Social Media Cases Atty In Hot Water Over Courthouse Filming

By Craig Clough

A Los Angeles judge on Friday ripped into an attorney for the plaintiff in a bellwether suit alleging Meta and Google's social media platforms harm childrens' mental health, stripping the attorney of his seat on the plaintiffs' steering committee for violating court rules by twice filming inside the courthouse.

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Epstein's Advisers Ink $35M Deal With Sex Trafficking Victims

By Katryna Perera

A class of victims of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking scheme has asked a New York federal judge to grant the first OK in a settlement reached with Epstein's lawyer and accountant, who allegedly aided him in the scheme.

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Beasley Allen Can't Pause NJ Talc DQ Order, Judge Rules

By George Woolston

The Beasley Allen Law Firm can't delay an order disqualifying it from representing hundreds of women who claim their ovarian cancer was caused by Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder while it seeks review from the New Jersey Supreme Court, a state judge ruled on Friday.

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Class Attys Allege Lead Counsel Is Hoarding $75M Sutter Fees

By Dorothy Atkins

Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP has urged a California federal magistrate judge to enforce the $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million deal resolving a decade-long antitrust fight, arguing lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP "unilaterally" and "arbitrarily" cut SWCK's fees by nearly $800,000 while boosting its own.

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Tesla Moves To Claw Back $7M, $10M Interest In Fee Fight

By Jarek Rutz

Tesla Inc. has asked the Delaware Chancery Court to force the lawyers who secured a massive derivative settlement over board pay to return more than $7 million in allegedly withheld fees and pay over $10 million in interest, arguing that they are defying a recent Delaware Supreme Court ruling that slashed their award.

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Bumble Allowed 'Massive' Data Breach, Class Action Claims

By Zak Kostro

Dating app Bumble failed to protect users' personal information stored in the company's information network, making it vulnerable to a recent data breach by a cybercriminal operation known as ShinyHunters, a Texas woman alleged in a proposed class action.

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7-Eleven Can't Shut Down Suit Over Health Plan Tobacco Fees

By Grace Elletson

A Texas federal judge has kept alive a former 7-Eleven worker's lawsuit claiming the convenience store chain illegally charged employees a $720 annual fee if they used tobacco, saying she showed the company may not have done enough to give workers an alternative to paying the fee.

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Lack Of Standing Dooms GardaWorld Health Fees Suit

By Mike Curley

A North Carolina federal judge on Friday threw out a suit alleging that GardaWorld Cash Service violated federal employment law with surcharges on its employee health plan for those who use tobacco or refused COVID-19 vaccination after finding that the two named plaintiffs did not participate in the health plan.

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Drilling Co. Accused Of Shorting Workers On Overtime

By Benjamin Morse

A drilling services company stiffs employees on wages by requiring off-the-clock work, rounding their hours and miscalculating overtime, a worker alleged in a proposed collective action filed in Utah federal court.

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Shoddy 401(k) Funds Cost Stifel Workers $134M, Suit Says

By Grace Elletson

Stifel Financial Corp. allowed its workers to face up to $134 million in losses by failing to boot poorly performing investment funds from its retirement plan in violation of federal benefits law, according to a Friday suit filed in Missouri federal court.

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Biohazard Cleaning Co. Faces Unpaid Overtime Class Action

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado professional biohazard remediation and technical cleaning services business violated federal and state law by failing to pay employees for overtime worked, according to a proposed class and collective action brought by the company's former employees in Colorado federal court.

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Merck Wants Out Of Ex-Workers' Wage, ADA Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Merck urged a North Carolina federal court on Friday to dismiss a former manufacturing facility employee's proposed class and collective action, arguing federal wage law bars his state overtime claim and that he failed to link his firing to sleep apnea.

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Hulu TV's Clout On Fubo Board Challenged In Del.

By Jeff Montgomery

A stockholder of sports streaming venture FuboTV has sued the company in Delaware's Court of Chancery, asserting that Hulu TV's effective majority control and veto over removal of Hulu-affiliated directors violates Delaware's General Corporation Law and assures Hulu effective control.

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Kennedy Wilson Investor Sues To Block $1.65B Take-Private

By Jarek Rutz

A Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc. stockholder has sued in the Delaware Chancery Court to block the company's $1.65 billion take-private deal, arguing that the transaction violates Delaware's anti-takeover statute and cannot legally proceed without a supermajority vote of disinterested investors.

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ChargePoint Beats Shareholder Suit Over Supply Chain Issues

By Katryna Perera

A California federal judge on Friday tossed, with leave to amend, a securities class action accusing ChargePoint Holdings and its top brass of misleading investors about the company's supply chain management, revenue growth and inventory value, finding the suit pleads contradictory facts and inactionable statements.

