7th Circ. Says Compilation Copyright Doesn't Cover Article

By Elliot Weld

The Seventh Circuit has held that a publishing organization's copyright on a collection of writings doesn't automatically confer copyright protection on an individual article within that collection, affirming summary judgment in favor of two individuals who published that article as part of a book.

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Ashley Furniture Must Face Fired Worker's Age Bias Claims

By David Minsky

A Florida federal judge on Tuesday allowed age discrimination claims to proceed against Ashley Furniture, but tossed a wrongful discharge count alleged by a former worker, finding their employment was dictated by terms of an independent contract. 

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Texas Top Court Takes Up Dallas Short-Term Rental Battle

By Isaac Monterose

The Supreme Court of Texas has agreed to hear a dispute over short-term rental property regulations in Dallas, granting the city's petition to review a state appellate ruling that upheld an injunction against a pair of ordinances.

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Insurers Say No Bad Faith In $240M Overdraft Coverage Denial

By Danielle Ferguson

A group of insurers who say they don't owe Truist Bank coverage for a $240 million settlement of a consumer overdraft fee class action asked a North Carolina federal court to dismiss the bank's counterclaims, saying that because there is no coverage, the denial could not have been in bad faith.

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IP Attys Lose Challenges To Client Origination Credits

By Aaron Keller

Former partners at intellectual property firm Ohlandt Greeley Ruggiero & Perle LLP failed to adequately support challenges to one another's client origination credits, a Connecticut federal judge has ruled, deciding the last factual issue in a yearslong dispute between two masthead members after two others died.

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Mallet Wins Injunction On Release Of Baking Product Secrets

By Elliot Weld

Baking product company Mallet & Co. was granted a permanent injunction Tuesday to stop a rival from accessing or disclosing its trade secrets after a federal judge ordered the rival to pay $11.4 million in legal bills for sharing copied goods in publicly accessible court documents.

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Ex-Worker Sues M&T Bank Over 401(k) Fund In New Jersey

By Kellie Mejdrich

An ex-worker hit M&T Bank with a proposed class action in New Jersey federal court, alleging that an underperforming investment fund in the bank's employee 401(k) plan cost workers tens of millions in future savings, breaching fiduciary duties under federal benefits law. 

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Singapore Fintech Hit With Suit Over 'Illegal Activity' In China

By Katryna Perera

An investor is suing UP Fintech Holding Ltd. in New Jersey federal court, alleging the fintech company and its top brass misrepresented and understated its legal and regulatory risk "as a result of continued illegal activity in China."

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Disney Says Fubo Can't Appeal Arbitration Order

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Disney has asked a California federal court to deny Fubo subscribers certification of an interlocutory appeal as they fight an order to arbitrate their case over streaming rates, saying they failed to satisfy the requirements for it.

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AI Users Say SpaceXAI Can't Split, Arbitrate Slowdown Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Artificial intelligence users urged a California federal judge Tuesday not to let SpaceXAI separate itself from their proposed class action accusing it, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google of violating antitrust law through their "pace the frontier" collaboration slowing down AI development, attacking the Elon Musk-owned company's efforts to invoke arbitration.

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Md. Cannabis Co. Ordered To Pay $2M Over Unpaid Fees

By Jonathan Capriel

Baltimore-based Evermore Cannabis Co. must pay a $1.98 million arbitration award levied against it after it was found to have intentionally dodged fees it promised to pay to a capital advisory firm as part of a contract that helped the marijuana cultivator secure loans, a California state court judge has ruled.

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Judge Hellerstein, Gruff Moderator Of Major Cases, Dies At 92

By Pete Brush

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a former litigator and sometimes impatient Manhattan federal jurist who presided over decades of high-profile cases that often came under close appellate scrutiny, died Wednesday at the age of 92.

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Texan Claims Austin Firm Hasn't Alerted Him To Data Breach

By Andrea Keckley

Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, an Austin, Texas-based law firm focused on collecting debts and taxes for public-sector clients, failed to protect its clients' personal information from a data breach, the plaintiff in a proposed class action claimed in Texas federal court Tuesday.

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BakerHostetler Malpractice Case To Expand With RICO Claim

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia federal judge has allowed a trustee who has accused BakerHostetler and an Atlanta-based attorney of legal malpractice to file an amended complaint after the trustee asked to add claims of Georgia RICO Act violations.

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Weil To Wind Down As Top Attorneys Abandon Firm

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Alex Wittenberg and Aebra Coe

Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the restructuring powerhouse that led Lehman Brothers, Enron and General Motors through bankruptcy, told Law360 Pulse Wednesday that the firm is preparing to wind down operations.

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NJ Atty Mishandled Property Damage Dispute, Court Told

By Hope Patti

A man told a New Jersey federal court that he was forced to pay excessive and avoidable fees to an attorney hired to represent him in a property damage dispute after the attorney mishandled the case by failing to advise him to tender the claim to his homeowners insurer.

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BigLaw Tip Middleman To Admit Role In $3.5M Trading Scheme

By Chris Villani

An alleged middleman in a sweeping scheme to trade off of deal information stolen from major law firms has agreed to plead guilty and potentially faces a prison term of nearly a decade, according to a plea agreement filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court.

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Mich. Judge Weighs Toshiba Legal Bills Discovery Fight

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether she needs to review specific objections to DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co.'s multimillion-dollar attorney fee request before deciding whether Toshiba Corp. must disclose its own legal bills and litigation expenses following a nearly $394.4 million jury verdict over a botched power plant overhaul.

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