Tobias S. Loss-Eaton

TOBIAS LOSS-EATON represents clients in civil and criminal litigation dealing with a range of difficult regulatory, statutory, and constitutional issues. Tobias has extensive experience challenging and defending state and federal agency actions and regulations, including in the energy, trade, securities and healthcare sectors. He also has significant experience in complex contractual and commercial disputes, including cases involving the Federal Arbitration Act. And he has litigated important cases on criminal law and sentencing, including in the Supreme Court. Tobias prides himself on clearly and persuasively explaining complex legal and factual issues to busy generalist judges, at the trial level or on appeal.  

Tobias is also a member of Sidley’s Transportation group, which is recognized by U.S. News and Chambers USA as one of the nation’s top-tier practices. He has represented the nation’s largest railroads in many cases involving contractual disputes, federal preemption of state law and the proper interpretation of the Federal Employers Liability Act (including FRSA-FELA preclusion).

Tobias has written or coauthored dozens of briefs in state and federal appellate courts, including thirty-four briefs in the Supreme Court. He has represented clients in merits cases before the Supreme Court during each of the past five Terms. Tobias has also drafted critical motions and pleadings at the trial level and has argued in the D.C. Circuit and in state and federal trial courts.

Tobias’s recent matters include:

• Representing the petitioner in Kahler v. Kansas, No. 18-6135 (O.T. 2019), which will decide whether the Constitution requires an insanity defense.
• Briefing and arguing a D.C. Circuit challenge to a regulation requiring railroads to disclose information about hazardous materials movements without confidentiality protections.
• Representing a national industry association in successfully challenging a customs regulation restricting excise tax exemptions in the Court of International Trade.
• Representing a major freight railroad in successfully opposing a shipper’s attempt to rescind the parties’ contract and recover fees paid under it.
• Representing a professional sports franchise in a dispute over telecast rights fees, including obtaining vacatur of an adverse arbitral award in the New York Supreme Court and affirmance on appeal.
• Representing the respondents in United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), a successful due process challenge to a federal gun-possession statute.
• Representing a natural gas company in Second Circuit, D.C. Circuit, and New York appellate cases about environmental approvals and eminent domain proceedings for a new project, including a successful challenge to a state agency’s denial of a Clean Water Act certification.
• Representing a pharmaceutical maker in successfully defending the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion in an unfair competition case in the Ninth Circuit.
• Representing a railroad industry association in successfully obtaining a declaratory judgment that state laws regulating train movements at road crossings are federally preempted.
• Representing a major equipment manufacturer in a Supreme Court case about the duty to warn in maritime tort cases.
• Representing a major freight railroad in successfully obtaining a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of a state fee on trains carrying hazardous materials on preemption grounds, and defending the injunction on appeal.
• Representing a self-regulatory organization in successfully defending rules restricting pay-to-play practices in municipal securities markets in the Sixth Circuit.
• Representing a corporate executive in a due process challenge to a prison sentence under the “responsible corporate officer” doctrine in the Eighth Circuit and the Supreme Court.

Before joining Sidley’s D.C. office, Tobias served as a law clerk to Judge Norman H. Stahl of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Between his clerkships, he was an associate in Sidley’s New York office, where he focused on commercial litigation and disputes.

Tobias earned his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was a senior policy editor of the Harvard Law & Policy Review and notes editor of the Harvard Law Review.