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Meta Judge's Antitrust Dismissal 'Usurped' Jury, 9th Circ. Told

By Dorothy Atkins

Facebook users urged the Ninth Circuit to revive their proposed class action accusing Meta Platforms Inc. of monopolizing personal social networking markets by misrepresenting its privacy and data practices, arguing that a trial judge misapplied antitrust law and "improperly usurped the jury's role" in deciding factual disputes.

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Milwaukee Accuses Fire Truck Giants Of Rigging The Market

By Elaine Briseño

The city of Milwaukee has alleged in a proposed class action that the country's largest fire truck makers and their trade group conspired to slow production so they could force cities and their departments to pay inflated prices.

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PVC Pipe Buyers Want To Get Price-Fixing Discovery Moving

By Elizabeth Daley

Parties involved in price-fixing litigation over polyvinyl chloride pipe costs have offered differing solutions to an Illinois federal court, with defendants in the consolidated action pushing for dismissal as plaintiffs urged the court to start permitted discovery.

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Schools Push For Pretrial 7th Circ. Appeal In Aid-Fixing Suit

By Celeste Bott

Cornell, Georgetown, Notre Dame, MIT and UPenn say that students fighting their bid to go straight to the Seventh Circuit on a ruling that teed up a trial over allegations that the schools fixed financial aid offerings "mischaracterize the questions presented and downplay Supreme Court precedent," insisting a prompt appeal would hasten the resolution of the case.

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Flagstar Customers Closer To $31.5M Data Breach Settlement

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge granted preliminary approval Friday to a proposed $31.5 million settlement resolving consolidated class claims that Flagstar Bank failed to protect the personal information of customers and employees in two data breaches impacting more than 2 million people.

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Google Data Sharing With China Violates DOJ Rule, Suit Says

By Craig Clough

Google has sent millions of internet users' information to several large ad firms in China, violating a U.S. Department of Justice rule preventing the bulk transmission of data to "countries of concern" that are American adversaries, according to a proposed class action in Maryland federal court.

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Fintech Mortgage Co. Hit With Class Action Over Data Breach

By Sydney Price

Blockchain home loan company Figure Lending LLC was hit with a proposed class action in North Carolina federal court accusing it of failing to safeguard customers' data from cybercriminals during a breach of its computer systems earlier this month.

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Dollar Tree Sued Over Receipts With Partial Account Numbers

By Abigail Harrison

A Dollar Tree Inc. shopper accused it of shirking federal consumer protection law by printing more than the last five digits of customers' credit and debit card numbers on receipts, according to a putative class action designated to the North Carolina Business Court Friday.

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Zillow Fights Class Claims It Pushed Buyers Into Pricey Loans

By Ben Adlin

Real estate marketplace Zillow urged a Seattle federal judge Friday to throw out homebuyers' accusations it violated a Washington consumer protection law and federal anti-racketeering and real estate statutes, rejecting claims that it directed buyers to its own more costly mortgage services and steered website visitors toward Zillow-affiliated sales agents.

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DuPont Atty's Clerkship Leads Judge To Reconsider Recusal

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut federal judge on Friday said he would reconsider a decision not to step away from a perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances lawsuit after his former law clerk appeared for several DuPont-related defendants and his daughter landed a job at a firm that represents fellow defendant 3M.

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Cos. Not Covered In Garage Door Death, Insurer Tells Court

By Hope Patti

An insurer said it has no duty to defend a developer or contractors accused of causing a woman to sustain fatal injuries from an unsecured garage entry door, telling a Florida federal court that the event did not arise out of work covered under the policy.

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Florida Cites Costs In Seeking Pause On Medicaid Injunction

By David Minsky

Florida has asked a federal court to pause a class action injunction halting termination of family-related Medicaid benefits for enrollees, saying officials need more time while they tackle the "extraordinary costs" of complying with the order requiring the state to provide case-specific notices to over a million individuals.

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Veterans Accuse Mortgage Lender Of Illegal Kickback Scheme

By Emilie Ruscoe

Veterans United Home Loans is facing a proposed class action that claims it steers servicemembers into costly mortgages through a system of illegal referrals and kickbacks with preferred sales agents.

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Del. Dispatch: Workplace Sexual Misconduct Liability In Flux

Following the Delaware Court of Chancery's recent contradictory rulings in sexual misconduct cases involving eXp World, Credit Glory and McDonald's, it's now unclear when directors' or officers' fiduciary duties may be implicated in cases of their own or others' sexual misconduct against employees, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

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Calif.'s Civility Push Shows Why Professionalism Is Vital

The California Bar’s campaign against discourteous behavior by attorneys, including a newly required annual civility oath, reflects a growing concern among states that professionalism in law needs shoring up — and recognizes that maintaining composure even when stressed is key to both succeeding professionally and maintaining faith in the legal system, says Lucy Wang at Hinshaw.

