Texas REIT Discloses $53M RealPage Settlement With Renters

By Isaac Monterose

A Texas-based real estate investment trust has reached a $53 million class action settlement for multidistrict litigation in Tenneseee federal court that accused the REIT and multiple landlords of using property management software company RealPage Inc.'s revenue management software for rent price-fixing.

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Uber Had 'Non-Delegable Duty,' Judge Finds In Assault MDL

By Rae Ann Varona

Uber is a "common carrier" and thus it owed a "non-delegable duty" to safely transport a woman who alleged that a driver on its platform sexually assaulted her, a California federal judge ruled Friday, rejecting the ride-hailing company's contention that it doesn't carry passengers but merely connects them to others who independently provide transportation.

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NJ Justices Won't Review Beasley Allen's DQ From Talc Cases

By George Woolston

The New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to review a lower court's order booting the Beasley Allen Law Firm from multicounty litigation in the Garden State over Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder, according to an order made public Friday.

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'What're We Doing Here?' Judge Asks FTC After Deere Deal

By Bryan Koenig

An Illinois federal judge wondered aloud Friday whether John Deere's $99 million class action settlement with farmers, and more importantly its promised facilitation of independent equipment repairs, mooted the Federal Trade Commission's still-pending right-to-repair lawsuit.

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3 Valve 'Loot Box' Suits Merged, Hagens Berman To Rep Users

By Ben Adlin

A Seattle federal judge has consolidated three putative class actions accusing gaming giant Valve Corp. of promoting illegal gambling by offering "loot boxes" for its PC gaming titles, and appointed Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP as interim lead counsel for the gamers.

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Compass Group Workers Get Cert. For Tobacco Fee Suit

By Jonathan Capriel

Former employees for food service company Compass Group USA have secured class certification for their Missouri federal lawsuit claiming the company's $48 bi-weekly health insurance fee for tobacco using-workers violates federal law.

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Mich. Care Staff Not Paid For Working Meal Breaks, Suit Says

By Melanie Dorsey

A former senior care facility employee has filed a proposed Fair Labor Standards Act collective action in Michigan federal court, claiming the assisted living and memory care center shortchanged hourly workers on overtime in two ways — by automatically deducting meal breaks they spent working and by excluding bonus pay from their regular rate.

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Brief

Closed Captioner Seeks $200K In Atty Fees In Wage Deal

By Benjamin Morse

A former Vitac Corp. employee has urged a Colorado federal judge to award $200,000 in attorney fees after the transcription and closed captioning company settled a class action alleging it didn't pay workers for preparation tasks necessary to perform their jobs.

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REIT Investors Ink Deal Over CEO's Alleged Undisclosed Loan

By Sydney Price

Investors in Sun Communities Inc. asked a Michigan federal judge to grant initial approval to their $2.3 million deal with the real estate investment trust to end claims that its failure to disclose its then-CEO received a loan from a board member's relatives damaged shareholders when the information emerged in a short seller report.

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Coty Brass Hid Struggling Beauty Brands Sales, Suit Says

By Sydney Price

Executives and directors of beauty giant Coty Inc. were hit with a shareholder's derivative suit accusing them of damaging the company by falsely claiming that sales in both its consumer and prestige beauty segments were improving when both divisions were actually struggling.

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Agri Stats Atty 'More Optimistic' About Settling DOJ Case

By Bryan Koenig

An attorney for Agri Stats Inc. told a Minnesota federal judge Friday that a settlement resolving the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust case could be on the horizon ahead of an early May trial accusing the company of helping major chicken, turkey and pork producers hike prices.

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CNN Can't Ditch Privacy Class Action Over Tracking Tools

By Dorothy Atkins

A New York federal judge has refused to toss a proposed class action alleging CNN violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act by surreptitiously installing data trackers and sharing the data with third parties including Microsoft for targeted advertising, finding the alleged privacy harm and claims are sufficiently pled.

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CleanChoice Accused Of Gouging Illinois Electric Customers

By Tom Lotshaw

A Chicago man hit CleanChoice Energy Inc. with a proposed class action accusing the company of fleecing tens of thousands of Illinois electricity customers out of millions of dollars in total through deceptive rate promises and exorbitant charges.

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Uber Wants NC Jury To Hear Rider's Mental Health History

By Hayley Fowler

Uber wants to be able to bring up a passenger's mental health history during a sexual assault trial to discredit her damages theory, saying the jury should be able to evaluate her alleged emotional distress in the context of her preexisting conditions.

