Google $700M Deal Nears Approval As Judge Questions Fees

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge said Thursday he would likely give final approval to Google's $700 million antitrust deal with states and consumers, but criticized the accompanying request for $85 million in attorney fees, calling the 100,000 hours the consumers' counsel said they spent on the case "grotesquely bloated."

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Acadia Investors Get Final OK For $179M Deal, Atty Fees

By Katryna Perera

A Tennessee federal judge has given final approval to a $179 million settlement between investors and Acadia Healthcare Co. Inc., ending a class action that alleged the company misled investors about the strength of its U.K. operations.

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GM Keyless-Theft Suit Trimmed, Core Claims Survive

By Jonathan Capriel

A proposed class of drivers who claim General Motors hid a design flaw that allows thieves to easily access their vehicles saw their claims trimmed by a Texas federal judge, but he allowed most drivers to proceed with their core unjust enrichment claims.

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Brief

Judge Gives $27M Settlement Final Nod In DuPont PFAS Case

By Jonathan Capriel

A New York federal judge has granted final approval to a $27 million deal between DuPont and the Hoosick Falls residents who claimed the company's chemicals contaminated their drinking water for years, damaging their property values and leaving toxic levels of "forever chemicals" in their blood.

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FirstEnergy Investor Class Recertified After 6th Circ. Remand

By Jessica Corso

An Ohio federal judge on Thursday recertified a class of FirstEnergy Corp. investors suing over the company's $1 billion bribery scandal, standing by his earlier ruling that plaintiffs adequately alleged misrepresentations following a Sixth Circuit remand of the case. 

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J&J Says Ill. Ruling Backs Beasley Allen's DQ From Talc Suits

By George Woolston

Johnson & Johnson told a New Jersey federal court that a recent ruling in Illinois backs the Beasley Allen Law Firm's disqualification from multidistrict litigation over its talcum powder.

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Steakhouse Chain Servers Get Initial OK For $7M Wage Deal

By Benjamin Morse

A steakhouse chain will pay $7 million to end servers' claims that its tip-pool practices left them underpaid, a Colorado federal judge said Thursday, granting the deal preliminary approval.

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Mental Health Co. Can't Undo Jury Verdict In NC Wage Suit

By MJ Koo

A mental healthcare company's bid to throw out a jury verdict finding it willfully violated federal and state wage laws fell short because its post-trial arguments lacked supporting evidence, a North Carolina federal judge ruled Thursday.

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Walmart Wins Dismissal Of Wage Suit Over Sparse Claims

By Benjamin Morse

A former overnight stocker's allegations against Walmart lacked enough detail to plausibly support claims for missed breaks, unpaid overtime and other violations, a Washington federal judge ruled Thursday, tossing the worker's proposed class action.

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Kroger's Health Plan Tobacco Fee Shirks ERISA, Suit Says

By Grace Elletson

Supermarket giant Kroger violated federal benefits law by requiring workers to pay an extra fee through their health plan if they used tobacco while failing to give them a fair opportunity to avoid the charge, according to a proposed class action filed in Ohio federal court.

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Brief

BofA Denied Quick 4th Circ. Appeal In 401(k) Forfeiture Suit

By Hayley Fowler

A North Carolina federal judge has turned down Bank of America Corp.'s request for a quick appeal of his order denying the bank's request for an early exit from a proposed class action alleging forfeitures were misspent from workers' 401(k) plans.

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Ex-Husch Blackwell Partner Urges Discovery In ERISA Dispute

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

A former Husch Blackwell LLP partner has urged a Missouri federal court to ignore the firm's request for summary judgment in a dispute over employee retirement benefits, arguing discovery should proceed in the proposed class action.

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Co. Didn't Give Workers Proper Termination Notice, Suits Say

By Zach Dupont

Former employees of a recently defunct commercial property services company were not given a 60-day notice of their termination, in violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, workers alleged in two separate proposed class actions filed in Colorado federal court.

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Energy Co. Brass Accused Of $58M 'Pump And Dump'

By Jarek Rutz

A stockholder has sued Enphase Energy Inc.'s top officers and directors in the Delaware Chancery Court, accusing them of misleading investors about weakening demand for the solar technology company's products while insiders allegedly sold more than $58.8 million in stock and the company spent nearly $907 million on allegedly inflated share repurchases.

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Generac Beats Investor Suit Over COVID-Era Sales

By Katryna Perera

A Wisconsin federal judge on Thursday dismissed, with prejudice, a proposed securities class action accusing home generator company Generac Holdings Inc. and its top brass of failing to keep up with a surge in business during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding the investors failed to cure deficiencies in their prior complaint.

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Ariz. Bank Hit With Fraud Suit Over Merger Terms

By Sydney Price

A Chicago investment fund has accused an Arizona-based community bank of duping shareholders of an Illinois savings and loan company into approving the institutions' $90 million merger, saying the offering materials touted an unachievable payout for investors.

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Google Says Ad Tech Rivals Can't 'Circumvent' Time Limits

By Bryan Koenig

Google has formally asked a New York federal judge to dramatically reduce antitrust claims from rival advertising placement technology providers, arguing they're clearly targeting policies they've known about for years and thus cannot get around a four-year statute of limitations pegged to a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit.

