Ex-Nikola CEO Milton Can't Decertify Investor Suit

By Sydney Price

An Arizona federal judge Tuesday rejected former Nikola CEO Trevor Milton's objections to certifying a class of shareholders accusing him and the electric vehicle startup of exaggerating the viability of its prospects, finding the investors have made reasonable progress toward contacting class members.

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Acadia Healthcare Investors Seek First OK For $179M Deal

By Katryna Perera

Acadia Healthcare Co. Inc. investors asked a Tennessee federal judge to grant the first green light to a $179 million settlement in a class action alleging the company misled them about the strength of its U.K. operations.

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Tenn. Judge OKs $141M In RealPage Landlord Settlements

By Isaac Monterose

A Tennessee federal judge has preliminarily approved $141.8 million worth of class settlements for antitrust claims lodged against landlords that allegedly used RealPage Inc.'s revenue management software to fix rent prices for residential properties.

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Anthropic Judge Warns Firm Against 'Extortion' In Opt-Out Bid

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge doubled down Tuesday on his concerns that Arizona law firm ClaimsHero is misleading authors to opt out of AI company Anthropic's $1.5 billion deal to end copyright infringement claims, saying the firm appears to be seeking "a nuisance settlement" and warning it against a legal strategy he called "extortion."

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Bloomberg Can't Nix Mike Huckabee's IP Suit Over AI Training

By Gina Kim

Bloomberg must face a proposed copyright infringement class action led by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee alleging the media company used e-books to train its large language model, after a New York federal judge said Monday she can't determine whether the fair use defense applied without "a robust factual record."

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Husch Blackwell Blasts Ex-Firm Atty's ERISA Suit

By James Boyle

A former Husch Blackwell LLP partner's claim that the firm violated federal law by withholding monthly retirement account contributions misidentified the funds in question as participant contributions, when they were, in fact, contributions from the firm's year-end profit-sharing program.

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Health System Can't Dodge Worker's Time-Rounding Claims

By Irene Spezzamonte

An Ohio county health system can avoid a nursing assistant's claim that it failed to pay semimonthly wages on time, but she can continue pursuing her claims that the company illegally rounded down workers' time, a federal judge ruled.

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Jefferson Health Sued Over Handling Of 'Mass Layoff'

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Thomas Jefferson University's healthcare division has been hit with a proposed class action alleging the institution violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act when it recently laid off over 500 workers.

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Delta Retirees Seek Court Clearance For Benefits Class Action

By Kelcey Caulder

A retired flight attendant accusing Delta Air Lines Inc. of shorting married pensioners on retirement benefits by miscalculating lump-sum payouts asked a Nevada federal court to grant her case class action status, arguing the roughly 3,000-strong group she proposed had enough in common to warrant certification.

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9th Circ. Offers Mixed Ruling On Jack In The Box Wage Claims

By Irene Spezzamonte

A trial must address whether Jack in the Box willfully deducted too much from workers' wages, the Ninth Circuit ruled on Tuesday, flipping workers' win on claims the fast-food company over-deducted their wages while reviving their claims over deductions for nonslip shoes.

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Brief

Texas Court OKs $46M Deal In GPB Capital Fraud Case

By Sydney Price

A Texas federal court granted final approval of a deal requiring several auditors of GPB Capital to pay $46 million to end claims about their alleged role in a $1.8 billion fraud scheme at the private equity fund.

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StubHub Hit With Investor Suit Over Pre-IPO Disclosures

By Sydney Price

Online ticket reseller Stubhub was hit with a proposed shareholder class action in New York federal court accusing it and several of its executives and underwriters of concealing changes to the company's operations that would impact its free cash flow ahead of its initial public offering earlier this year.

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UnitedHealth Gets OptumRx Antitrust Suit Sent To Arbitration

By Rachel Riley

A group of independent pharmacies must arbitrate their proposed class claims that UnitedHealth-owned OptumRx gatekeeps its network of Medicare prescription patients by imposing unfair fees, a Washington federal judge said Tuesday, concluding the pharmacies haven't shown the arbitration clauses in question are unenforceable.

