Discover Card 'Misclassification' Deal Worth Up To $1.2B OK'd

By Hailey Konnath

An Illinois federal judge Wednesday gave the final green light to a settlement under which Discover Financial Services will pay between $540 million and $1.2 billion to resolve class action allegations it misclassified certain credit card accounts.

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Goldman Pens $500M Deal To End Investors' 1MDB Suit

By Jessica Corso

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $500 million to end a lawsuit brought by investors who say they lost money after it came to light that the company was allegedly involved in a bribery scandal tied to Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund.

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Analysis

How Exxon Attys Beat A 10-Year-Old Securities Class Action

By Spencer Brewer

This month, Exxon Mobil's defense team helped deliver a clean sweep victory for the energy giant when a federal jury in Texas found the company did not lie to investors about the profitability of some operations.

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Meta, Others Settle Bellwether School Case Set For June Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc., TikTok Inc. and YouTube have each agreed to settle a bellwether school district's claims in social media addiction multidistrict litigation that were set for a six-week California federal jury trial beginning June 12, according to the Kentucky school district's counsel.

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J&J Used Ellipsis To Nix Asbestos In Report To FDA, Jury Told

By Craig Clough

Johnson & Johnson used an ellipsis to eliminate a professor's finding of asbestos in its talc in a report submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a video deposition shown Thursday to a California jury considering bellwether claims over three women's deadly ovarian cancer.

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Meta Expert Says $27M Is Better Number For Abatement

By Cara Salvatore

An economics expert for Meta testified Thursday against New Mexico's desired $3.7 billion plan to abate social media's harm to mental health, calling it more "a spending plan" than one for abatement and claiming $27 million will do the job.

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Brief

Wells Fargo's $85M 'Sham' Hiring Investor Deal Gets Final OK

By Emilie Ruscoe

Wells Fargo & Co. and its investors have gotten a final nod for their $85 million deal settling claims the bank conducted "sham" job interviews to meet diversity quotas.

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Avis To Pay $1.8M To End Managers' Overtime Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Car rental company Avis agreed to pay $1.79 million to settle a collective action claiming it misclassified operations managers as overtime-exempt and failed to pay them for hours worked over 40 in a week, according to a filing in New Jersey federal court.

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Flores Says NFL Retaliated After He Filed Discrimination Suit

By David Steele

Former NFL head coach Brian Flores has told a New York federal court that the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell are using its arbitration process as a means to retaliate against him for suing the league for hiring discrimination.

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Logistics Co. Escapes OT Suit After Sole Plaintiff Withdraws

By MJ Koo

A logistics company defeated a proposed collective action alleging it failed to pay minimum wage and overtime after the suit's only named plaintiff withdrew for personal reasons, leaving the federal court without jurisdiction to proceed, a North Carolina judge ruled.

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AmeriHealth Unit, PBM Sued Over Prescription Claim Fees

By Matthew Santoni

Two Philadelphia pharmacies have filed a proposed class action against AmeriHealth Caritas Health Plan and its in-house pharmacy benefits manager, PerformRx LLC, claiming the companies violate Pennsylvania law by not disclosing "transmission fees" at the time a claim is run through the pharmacies' computers, according to a complaint removed to federal court.

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AI Voice Recognition Biz Must Face Some Investor Claims

By Emilie Ruscoe

Artificial intelligence and voice recognition company SoundHound AI can't shed investor claims that it hid unresolved accounting issues that led the company to delay financial reporting, though a California federal judge has trimmed some allegations from the proposed class action.

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PBM Swaps Cravath For WilmerHale In Price-Fixing Suit

By Bonnie Eslinger

Pharmacy benefit manager Prime Therapeutics LLC has replaced counsel Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP with WilmerHale and another firm in an antitrust case in Michigan federal court brought by the state's attorney general.

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Wimbledon, French Open Beat Tennis Group's Access Claim

By Pete Brush

A federal judge in Manhattan declined Thursday to order the Wimbledon and French Open tennis tournaments to grant access to representatives from a players group, after the group claimed its representatives are being denied access in retaliation for its antitrust lawsuit.

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Hermès Urges 9th Circ. To Back Toss Of Birkin Antitrust Case

By Bonnie Eslinger

Hermès asked the Ninth Circuit to affirm the dismissal of a suit from shoppers alleging the company illegally ties the sale of its iconic Birkin handbags to other expensive luxury items, saying the plaintiff's case reflects "a fundamental misunderstanding of tying law."

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LGBCoin Buyers Say Sanctions Bid Flunks Safe Harbor Rule

By David Minsky

Investors in the "Let's Go Brandon" meme coin asked a Florida federal court to reject a sanctions bid filed by the coin's founder, saying he didn't comply with the court's safe harbor rule requiring him to send a draft motion 21 days in advance. 

