Toyota Nears OK On $436M Class Deal Over Forklift Emissions

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge indicated Thursday she'll give preliminary approval to Toyota Industries Corp.'s $436 million class action settlement to resolve claims the auto giant and its subsidiaries misled tens of thousands of business buyers into thinking the emissions of its forklift and construction engines were "the cleanest" in the industry.

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X Corp. Beats OnlyFans Creator's Revenge Porn Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

A Texas federal judge has tossed an OnlyFans creator's proposed class action that sought to hold X Corp. liable under a revenge porn statute after someone shared his photos on the social media platform, saying the creator's images had not been "produced" by fraud or misrepresentation as required for damages.

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College Says Ex-QB Owes $1M From NIL Deal After Transfer

By David Steele

Football star Brendan Sorsby violated his name, image and likeness agreement with the University of Cincinnati when he transferred to another program and owes the school at least $1 million, the university claims in a lawsuit in Ohio federal court.

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Ex-Morgan Stanley Pro's NBA Fraud Rap Falls Short, Jury Told

By Stewart Bishop

An attorney for a former Morgan Stanley investment adviser accused of defrauding NBA stars by feeding them overpriced insurance investments and stealing funds told a Manhattan federal jury Thursday the players' own words and other evidence belie the government's claims.

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Amazon Loses Bid For 'Hot Tub' Hearing In Antitrust Suit

By Ben Adlin

A Washington federal judge on Thursday shot down Amazon.com Inc.'s push for a concurrent hearing with multiple expert witnesses in a proposed class action accusing the retail giant of artificially inflating consumer prices, ruling that what's known as a "hot tub" hearing is "not necessary at this time."

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Atty Owns 'Sloppy' Incorrect Citations Before Texas Justices

By José Luis Martínez

A Houston attorney told a Texas appellate panel Thursday that incorrect case citations in his brief were "sloppy" and "embarrassing," taking responsibility for errors that included nonexistent cases and inaccurate quotations.

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Fifth Third Bank Pursues $80M From Texas Developer

By Sydney Price

Fifth Third Bank has sued a San Antonio real estate developer in Texas federal court for more than $80 million, seeking to invoke guaranties on two troubled construction loans after the borrowing entities defaulted and filed for bankruptcy.

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Aurora Care Group Sues Over Block Of $8.5M Property Sale

By Zach Dupont

An Aurora-based care facility claimed in a Colorado state court lawsuit Wednesday that a nonprofit elder care group spiked the $8.5 million sale of a building by enforcing expired or unenforceable provisions from a decade-old construction declaration from a sale of the land where the building sits.

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Chancery Refuses For Now To Make Hecate Pay Lenders $75M

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has denied renewable energy lenders' bid to immediately seize $75 million in disputed settlement proceeds, ruling that although the lenders are likely to succeed on parts of their contract claims, they failed to justify the extraordinary step of a mandatory injunction.

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Brief

Okla. Judge Says Oil & Gas Royalty Fight Belongs In Texas

By Keith Goldberg

An Oklahoma federal judge on Thursday sent to Texas federal court a lawsuit claiming oil and gas producer APA Corp. underpaid oil and gas royalties, saying the underlying leases are located in Texas and the dispute will likely be governed under Texas law.

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Insurer Dodges Spinoff Coverage Suit From 'Maya' Verdict

By Carolina Bolado

A professional liability insurer does not have to defend the law firm that secured a $213 million award for the woman at the center of the documentary "Take Care of Maya" in a dispute over trial consultant fees, after a Florida federal judge found Wednesday that the claims are not covered by the insurance policy.

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State Farm Unit Can't Escape Undervalued Vehicle Dispute

By Hope Patti

A State Farm unit can't escape a proposed class action claiming it systematically undervalued policyholders' claims for totaled vehicles, a North Carolina federal court ruled, saying the suit alleged sufficient facts to establish standing and state claims for breach of contract and unfair trade practices.

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Antitrust Claims Over Oil Tubing Patents Saved By Fed. Circ.

By Theresa Schliep

The Federal Circuit on Thursday undid a Texas federal judge's conclusion that a company intended to defraud the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when it got a patent on coiled tubing, but also revived claims accusing it of using fraudulently obtained patents to get a monopoly.

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Ex-Joe Gibbs Racing Director Denies Trade Secret Theft

By Gina Kim

Joe Gibbs Racing's former competition director on Wednesday denied absconding with trade secrets on his way out the door and urged a North Carolina federal judge to reject the NASCAR giant's request to stop him from working for a rival, arguing this would "effectively exile me from this profession."