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FTC, Ticket Resellers Look To Toss Dueling BOTS Act Cases

By Matthew Perlman

Ticket brokers have asked to toss the Federal Trade Commission's case accusing them of bypassing Ticketmaster limits to buy and resell hundreds of thousands of concert tickets, while the commission asked to nix a preemptive case seeking to block the enforcement action.

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Yardi Looks To Calif. Win In Wash. Rent-Fixing Suit

By Grace Dixon

Yardi Systems Inc. told a Washington federal court that source code it turned over confirms that its revenue management software doesn't rely on confidential competitor data, echoing defenses that led to one of the first defeats of algorithmic rent-setting antitrust suits.

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Ford Offered 'Paltry' Refund Over Missing Feature, Suit Says

By Gina Kim

Ford admitted it misrepresented that some of its F-150 Lightning trucks have a forward sensing system that helps drivers avoid hitting objects while parking, but will only offer a "paltry $100 refund" for those misrepresentations, alleges a proposed class action filed Tuesday in California federal court.

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BMW Refuses To Cover Faulty Component, Suit Claims

By Lauraann Wood

BMW has known for several years about a transmission component defect causing more than a dozen of the luxury carmaker's vehicle models to jerk and shudder while driving but has improperly refused to cover necessary repair costs, consumers have alleged in New Jersey federal court.

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Baby Vaseline Not Hypoallergenic As Claimed, Suit Says

By Mike Curley

Buyers of Vaseline petroleum jelly are suing the maker in New Jersey federal court, saying the "hypoallergenic" product's fragrance chemicals are allergens.

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Kaiser Cleared To Pay $46M For Sharing Data With Tech Cos.

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge granted preliminary approval Tuesday to a settlement of at least $46 million from three Kaiser Permanente entities to resolve claims by 13.1 million patients across the country who say it disclosed their information to Google, Microsoft, Twitter and other third parties without consent.

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Live Nation Trims But Can't Shake Off Taylor Swift Fans' Suit

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has tossed for good negligence and fraud claims from a lawsuit by hundreds of Taylor Swift fans who allege Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Ticketmaster LLC's anticompetitive conduct caused the Eras tour ticket sale "disaster," but kept alive breach of contract and antitrust claims.

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11th Circ. Backs City In Suit Over Unpaid Garbage Fee Jailings

By David Minsky

The Eleventh Circuit upheld the dismissal Tuesday of a proposed class action brought by Alabama residents who alleged they were wrongfully prosecuted for unpaid garbage collection fees, saying their complaint didn't allege a racketeering conspiracy between a city and its contractor led to criminal charges. 

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LendingTree's QuoteWizard Unit Hit With Telemarketing Suit

By Gina Kim

Lending Tree's insurance comparison subsidiary QuoteWizard.com LLC violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by placing unsolicited prerecorded telemarketing calls to people's phones without first getting their express consent, according to a proposed class action filed Monday in North Carolina federal court.

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John Deere Rival Can't Appeal Info Safeguards In FTC Case

By Lauraann Wood

A Deere & Co. competitor looking to shield confidential information it produced for a U.S. Federal Trade Commission right-to-repair investigation from related multidistrict litigation targeting Deere cannot tap the Seventh Circuit to resolve legal questions surrounding its failed protective order request, an Illinois federal judge said.

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6th Circ. Largely Shoots Down Ohio Derailment Atty Fee Fight

By Rae Ann Varona

The Sixth Circuit on Tuesday largely refused to revive Morgan & Morgan's bid to halt the allocation of attorney fees from a $600 million class settlement between Norfolk Southern and residents affected by the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment disaster, but remanded it for a look into the firm's individual allocation amount.

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Ex-Admin Of Norfolk Southern Deal Denies Disobeying Court

By Matthew Santoni

The former administrator of Norfolk Southern's $600 million settlement over the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, said it had been following a federal court's plan of distribution, not defying it, when it paid personal injury claimants based on a starting amount of $25,000 each.

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Oil Giants Sued Over Climate-Linked Rise In Insurance Costs

By Ben Adlin

The fossil fuel industry spent decades pushing a coordinated disinformation campaign to conceal its central role in climate change, saddling homeowners with a multibillion-dollar increase in insurance costs as disasters grew more frequent and severe, according to a proposed class action filed Tuesday in Washington federal court.