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McGlinchey Stafford Files Ch. 7 With Over $10M In Liabilities

By Lauren Berg

New Orleans-based firm McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, which announced last month that it's winding down operations after more than half a century, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with more than $10 million in liabilities owed to former staff and attorneys, workplace vendors, financial institutions and other creditors.

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Judge Nixes DOJ Fine In ICE Case, But Blasts 'Radio Silence'

By Hailey Konnath

A Minnesota federal judge said Friday that a U.S. Department of Justice attorney won't be fined after an immigrant's identification documents were finally returned to him, yet she tore into the DOJ's excuses and said she will "not tolerate what happened here: disobedience and radio silence from the government."

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Analysis

Deportation Policy Pushes Texas Federal Bench To The Brink

By Courtney Bublé

Texas has suffered through a shortage of judges for its federal courts for a while now, but the recent influx of immigration cases is pushing the system to the brink.

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Michigan Federal Judge Faces State's 'Super Drunk' Charge

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Michigan federal judge facing trial on drunken driving charges crashed his car on the night he was arrested, registered a 0.27% blood alcohol level and told a state trooper who asked him to recite the alphabet, "A, B, C, D, F, U," according to a police report recently made public.

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Boies Schiller Partner Faces Possible Sanctions For AI Errors

By Emily Sawicki

A Boies Schiller Flexner LLP partner must explain why he should not face monetary sanctions for filing a brief containing artificial intelligence-generated citation errors amid his representation of women who allege the Church of Scientology harassed them for reporting convicted actor Danny Masterson's sexual assaults.

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Va. Judges Name New US Atty, But Blanche Says 'You're Fired'

By Lauren Berg

The federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday unanimously appointed veteran litigator James W. Hundley to serve as interim U.S. attorney, a decision immediately met with derision from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who purported to fire Hundley in a social media post.

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Fake Attys, Judges, Hearings: DOJ Alleges Immigration Scam

By Hailey Konnath

A group of Colombian immigrants scammed clients out of $100,000 by pretending to be immigration lawyers at a fake firm and orchestrating phony hearings in which they pretended to be judges and federal agents, complete with fake judicial robes and uniforms, federal prosecutors in New York said Friday.

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6th Circ. Chief Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

Chief Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton announced on Friday that he will take senior status on Oct. 1 after more than 20 years on the bench.

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Judiciary Preps Training On National Injunction Limits

By Courtney Bublé

Seven months after the budget reconciliation bill was enacted, the federal judiciary is making progress on the provisions to rein in what Republicans deem abuse of nationwide injunctions targeting the Trump administration's initiatives.

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Analysis

Valve's Anti-Troll Law Win Could Open New Doors

By Dani Kass

The first jury verdict in the U.S. finding a patent owner violated state law meant to curb bad faith patent suits had unique circumstances that will be hard to repeat, but attorneys say Tuesday's decision still has them considering the little-used laws more closely.

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Florida AG Defends $100K Teaching Side Gig Amid Scrutiny

By Jake Maher

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has been on defense amid scrutiny over a reported $100,000-per-year teaching gig at the University of Florida law school, just as he sought to roll out a new anti-corruption unit.

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Attys Regret Unnoticed ChatGPT Errors In Conn. Court Filings

By Tracey Read

Attorneys ordered to explain errors in two January Connecticut Supreme Court briefs said ChatGPT altered legal arguments that counsel did not notice when they asked the artificial intelligence software to help limit duplicate passages, meet word count rules and format the filings.

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Brief

2nd NJ Defendant Joins Bid To Disqualify US Atty Leadership

By Carla Baranauckas

A second defendant in a New Jersey federal criminal case on Friday joined a pending bid to disqualify the three assistant U.S. attorneys overseeing the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, escalating a constitutional challenge to the office's leadership structure.

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Beltway Moves: Baker McKenzie, Armstrong & Bradylyons

By Alison Knezevich

The deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division returned to Baker McKenzie, while two former DOJ fraud prosecutors launched a new white collar boutique, in some of the latest legal industry happenings in Washington, D.C.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

The last week in London saw the founders of Getir sue investment fund Mubadala for more than $700 million tied to alleged breaches during the company's restructuring, the Welsh Rugby Union face a claim by Swansea Council over a proposed takeover of Cardiff Rugby, and Euro Car Parks target the Competition and Markets Authority after it was fined by the watchdog. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Several pension funds in New York City sued AT&T, alleging the illegal exclusion of their shareholder proposal requesting a corporate diversity report from the telecom giant's corporate ballot. In the meantime, the DOJ said the Trump administration is investigating federal contractors and grant recipients for potentially engaging in discrimination, rather than for their DEI programs. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Wigdor LLP and Elefterakis Elefterakis & Panek lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a New York federal judge denied the NFL's bid to force a class of National Football League coaches into arbitration.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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