$2.5B Stock Deal Shorting Claims Receive Class Treatment

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge has decided to give class treatment to a West Monroe Partners employee's claim that the consulting firm shortchanged workers by at least $50 million when it bought up their stock.

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Chancellor Rejects Musk Recusal Bid But Transfers Tesla Suits

By Jarek Rutz

The top judge of the Delaware Chancery Court on Monday rejected Elon Musk's bid to force her off three high-profile cases involving stockholders and Tesla, but reassigned the litigation anyway, citing concerns that intense public attention could undermine confidence in the proceedings.

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Judge Denies Arbitration Bid In Land Rover Brake Defect Case

By Jonathan Capriel

Jaguar Land Rover cannot, for now, push out of court a proposed class action over claims Range Rover brakes have a defect that causes premature wear, a New Jersey federal judge has ruled, possibly giving some credence to the drivers' claims that the arbitration clause was "buried" within the 525-page vehicle handbook.

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Swiss Re Can't Shut Down 401(k) Forfeiture Suit

By Grace Elletson

A New York federal judge declined Monday to let Swiss Re's American unit escape a suit claiming it kept an underperforming investment fund in its retirement plan and failed to utilize forfeited cash, ruling the workers behind the case showed the company may have made shoddy management decisions.

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'Bikini Barista' Trial Over Wages Opens In Seattle Area

By Rachel Riley

Seattle-area "bikini barista" espresso stand owner Alan Tagle routinely underpaid employees, threatened to cut their hours for missed sales goals and pocketed their tips on slow days, counsel for a class of workers told a Washington state judge Monday during opening arguments in a bench trial.

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MLB Beats Ex-Scouts' Age Discrimination Suit, For Now

By Patrick Hoff

Major League Baseball and its teams have defeated a proposed class action claiming they systematically prevented older scouts from obtaining jobs, as a New York federal judge ruled the plaintiffs failed to show their ages were the reason they weren't hired.

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General Mills Gets Lengthy Race Bias Suit Tossed, For Now

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia federal judge has ordered a proposed class of General Mills factory workers who say they were subjected to years of racist abuse to rewrite and condense their complaint with the goal of avoiding the "prospect of unbridled fishing expeditions" as the suit goes on.

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Angi Hit With Wage Suit Over 'Aggressive' Quotas

By Benjamin Morse

Home services platform Angi Inc. failed to pay employees for off-the-clock work performed to meet "aggressive" sales quotas and other performance metrics, according to a proposed collective action filed in Colorado federal court.

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Pretrial Inmates' Forced Labor Claims Too Individual For Class

By Irene Spezzamonte

A group of detainees who performed kitchen work in California county jail can't snag class certification in their suit accusing the county and a correctional services company of forcing them to work without pay, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

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Warner Bros. Beats Investor Suit Over Failed NBA Deal

By Dorothy Atkins

A New York federal judge on Monday tossed a putative securities class action accusing Warner Bros. Discovery and its top brass of misleading investors about its negotiations over NBA broadcast rights, finding the company's statements were either true, inactionable or made obvious by widespread media coverage.

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TD Bank Moves Funds' Suits Over Failed First Horizon Deal

By Sydney Price

Toronto-based TD Bank has moved to New Jersey federal court two suits from hedge funds that invested in First Horizon Corp. alleging TD Bank is liable for their losses due to statements it made about the likelihood of regulatory approval of the banks' merger, arguing the suits both raise federal questions that belong in federal court.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court's docket this past week featured disputes involving globally recognized companies, high-dollar contract fights, revived claims from the state's high court and the resolution of a closely watched de-SPAC case.

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Non-Wash. Landlords Escape Yardi Rent-Fixing Case

By Isaac Monterose

A Washington federal judge on Monday tossed antitrust class action claims lodged against out-of-state multifamily landlords that were accused of running a rent price-fixing scheme that used property management software company Yardi Systems' technology, ruling that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the out-of-state defendants.

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Fla. Hospital System Patients Get Class Cert. Denied

By Matthew Perlman

A Florida federal court refused to certify a class of consumers in a case accusing Health First Inc. of locking in patients and blocking competition from rival hospital systems, after finding a number of issues, including potential differences between proposed class members.

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Kimberly-Clark Slips Conn. Town's 'Speculative' PFAS Claims

By Brian Steele

A proposed class action claiming Kimberly-Clark Corp. polluted a Connecticut town's water and soil with toxic "forever chemicals" failed to allege plausible facts tying the contamination or any injuries to the paper goods maker, relying instead on assumptions and guesswork, a federal judge has ruled in dismissing the case.

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Brief

Kratom Addictiveness 9th Circ. Appeal Dropped

By Emily Field

A group of consumers told the Ninth Circuit on Friday that they were dropping the appeal of a dismissal of their suit over kratom products that they said were as addictive as opioids.

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US Judge Duo Urge Simplicity In Complex AI, Privacy Fights

By Allison Grande

A pair of U.S. district judges Monday implored litigants to take more time to walk those deciding their disputes through the complex data privacy, artificial intelligence and other technological issues underpinning claims, cautioning that acting otherwise is likely to result in bored juries and discarded legal briefs.

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5th Circ. Hesitant To Revive CrowdStrike Class Action

By Spencer Brewer

A panel of the Fifth Circuit wanted counsel for a group of passengers who sued cybersecurity company CrowdStrike Inc. after their flights were delayed or canceled during a crippling IT outage to explain who else could get sued under their liability theory, weighing Monday whether the Airline Deregulation Act bars the claims.

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Colo. Suit Says Data Brokers Listed Numbers Without Consent

By MJ Koo

A pair of Florida-based data-broker companies were hit with a proposed class action in Colorado state court, alleging they violated a state telemarketing privacy law by listing thousands of Colorado residents' cellphone numbers in their commercial people-search directories without consent.

