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The Hoyt Block Building
Suite 400
700 West Saint Clair Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio, 44113

T: 216.781.7956

F: 216.781.8061


Thomas A. Downie

Thomas A. Downie

Attorney

Following undergraduate studies at the Pennsylvania State University, Thomas A. Downie earned his law degree, cum laude, from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cleveland State Law Review.

Mr. Downie’s 30-year career has spanned the breadth of civil litigation practice. He has been a defense lawyer and a plaintiff’s lawyer, in roughly equal parts. He has represented business clients in commercial contract disputes, regulatory compliance proceedings, intellectual property cases, and trade secrets and unfair competition litigation. He has represented injured individuals in cases involving product liability, consumer fraud, and environmental “toxic torts,” as well as clients with catastrophic injuries resulting from employer intentional torts.

A substantial part of Mr. Downie’s practice over the years has consisted of class actions. He has handled major class actions involving environmental disasters, product toxicity, medical device defects, consumer protection, and employee stock options, as well as retiree claims for miscalculation of pension benefits in violation of ERISA. The class actions he has prosecuted have resulted in over a hundred million dollars in class recoveries through both settlements and judgments.

In the field of labor and employment law, Mr. Downie has represented management and union interests in arbitrations, representation elections, labor contract negotiations, and NLRB unfair labor practice proceedings. He has both prosecuted and defended employment discrimination cases and employee claims for breach of contract and unfair representation under the Labor Management Relations Act.

Over the years, Mr. Downie has devoted a portion of his time to pro bono representation and civil rights cases. In a landmark case before the Ohio Supreme Court, he represented a blind woman seeking admission to medical school. He also prepared and tried the case of Muslim inmates at a state prison who were unable to practice the tenets of their religion. In a third case, he represented a concentration camp survivor in litigation that preserved his right to publish his parents’ diaries of the holocaust.

Mr. Downie is admitted to practice in the State of Ohio, as well as the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio and the Eastern District of Michigan and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and the District of Columbia Circuits.

The articles and professional papers he has authored include Common Fund Awards in Statutory Fee Cases, 18 Class Action Reports 83 (1995); Stigma Damages Rulings in DeSario v. Industrial Excess Landfill (1996); Class Certification in Professional Negligence Cases (1996); and Drug and Medical Device Class Actions (1998). His seminar presentations include The Basics of Cross-Examination (2001); Federal Civil Practice: A Guide for Ohio Attorneys (2003); and Cross-Examination in Ohio (2003).