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Ad Network Can't Ditch Suit Over Mobile App User Tracking

By Allison Grande

A California federal judge refused to toss a putative class action accusing mobile advertising network InMobi of unlawfully collecting detailed, sensitive information from users of apps that integrate its software tools, finding the plaintiff adequately alleged the technology functions as a "pen register" that's prohibited by the state's wiretap law. 

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Medtronic User Says Data Hack Exposed 9M Client Records

By Hailey Konnath

A Medtronic customer filed a proposed class action Thursday accusing the medical device company of failing to safeguard more than 9 million records containing personally identifiable information — including health information — exposed in a data breach earlier this month.

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Kratom Seller Sanctioned For Deleting Blog During Suit

By Mike Curley

A California federal judge has sanctioned Ashlynn Marketing Group Inc. in a suit alleging it hid kratom's dangerous and addictive effects, finding that it deliberately deleted a blog containing statements about kratom after the suit was filed.

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Borrowers Seek NJ Mass Tort Status For Debt Buyer Suits

By George Woolston

Consumers challenging LVNV Funding LLC's attempts to collect their debts that they say are void under state law have applied to the New Jersey Supreme Court to centralize their suits as multicounty litigation.

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Roundup

NC Biz Court Bulletin: Corporate Raid, MV Realty Settlement

By Hayley Fowler

A major case settled in the North Carolina Business Court in April as new lawsuits emerged, including a complaint by health information technology company IQVIA Holdings Inc. accusing its former top brass of orchestrating a corporate raid and defecting to a competitor. In case you missed this story and others, here are the highlights.

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Calif. Insureds Say State Farm's Property Valuation Is Unlawful

By Hope Patti

A class of California homeowners that say State Farm underpaid their property insurance claims urged a federal court to reject the insurer's argument that its method of calculating actual cash value is in line with the state's insurance code and legislative history.

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Tenant Says NC Landlord Imposed 3 Rent Hikes In 5 Months

By Nate Beck

A renter in California claimed in a proposed class action that her new landlord, North Carolina-based Bell Partners, sought to raise her rent nearly 25% in a five-month period after taking over management of an apartment complex late last year.

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Immigrant Minors Lose Bid To Block Repeat Sponsor Vetting

By Lauren Berg

A Washington, D.C., federal judge Thursday refused to block a Trump administration policy requiring that previously approved custodians reapply to sponsor "unaccompanied" children while the minors are held in government facilities, finding that the plaintiffs have not established the government is likely acting contrary to law.

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Series

Playing Magic: The Gathering Makes Me A Better Lawyer

The competitive card game Magic: The Gathering offers me a training ground for the strategic thinking skills crucial to litigation, challenging me to adapt to oft-updated rules, analyze text as complicated as any statute and anticipate my opponent’s next moves, says Christopher Smith at Lash Goldberg.

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Q&A

How Paul Clement Does It All

By Katie Buehler

For most lawyers, getting to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court is a once-in-a-lifetime event, but for a select few, it's a common occurrence. Clement & Murphy PLLC name partner Paul Clement is one of those lawyers. 

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Don't 'Throw' Young Attys Under Bus, Judge Warns Musk Atty

By Dorothy Atkins

The California federal judge presiding over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion criticized Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff on Friday for eliciting "waste of time" trial testimony into Musk's $97.4 billion acquisition bid, warning Toberoff he "shouldn't throw young lawyers under the bus" by not quickly acknowledging his role.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California federal jury cleared Armistice Capital and two of its executives of class action claims that it pumped and dumped $250 million in Vaxart stock during the COVID-19 pandemic and violated federal securities law with insider trading.

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Whistleblower Says DOJ Rushed SPLC Indictment

By Courtney Bublé

A whistleblower has come forward to say a top U.S. Department of Justice official ordered prosecutors in Alabama to "rush" the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center despite concerns about the viability of the case, according to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

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California High Court Rejects Dunn's Bid To Nix Suspension

By Adrian Cruz

The California Supreme Court has declined to review a California State Bar decision to impose a one-year stayed suspension on former State Bar executive Joseph Dunn.

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FTC, DOJ Say ABA Reliance Limits Law School Competition

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division told the Tennessee Supreme Court the American Bar Association's monopoly over law school accreditations is driving up the cost of legal education.

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Analysis

SEC's Corp. Governance Shift Puts Onus On States, Cos.

By Sarah Jarvis

Lawyers who work with clients on corporate governance matters had a warm response to a recent pledge from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins to let states handle such issues, saying the shift marks a return to the agency's historical approach and may spur increased activity among state regulators.

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Ex-Bondi Adviser Tapped As Fraud Task Force's Chief Lawyer

By Phillip Bantz

Ousted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's former adviser is taking on a new role as general counsel for the White House's fraud task force.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

A pair of proxy advisory firms have sued two state attorneys general over laws they say impose burdensome requirements for issuing recommendations that go against corporate managers' wishes. Meanwhile, KPMG reports that legal is evolving into a key driver of business performance, and AI is a core component of the department. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of April

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Intel, Colgate and Tripadvisor. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from April.

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Roundup

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen a Swiss energy trader bring a Financial List claim against shipping benchmarking company Baltic Exchange, law firm Slater and Gordon sued by a former client, Slack and Salesforce hit Microsoft with an antitrust claim, and Stephen Fry bring a personal injury claim after he broke bones falling off a stage. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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