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Pillsbury Asks To Toss Suit Over Nonclient Data Breach

By Matt Perez

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP sought dismissal of a consolidated data breach action in New York federal court Friday due to the plaintiffs' alleged lack of relationship with the firm and inability to identify any cognizable damages.

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ESPN Moves To Join WWE In Subscriber 'Bait And Switch' Suit

By Carla Baranauckas

ESPN moved to intervene in a proposed class action accusing World Wrestling Entertainment of a "bait and switch" streaming scheme, telling a Connecticut federal court the case cannot proceed because subscribers agreed to arbitrate their claims and waived any right to sue as a class.

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Bai Beverage Maker Quenches False Ad Suit Over Sweetener

By Gina Kim

Bai Brands permanently defeated a putative class action alleging it deceived consumers into thinking its beverages contained "no artificial sweeteners" despite being sweetened with erythritol, after a New York federal judge found no evidence of how reasonable consumers would define "artificial." 

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Ill. Judge Keeps Coverage Fight Over $20M BIPA Deal Alive

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge on Friday rejected an insurer's bid for summary judgment in a suit seeking coverage for a $20 million settlement of biometric privacy claims, saying disputes remain over whether it waived an exclusion by failing to raise it in earlier litigation or if the company's change in strategy prejudiced the plaintiffs enough to bar its application.

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Comerica Beats Suit Over Interest On Benefit Card Funds

By Sydney Price

A Michigan federal judge on Friday freed Comerica Bank from claims that it unlawfully profited from a government benefit debit card program it administered by keeping the interest generated by the funds, finding that two contractual agreements invalidate the cardholders' claims to the earnings.

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NY State Lender, Servicer Escape Foreclosure Fraud Claims

By Grace Dixon

A New York federal court has dismissed a proposed class action alleging that a state-run mortgage lender and servicer schemed to inflate interest calculations in foreclosure cases after finding that all the lead plaintiff's claims were time-barred.

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Fla. Judge Orders Atty Access At Everglades Detention Center

By Britain Eakin

A Florida federal judge is ordering state and federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to facilitate attorney access for noncitizens detained at the informal Everglades detention facility, finding that there are several existing barriers preventing confidential attorney-client communications.

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Feds Urge 9th Circ. To Pause Immigration Bond Ruling

By Dorothy Atkins

The Trump administration Monday urged the Ninth Circuit to pause a lower court's declaration that immigration judges have the authority to hear detained immigrants' bond requests, slamming the ruling as a "frontal assault" on the government's authority to detain immigrants and arguing it's creating "judicial chaos" across the country.

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Del. Blackbaud Ruling Signals A New Era For Cyberinsurance

The recent Delaware Supreme Court ruling in Travelers v. Blackbaud shows that cyberinsurance is moving into a second maturity phase, in which insurers will increasingly attempt to recover their payments from vendors and insureds will face new pressure to justify cyber incident reimbursements, say Steven Teppler at Mandelbaum Barrett and Jade Davis at Shumaker.

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Opinion

AI Presents A Make-Or-Break Moment For Outside Counsel

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence by corporate legal departments is forcing a long-overdue reset of the relationship between inside and outside counsel, and introducing a significant opportunity to shed frustrating inefficiencies and strengthen collaboration for firms willing to embrace the shift, says Intel Chief Legal Officer April Miller Boise.

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Burford Considers Arbitration After 2nd Circ. Tosses $16B Win

By Nadia Dreid

Burford Capital Ltd. says it is contemplating taking its $16 billion fight with Argentina into international arbitration after the Second Circuit wiped out a judgment the litigation funding firm had won against the nation in New York federal court, sending its stock prices tumbling.

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'Is It Kafka?' Judge Presses Pentagon On Press Restrictions

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. federal judge requested additional briefing Monday from the Trump administration before deciding whether to toss the U.S. Department of Defense's revised rules restricting journalists' access to the Pentagon but said some new allegations from reporters read like the revisions came from a Franz Kafka novel.

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Ex-Laffey Bucci Atty Accused Of Stealing Over $1.3M

By James Boyle

Laffey Bucci D'Andrea Reich & Ryan has accused a former name partner in a Pennsylvania state court suit of misdirecting more than $1.3 million in referral and case fees through a secret agreement with another firm and misusing the plaintiffs firm's resources for personal expenses, including an affair with a client.

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Analysis

Exchanges Are First Line In CFTC Prediction Market Policing

By Aislinn Keely

As the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission insists it will be the primary cop for the growing expanse of prediction markets, experts said the agency is signaling that its first line of defense will be the internal enforcement programs of registrants like Kalshi.

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FCA Qui Tams Are Unconstitutional, Eli Lilly Tells Justices

By Mark Payne

The False Claims Act's whistleblower provisions are unconstitutional, drugmaker Eli Lilly has told the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to overturn a Seventh Circuit decision upholding a $183 million trial win for a whistleblower who claimed the drug company hid how much it charged for Medicaid-covered drugs. 

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Justices Wary Of 'Odd' Arbitration Jurisdiction Theory

By Caroline Simson

A lawyer urging the U.S. Supreme Court to find that federal courts that have sent a dispute to arbitration do not automatically have jurisdiction to confirm or vacate a subsequent award faced heavy skepticism Monday from the justices, who called his argument during oral arguments "odd" and "peculiar."

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Blumenthal Questions SEC Over Crypto Cases, Ryan Exit

By Katryna Perera

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is demanding answers from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins about the sudden resignation of the regulator's enforcement director and whether her departure was related to cryptocurrency cases, including one touching on the Trump family's ventures.

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