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LA Times Joins Ad Tech Antitrust Litigation Against Google

By Lauren Berg

The publisher of The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday threw its hat into multidistrict litigation targeting Google's advertising placement technology dominance, alleging that Google's monopolization forces publishers to sell ad space at depressed prices that boost the tech giant's profits while dramatically cutting revenue for publishers and Google's ad technology rivals.

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Vanguard Will Pay $29.5M To Settle Red States' ESG Suit

By Spencer Brewer

The Vanguard Group Inc. will pay $29.5 million to settle claims brought by several conservative states accusing it and other large asset managers of driving up coal prices by pressuring publicly traded energy companies to lower their output to meet carbon emission reduction goals.

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Ex-Exec. In $2B Denmark Tax Scheme Hid Assets, Court Told

By Kat Lucero

A Florida man involved in a $2 billion Danish tax refund scheme fraudulently transferred millions of dollars to a U.S. company to prevent the Danish government from seizing those assets, Denmark's tax agency told a New Jersey federal court.

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$100M AI Token Dump Suit Can't Be Heard In NY, Founders Say

By Emilie Ruscoe

Co-founders of a digital asset issuer and an associated crypto organization seek to shed a lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to improperly extract over $100 million from an open-source artificial intelligence coalition, arguing Wednesday that a Manhattan federal court doesn't have jurisdiction over the Romania- and Germany-based defendants or the decentralized organization.

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Constellis Hit With $36.5M Suit Over Weapons In Afghanistan

By Elaine Briseño

The owner of a storage and lodging camp in Afghanistan sued Constellis LLC and its subsidiaries for $36.52 million, accusing the Virginia-based government contractor of abandoning a cache of allegedly illegal weapons that led to a "violent" seizure of his property by the Taliban.

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Fiserv Seeks Exit From Credit Union Security Flaws Suit

By Katryna Perera

Fiserv Inc. has urged a Florida federal judge to toss a credit union's suit claiming the payment systems company has allowed its online banking platform to be "repeatedly hacked, again and again," arguing the long-running contract between itself and the credit union does not obligate Fiserv to implement the security features the credit union is now demanding.

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Series

Playing Piano Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Playing piano and practicing law share many parallels relating to managing complexity: Just as hearing an entire musical passage in my head allows me to reliably deliver the message, thinking about the audience's impression helps me create a legal narrative that keeps the reader engaged, says Michael Shepherd at Fish & Richardson.

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How Epstein Referred Clients To BigLaw Partners In His Orbit

By Aebra Coe

Billionaire and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein always had top lawyers in his orbit. He also had extensive and lasting relationships with several partners at BigLaw firms, files newly released by the Department of Justice show.

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Goldstein Placed Under Home Confinement Until Sentencing

By Jared Foretek

SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein was placed under home confinement by a Maryland federal judge until his sentencing, but will likely be able to keep his $3 million D.C. home after the jury that convicted him separately found there wasn't a clear nexus between the property and his mortgage fraud conviction.

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'One Way Or Another, ICE Will Comply,' Minn. Judge Vows

By Lauren Berg

The Minnesota federal court's chief judge who admonished U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for violating nearly 100 court orders concerning the Trump administration's immigration operations in the state vowed Thursday "to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law," including holding government officials in criminal contempt.

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IRS Broke Law 42K Times By Giving Info To ICE, Judge Says

By Anna Scott Farrell

The federal judge who stopped the Internal Revenue Service from sharing taxpayer addresses with immigration authorities said Thursday that a recent admission by the agency showed that it broke the law more than 42,000 times last summer when it disclosed addresses by relying on a computerized matching system.

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Calif. Atty Agrees To Discipline From State Bar Over AI Errors

By Hailey Konnath

A Los Angeles attorney has agreed to be disciplined for filing appellate briefs rife with artificial intelligence-hallucinated case law quotations, according to a stipulation approved Wednesday by the California State Bar Court, which found that he "recklessly and with gross negligence failed to perform legal services with competence."

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Reed Smith Says Atty Can't Expand Pay Bias Damages Period

By Grace Elletson

Reed Smith LLP is urging a New Jersey state court to rule that an attorney who claimed the firm unlawfully underpaid her cannot expand the time window for which she's seeking damages, arguing a legal doctrine used to revive continuing claims can't be used to collect back pay.

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Feds Seek To Toss DOJ Official's Suit Over Epstein-Talk Firing

By Lynn LaRowe

The U.S. Department of Justice has asked a D.C. federal court to ax a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by a former DOJ official who was fired after he was surreptitiously filmed talking about Jeffrey Epstein on what he thought was a date, saying district courts don't have jurisdiction and the matter belongs in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

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Brief

Senate Judiciary Advances Illinois US Atty

By Nadia Dreid

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination of Gregory Gilmore to be U.S. attorney for the Central District of Illinois in a quick vote that passed without comment.

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