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Investors Say Alexandria Overhyped Leasing, NYC Project

By Katryna Perera

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. investors filed suit in California federal court Tuesday, claiming the real estate investment trust overstated the strength of its leasing business and the projected value of a New York City property, causing the company's stock price to drop once the truth came to light.

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Colo. Judge Halts Warrantless ICE Arrests Without Flight Risk

By Lauren Berg

A Colorado federal judge Tuesday preliminarily blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from conducting warrantless arrests in the state without determining probable cause.

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Feds Say Judge's Review Of Third Party Removals Is Barred

By Tom Lotshaw

The Trump administration has called on a Massachusetts federal judge to toss a class action challenging a policy to deport noncitizens to countries they don't have ties to, arguing the suit is "barred multiple times over" under federal statutes.

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Considerations When Invoking The Common-Interest Privilege

To successfully leverage the common-interest doctrine in a multiparty transaction or complex litigation, practitioners should be able to demonstrate that the parties intended for it to apply, that an underlying privilege like attorney-client has attached, and guard against disclosures that could waive privilege and defeat its purpose, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

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Bonus Spotlight

Magic Circle Firms Enchant Associates With Top-Tier Bonuses

By Tracey Read

U.S. associates at Linklaters LLP and Clifford Chance LLP have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, as the Magic Circle firms Wednesday became the latest to match the BigLaw standard for this year's associate bonuses.

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Analysis

After Big Win For 2 Trump Foes, A Third Faces 'Tougher Job'

By Phillip Bantz

The recent dismissal of federal criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey does little to help President Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser John Bolton, whose defense in a classified-materials case presents a thornier set of legal and factual issues, experts say.

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Roundup

Up Next At High Court: ISP Liability & State Subpoena Suits

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will return Monday for the first week of its December oral argument session, during which the justices will consider whether internet service providers can be held liable for contributing to their customers' infringing activity online and whether the subjects of state subpoenas are required to first challenge them in state court. 

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Interview

For Covington's Adrian Perry, Music Is A Family Affair

By Theresa Schliep

Despite having a famous rock star dad, Covington & Burling LLP partner Adrian J. Perry wasn't all that interested in being a musician as a young child, but he knew as early as 6 years old that he wanted to be a lawyer.

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Analysis

Calif. Privacy Agency Gaining Steam Ahead Of 5th Anniversary

By Allison Grande

California's data privacy regulator has taken several notable steps in recent months, including handing down its first penalty upward of $1 million dollars and finalizing long-awaited rules on topics such as cybersecurity audits and technologies that use artificial intelligence, and the groundbreaking agency shows no signs of slowing down as its fifth anniversary approaches. 

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Split 6th Circ. Shields Baker Donelson, Not City Councilman

By Matt Perez

In a published opinion, the Sixth Circuit has found that Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC is shielded by qualified immunity as outside counsel for the city of Nashville in litigation over the law firm's firing of a city election commission chair and member of the firm.

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Foley & Lardner Hit With Malpractice Suit Over Chancery Loss

By Rose Krebs

Foley & Lardner LLP has been sued in Delaware Superior Court by three officers of a now-defunct food recycling company who say the firm was negligent when representing them in a Chancery Court case that led to a $1.6 million judgment against them and another officer.

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DOJ Asks Court If It Can Release Epstein Files Under New Law

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a New York federal court's permission to publicly release the files related to the investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, clarifying Wednesday that it wants to release search warrant results, travel and financial records, police reports, and other materials.

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Keesal Young Poaching Suit Against Stradley Ronon Trimmed

By Madison Arnold

A California state judge cleared Keesal Young & Logan to pursue most of its lawsuit alleging Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young crossed the line when it recruited 10 former Keesal Young attorneys, finding that claims such as inducing breach of contract could move forward, in part, because of conversations among the attorneys.

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DOJ Says Ex-Employees Can't Challenge Firings In Fed. Court

By Rose Krebs

The government says a D.C. federal court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate a lawsuit filed by a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and two other ex-Department of Justice employees, alleging they were unlawfully fired.

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Hub Hires: Todd & Weld, Freshfields, Shipman

By Julie Manganis

It was a busy November in Boston's legal community as another firm expanded into the market, and a longtime judge traded his gavel for the ability to address his growing concerns about the Trump administration.

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