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Elevance Can't Nix Suit Over GLP-1 Coverage For Sleep Apnea

By Grace Elletson

An Indiana federal judge declined to toss a proposed class action claiming Elevance Health Inc. illegally denied coverage for a GLP-1 weight loss medication that was prescribed to treat sleep apnea, ruling that the insurance company is the right party to answer to the allegations at play.

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Amex Consumer Attys Want $13M Of $17.5M Antisteering Deal

By Katryna Perera

Counsel for a group of consumers who reached a $17.5 million settlement with American Express Co. in a suit alleging the credit card company's so-called antisteering rules caused non-Amex cardholders to pay higher charges has asked a New York federal judge to award them nearly $13 million in attorney fees and litigation costs.

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Judge Refuses To Halt Decision In South Sudan TPS Fight

By Ganesh Setty

A Massachusetts federal judge denied the Trump administration a stay as it appeals her decision postponing its revocation of deportation protections for South Sudanese nationals, saying a database it now invokes doesn't alter her conclusion of a likely pretextual revocation.

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Judge Presses DOJ On Immigrant Bond Denials After Report

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge on Friday said she was "concerned" by a published report suggesting that immigration judges are being instructed to deny all bond requests regardless of merit, after she and other judges ordered that detainees be given hearings.

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Roundup

Pa. Top Court Snapshot: Juvenile Sentences, Cleanup Costs

By Matthew Santoni

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will weigh the constitutionality of a "de facto" life sentence for a juvenile offender and consider the impact of a rescinded contract on its arbitration provision when it convenes for its spring session.

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Forced Headdress Removal In Colo. Violates Rights, Suit Says

By MJ Koo

A Muslim woman forced to remove her hijab in front of male officers during booking at an Aurora detention facility has hit the city with a proposed class action in Colorado federal court, alleging its policy requiring women to remove religious head coverings for booking photographs violates the U.S. Constitution.

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Calculating Damages In IEEPA Tariff Refund Litigation

To calculate damages in the spate of refund litigation triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision invalidating tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the central question will be how to determine where in the supply chain their economic burden ultimately came to rest, say analysts at Charles River Associates.

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DLA Piper Partner Rejects Pregnant Atty's Account Of Firing

By Pete Brush

The DLA Piper partner who fired a pregnant associate said she did so lawfully, telling a Manhattan federal jury her former employee was "in over her head" and disputing that the associate raised pregnancy bias concerns on a termination call.

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Trump Taps Personal Atty For 2nd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced on Friday evening he's tapping Matthew Schwartz, his attorney in the New York hush money case, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 

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Calif. Atty Avoids Sanctions For Filing Bogus Citations With AI

By Matt Perez

A California attorney has avoided sanctions over his use of artificial intelligence for a filing in a civil rights case, which resulted in false citations.

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6th Circ. Won't Revisit EFAA Ruling Against Adams & Reese

By Patrick Hoff

The Sixth Circuit said it won't reconsider its ruling that a law barring mandatory arbitration of sexual harassment cases kept a former Adams & Reese LLP paralegal's sex harassment and disability bias suit in court, concluding that the firm's objections were already considered.

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Conn. Justices Block Agency's Bias Probe Into Atty Licensing

By Brian Steele

Because citizens blocked the legislature from reviewing court decisions when ratifying the state's 1818 constitution, a Connecticut human rights agency has no power to investigate alleged bias in attorney licensing decisions, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday in a unanimous opinion.

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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 the owner of an oil tanker stuck in the Strait of Hormuz sued by an energy company and an insurer, law firm Boodle Hatfield LLP and two Serle Court barristers sued by a group of Winston Churchill's great-grandchildren, and Welsh Water hit with a fresh class action over polluted rivers.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Other states might follow the lead of California and break with President Donald Trump's policies in implementing guardrails for state agencies to contract with AI companies. And after three individual indictments last month for selling banned tech to China, Supermicro has hired Munger Tolles & Olson LLP to conduct an independent investigation, assigned its general counsel to lead an internal compliance review, and shaken up its compliance leadership.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Andrea Keckley

Two personal injury firms in Michigan lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions for their work to secure a more than $300 million verdict against a prison health services provider and one of its doctors for refusing to approve a 34-year-old man's surgery while he was detained at a local jail.

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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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