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Another Agri Stats Deal Gets Initial OK In Turkey Antitrust Suit

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge on Thursday granted preliminary approval to another deal between Agri Stats Inc. and purchasers to resolve their claims that the company's benchmarking reports helped enable a price-fixing conspiracy among major turkey producers.

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CoStar Hit With Antitrust Suit Alleging Data Monopoly

By Grace Dixon

A Washington, D.C., brokerage has filed a proposed class action against CoStar in federal court, alleging a decades-long anticompetitive scheme designed to maintain a monopoly over commercial real estate listing services and information services.

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IQ Data Targets Ex-Renters For Bogus Debts, Tenant Says

By Rachel Riley

A former Washington state apartment renter has accused collections agency IQ Data International Inc. of trying to extract money from tenants after they move out for debts they do not owe, according to a proposed class action the company removed to Seattle federal court on Wednesday.

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Aveeno Allergen Suit Tossed Over Thin Financial Injury Claims

By Jonathan Capriel

The company behind the Aveeno brand has, for now, defeated a proposed class action claiming it misled parents when labeling its child skin care products as hypoallergenic, with a New Jersey federal judge saying the buyers failed to show they suffered any concrete financial injury.

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Sig Sauer Pistols Fire Accidentally, Gun Owners Say

By Emily Field

Two gun owners on Wednesday launched a proposed class action in Florida federal court against Sig Sauer over an alleged design defect in its popular P320 pistols, saying that a lack of external safety features has caused multiple accidental discharges and made law enforcement agencies replace them as duty weapons.

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Gatorade Buyers Say 'Better Than Water' Claim Is Misleading

By Mike Curley

A proposed class of Gatorade buyers sued parent company PepsiCo Inc. on Thursday, claiming the sports drink's newest labels are misleading in the claims they "Hydrate better than water," and that the reduced sugar variants have no artificial flavors.

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Meta Defeats App Users' Location Data Privacy Suit For Good

By Lauren Berg

A California federal judge Thursday shut down for good a proposed class action accusing Meta Platforms of illegally collecting location data from users of third-party apps that installed the company's tracking software, again finding the complaint doesn't plausibly allege that Meta knew it didn't have permission to access this data.

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Jury Can See Inside ICE Facility, Judge Says

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado federal judge ordered Thursday that jurors be permitted to view the inside of an immigration detention facility near Denver, agreeing with detainees that visiting the GEO Group Inc.-operated facility will help them better understand key issues in the detainees' human trafficking class action.

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DC Judge Says Gov't Must Tell Afghans About Visa Relief Limits

By Tom Lotshaw

A D.C. federal judge ordered the Trump administration to inform a certified class of Afghan nationals seeking special immigrant visas for aiding the U.S. government overseas about a proclamation that suspended visas for people from Afghanistan and dozens of other countries.

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Immunity Bid Can't Stop Discovery In THC Abuse Registry Suit

By Jonathan Capriel

There's little chance that the Idaho state health director can ditch litigation by mothers challenging the automatic placement of women on the child abuse registry for prenatal THC use, a federal judge said after taking a "preliminary peek" at the state's pending motion to dismiss.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: May Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four recent rulings from cases involving allegations of Title VII violations, the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, prison dental care violations and overcharging for PACER access.

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Series

NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

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Analysis

BigLaw Deals Scandal Puts Boston Back On White Collar Map

By Chris Villani

A sweeping insider trading case involving information stolen from BigLaw firms shows a return to bread-and-butter white collar enforcement for Boston federal prosecutors and provides a morale lift in an office that has seen shifting priorities and staff turnover since the signature "Varsity Blues" takedown in 2019, veteran prosecutors told Law360.

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Goldstein Taps Ex-SG Prelogar Before Sentence, Likely Appeal

By Jeff Overley

One of the nation's most accomplished oral advocates, Tom Goldstein, revealed Thursday he has retained another of the nation's most accomplished oral advocates, Elizabeth Prelogar, ahead of his sentencing and likely appeal in a criminal tax case that has captivated the appellate bar.

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Immigration Judges' 'Anxiety' Dialed Up Amid Mass Exodus

By Emma Cueto

Current and former immigration judges spoke on a web panel Thursday about threats to the independence of immigration judges and the strains on the immigration system, such as a massive backlog of cases at a time when many judges have been pushed out or fired.

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Bush-Appointed Missouri Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge David Gregory Kays of the Western District of Missouri will take semi-retired status in May 2027, according to an update from the federal judiciary on Thursday.

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Feature

5 Podcasts To Keep IP Attys Entertained And Informed

By Theresa Schliep

Whether intellectual property attorneys are hitting the road for a family trip or kicking their feet up at home, podcasts about legal news can offer an easy way for them to stay in the know while (hopefully) not working this Memorial Day weekend.

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