Analysis

Uber's Latest Bellwether Loss Could Portend Trouble For Co.

By Linda Chiem and Y. Peter Kang

Uber was recently hit with another unfavorable verdict in the second bellwether trial in multidistrict litigation over driver sex assaults, and another determination that the ride-hailing company can be liable for its drivers' negligence does not bode well for the company, experts said.

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Atkore To Pay $136.5M To Settle PVC Pipe Antitrust Claims

By Celeste Bott

Atkore Inc. has struck two deals to end claims against it in sprawling litigation accusing polyvinyl chloride pipe producers of conspiring to fix prices, agreeing to pay $72.5 million to a class of direct purchasers and another $64 million to another class of buyers.

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Wash. High Court To Review $230M Hospital Wage Suit Award

By Ben Adlin

Washington's highest court has agreed to consider hospital system Providence Health & Services' appeal of a $230 million judgment for workers who accused the provider of illegally adjusting their clock-in and clock-out times and failing to ensure they took required meal breaks.

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Shoals, Investors Strike $70M Deal To Settle Wire Defect Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

Shoals Technologies Group Inc. and investors who accused the solar energy equipment-maker of having downplayed defects in its wire harnesses used in aggregating electricity have reached a settlement that, if approved, would pay roughly $70 million to a settlement class, they have told a Tennessee federal judge.

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Conagra Not Off The Hook Over '100% Whole Fish Fillets' Label

By Gina Kim

Conagra customers can proceed with their proposed class action alleging some of the food company's fish fillets are deceptively labeled as "100% whole fish" despite containing industrial filler and extra water, after an Illinois federal judge said Wednesday the customers offer a plausible reading of the label, enough to state a claim.

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J&J, Neutrogena Say FDA Signed Off On Benzene Products

By Jonathan Capriel

Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. and Kenvue Inc. are calling for a permanent end to a multistate consumer lawsuit claiming their Clean & Clear and Neutrogena acne treatments degrade into the cancer-causing chemical benzene, arguing in New Jersey federal court that federal regulators have already determined that the key ingredient is safe.

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Judge Won't Rethink Axing Amazon Screening Time Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A New York federal judge won't rethink her decision to toss wage claims brought by Amazon warehouse workers who said they weren't paid for time spent undergoing mandatory security screenings, finding they failed to meet the standards for reconsideration.

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Mass. Judge Clears Way For Trader Joe's 401(k) Plan Trial

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Massachusetts federal judge has denied summary judgment to Trader Joe's ahead of a Monday trial on claims that it mismanaged its employee retirement plan. 

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Janus Henderson Inks $6.5M 401(k) Fund Suit Deal

By Kellie Mejdrich

Janus Henderson will fork over $6.5 million to settle a proposed class action alleging that the asset manager breached fiduciary duties by promoting underperforming proprietary investments in its employee 401(k) plan, according to the terms of the deal filed in Colorado federal court Wednesday.

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Dollar General Can't Kick Tobacco Fee Suit To Arbitration

By Patrick Hoff

Dollar General can't kibosh a proposed class action claiming it unlawfully charged employees who use tobacco nearly $500 more per year for health benefits, with a Tennessee federal judge ruling the company hadn't properly addressed how an exclusion in its arbitration agreement applied to the case.

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NC Nursing Home Settles Suit Over Meal Break Deductions

By MJ Koo

A nursing home operator and a former certified nursing assistant have agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging the company automatically deducted meal break time from workers' pay even when they worked through their breaks, according to a North Carolina federal court record.

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Manager Class Cert. Denied In Convenience Store Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Managers accusing gas and convenience store chain Han-Dee Hugo's of wage violations cannot proceed as a class, a North Carolina federal judge ruled, finding their claims would require individualized inquiries.

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Vacasa Investors Sue Over Spurned $131M Merger Bid

By Nate Beck

Vacation rental company Vacasa is facing a proposed class action in Oregon from stockholders after accepting an acquisition bid from Casago that was $12 million lower on its face than a rival offer from Davidson Kempner Capital Management.

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Del. Supreme Court Says Bylaw Suits Came Too Soon

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of stockholder lawsuits challenging advance notice bylaws adopted by The AES Corp. and Owens Corning, ruling that the claims were premature because no actual dispute over the bylaws had yet materialized.

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NCAA Agrees To Scrap Prize Money Rule In $2M Settlement

By Hayley Fowler

The NCAA will pay $2 million and set aside its rule banning student-athletes from accepting outside prize money before they enroll full time at a university under the terms of a class action settlement resolving two college tennis players' antitrust claims.

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Law School Application Fee Antitrust Suit Tossed For Now

By P.J. D'Annunzio

An antitrust lawsuit claiming the Law School Admission Council conspired with law schools to fix application prices is overly broad, a Pennsylvania federal judge has ruled, dismissing the case but giving the plaintiff an opportunity to amend his "unclear and self-contradictory" allegations.

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PBMs Say Michigan AG Price-Fixing Suit Is Unsound

By Susan Smiley

Pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts, Evernorth Health and Prime Therapeutics have bolstered their effort to escape a federal price-fixing suit brought against them by Michigan's attorney general by arguing the statutes cited in the complaint do not apply to them.

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Texas Couple Drops Data Suit Against Personal Injury Firm

By Mark Payne

A Houston couple who accused a law firm and a since-dismissed Progressive unit of conspiring to share the private information of car crash victims has dropped federal claims against the firm after reportedly finding no evidence that it engaged in the conduct they alleged. 

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GrayRobinson Faces More Suits Over 2025 Data Breach

By Adrian Cruz

After being hit with a proposed class action accusing GrayRobinson PA of negligence following the revelation of a March 2025 data breach, the Florida-based firm is now facing two further suits regarding the same incident.

