2013 WL 3812104 (M.D. Tenn. July 22, 2013), an ERISA retiree health class action litigated through trial, after which the court pierced the corporate veil of a parent company and held it responsible for the retiree health care obligations of its defunct subsidiary.
• Wigton v. Berry, No. 2:10-cv-01768, 949 F. Supp.2d 616, (W.D.Pa. June 7, 2013), a class action against the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”), in which plaintiffs seek to compel the identification and notification of retired VA nurses who are eligible for increased pension benefits under a declared but unpublicized and unenforced OPM policy; 2014 WL 4272791 (W.D.Pa. Aug. 29, 2014) (denying motion to dismiss on standing and mootness grounds and certifying class).
• Clemons v. Norton Healthcare, Inc. Retirement Plan, 271 F.R.D. 562 (W.D. Ky. 2011), in which the court certified a class pension plan participants seeking contractual lump-sum pension benefits, interlocutory appeal denied (6th Cir. May 18, 2011); 287 F.R.D. 511 (W.D.Ky. 2012) (rejecting Defendants’ motion for decertification based on Dukes v. Wal-Mart).
• Hayden v. FreightCar America, No. CA 07-0201, 2008 WL 375762 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2008), ERISA class action resulting in a preliminary injunction and settlement ensuring payment of retirement benefits valued at approximately $20 MM to railroad manufacturing employees laid off shortly before they attained pension eligibility.
• Lippman v. Office of Personnel Management, PH-O831-08-0212-I (MSPB May 7, 2008), a consolidated appeal of 158 individual cases before the Merit Systems Protection Board that resulted in recovery of $15MM in retroactive benefits for a nationwide group of retired VA nurses.
Jon is licensed to practice law in in the states of Pennsylvania and New York. His federal bar admissions include the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is a member of NELA (the National Employment Lawyers Association), and the Allegheny County Bar Association (Labor and Employment Section).
Jon was raised in Austin, Texas. After living in New York for ten years, he is happy to call Pittsburgh home. Before law school, he worked for United Parcel Service, where he represented his part-time coworkers as a shop steward in Teamsters Local 657.
Jon and his family live in Squirrel Hill. He enjoys following the Pirates and attempting to keep up with his two boys.