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Kemper Catches More Legal Heat Over Data Hack

By Lauraann Wood

Kemper Corp. has been hit with more proposed class data privacy claims from customers who say the insurance giant's "egregiously inadequate" data security protocols allowed unauthorized hackers to obtain more than 13 million private records and post them for sale on the dark web.

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Hanes Must Face Email Suit After State Law Declared Legal

By Nadia Dreid

Hanes can't get out of a lawsuit accusing it of sending marketing emails that make untrue claims by arguing that a Washington state law banning commercial emails with false or misleading subject lines is unconstitutional, a Washington federal judge has found.

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Trader Joe's 'Low Acid' Coffee Still Acidic, Woman Claims

By Mike Curley

A New York woman is suing Trader Joe's Co. in federal court, alleging that its "low acid" dark roast coffee is still nearly as acidic as regular coffee and has roughly half the caffeine despite not being labeled as decaffeinated or half-caff.

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Brief

Medical Equipment Co. Settles Patient Overbilling Claims

By Matthew Santoni

Patients who claim Pennsylvania-based AdaptHealth Corp. overcharged them for returned medical equipment have reached the final version of a class settlement and will soon submit it to a North Carolina federal court for approval, they told the court this week.

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FTC's BOTS Suit Survives Because Law Not Just About Bots

By Bryan Koenig

A Maryland federal judge has refused to dismiss one of the Federal Trade Commission's first-ever online ticketing cases, rejecting ticket reseller arguments that their use of thousands of Ticketmaster accounts to buy concert tickets is immune because they don't use bots.

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Ulta Loses Bid To Toss Wash. Consumers' Spam Email Claims

By Lauren Berg

A Spokane federal judge refused to toss a proposed class action alleging cosmetics giant Ulta sent Washington residents deceptive emails advertising "free gifts" and discounts without disclosing purchase qualifications, saying the complaint plausibly alleges the emails violate state consumer protection laws.

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Pepsi And Frito-Lay Want Chip-Pricing Claims Tossed

By Matthew Perlman

Pepsi and Frito-Lay have asked a California federal court to toss the latest version of a case accusing them of charging small convenience stores more for chips than Walmart, Target and other chain stores, saying the retailers still fail to offer a direct comparison of specific prices.

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Tech Groups Urge Court To Find AI Training Is Fair Use

By Elliot Weld

Five technology industry groups have urged a California federal judge overseeing a suit accusing Anthropic of infringing copyrighted music to train the artificial intelligence model Claude to find that such activity falls under the umbrella of fair use. 

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10,000 Native Okla. Landowners Owed Oil Royalties, Suit Says

By Crystal Owens

Five Oklahoma tribal members are asking a Federal Claims Court to order the U.S. government to provide a full accounting of oil and gas leasing royalties they say are owed to more than 10,000 Indigenous landowners, arguing it failed to properly manage the funds.

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Improving Well-Being In Law, 10 Years After Landmark Study

An important 2016 study revealed significant substance abuse and mental health issues among lawyers, and while the findings helped normalize the conversation around these topics, a decade later, structural change is still needed, says Denise Robinson at PLI.

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How They Won It

How Sullivan & Cromwell Won An $18B 'Bet The Country' Case

By Chris Villani

It is not often that a Second Circuit ruling is hailed as "the greatest legal achievement in national history" by a country's president, but that's what happened after a team from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP persuaded the appellate panel to nix an $18 billion judgment against Argentina.

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Jones Day Beats Sanctions Bid In $2M Fee Dispute

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois state judge has ruled that Jones Day can pursue punitive damages on several of its claims in a lawsuit alleging a former client made a series of unlawful transactions to avoid paying over $2 million in legal fees, and also denied sanctions sought by the ex-client against the firm.

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'Grotesquely Bloated,' Google Judge Rips Consumers' Fee Bid

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 blasted 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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'Christian Witch' Says Jenner & Block Must Face Vax Bias Suit

By Grace Elletson

A former Jenner & Block LLP employee told an Illinois federal judge that she didn't need to disclose that she's a "Christian witch" in order to seek an exemption to the law firm's COVID-19 vaccine requirement, urging the court to reject her ex-employer's bid to toss the case.

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Senate Advances Mont. Judge Pick Rated Unqualified By ABA

By Courtney Bublé

A judicial nominee for the District of Montana who was the only nominee of the second Trump administration so far to receive a "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association advanced out of committee on Thursday.

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Judge Denies Push To Stop Closed Immigration Hearings

By Tom Lotshaw

A D.C. federal judge denied a Minnesota human rights organization's request to block immigration judges from restricting public and press access to proceedings, ruling that it failed to show an immediate threat of future harm from unlawful hearing closures.

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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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LSC Decries House Subcommittee's Proposed Budget Cut

By Marco Poggio

The nation's largest funder of civil legal aid condemned a House appropriations proposal to slash its budget for fiscal year 2027 by more than half, warning Thursday the reduction could leave nearly 3 million Americans without help for critical civil legal problems.

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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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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

A pair of door manufacturers ended a landmark private merger challenge, state enforcers are gearing up for a potential Live Nation breakup bid following a crucial jury win, and a separate group of states and DirecTV are challenging Nexstar's $6.2 billion deal for rival broadcaster Tegna.

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Hub Hires: Weil Gotshal, Reed Smith, Morgan Lewis

By Chris Villani

April showers bring legal hires in Boston, with several attorneys on the move. Weil Gotshal snagged an international trade lawyer from Kirkland & Ellis, Morgan Lewis added an attorney from Hunton, and Reed Smith continued to expand its new Boston office.

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