Solar Contractor, CBRE Unit Blamed In $1B LA Building Fire

By Gina Kim

Lineage Inc., which owns a massive cold-storage facility in Los Angeles that caught fire in June, has sued a commercial solar operator and a CBRE Group subsidiary in California state court, blaming the incident on their negligence in reenergizing a defective rooftop solar array before critical safety checks were completed. 

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Analysis

'Creative' Settlement Path For EPRs Shows Wording Risks

By Dani Kass

T-Mobile's use of a contingency payment to end patent litigation with Kaifi LLC highlights the difficulty of alleged infringers challenging patents through ex parte reexaminations, a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proceeding where they have no control, attorneys say.

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Fed. Circ. Questions Medical Training Co.'s $100M Deal Theory

By Ivan Moreno

A medical training startup urged the Federal Circuit on Friday to revive claims accusing Galderma of a "classic catch-and-kill strategy" to derail what it says could have been a $100 million deal with Allergan, but a three-judge panel questioned whether that theory had been properly presented below.

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Volvo Averts EV Defect Suit Over Kansas Buyers' NJ Claims

By Emily Field

A New Jersey federal judge on Thursday dismissed a proposed class action brought by a Kansas married couple alleging that the rear auto brake and dashboard drive display features in certain Volvo electric vehicles are defective, finding there's no connection to the Garden State aside from the automaker's corporate headquarters.

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Bongino Disavows Inside Knowledge On Parler Ouster

By Cara Salvatore

Former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino testified Friday that he was not privy to decisions leading to social media company Parler's 2021 ouster of its CEO, but he was pressed over having seen a draft of the document revision that supposedly allowed the CEO's 40% interest to be confiscated.

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Austrian Device-Maker Exits Suit Over Medicare Fraud

By MJ Koo

A Colorado federal court Friday dropped an Austrian medical device-maker from a lawsuit brought by a podiatrist who alleged the company helped create a scheme to bill Medicare using improper codes, finding he failed to detail the alleged fraud sufficiently and defend several other claims.

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11th Circ. Backs $620K Award In Radiology Contract Fight

By Kelcey Caulder

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a $620,000 arbitration award in favor of an Indian teleradiology company against a radiology provider, finding the arbitrator did not exceed his authority by interpreting the parties' long-standing services agreement.

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Fed. Circ. Scrutinizes Presumptive Date In Turkish Rebar Row

By Jack McLoone

A Federal Circuit panel on Friday looked to clarify the effect of the U.S. Department of Commerce's presumption that invoice dates are generally the best option for determining dates of sale during duty investigations, with a Turkish company claiming the presumption cost it $20 million.

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Fuel Wholesaler Seeks Toss Of Station Operators' Suit

By Susan Smiley

A Pennsylvania-based fuel supplier asked a Michigan federal judge Friday to toss a case brought by a group of gas station operators in Wayne County, saying it has not violated their fuel supply agreement terms.

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Insurer May Be On The Hook For Debt Collector's Defense

By Hope Patti

Claims that a debt collector engaged in an illegal collection scheme aren't covered under its policy with a Nationwide unit, but the insurer may owe coverage if it is found to have acted in bad faith while defending the company, a Washington federal court ruled.

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Brief

Altria Signals Appeal Of Order Ending Reynolds' Royalty Tab

By George Woolston

Philip Morris's parent company plans to appeal a North Carolina federal judge's ruling finding a sublicensing agreement between R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. and Juul Labs Inc. relieves Reynolds of its obligation to pay ongoing royalties under a 2022 jury verdict, according to a notice filed Friday.

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TikTok Let Minors See Harmful Content, Texas Judge Finds

By Jonathan Capriel

Texas scored significant wins in its lawsuit accusing TikTok of exposing children to harmful content while misrepresenting the app's safety, with a state judge ruling that the social media company violated state law by misleading consumers about its content-moderation practices and the effectiveness of its "restricted mode" feature.

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'FBoy Island' Star-Turned-Va. Candidate Sues Over Kalshi Fine

By Hailey Konnath

A lawyer and former contestant on the reality series "FBoy Island" has sued Kalshi after he was banned for trading on prediction markets about his own political campaign, saying he's not advocating for political candidate trading, rather, he's highlighting the monetization of candidates on prediction markets.

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Colo. Investors Accuse Startup League, Owner Of Fraud

By Rachel Konieczny

A high school football league startup and its owner fraudulently induced a Colorado youth sports foundation and related companies to buy a $2.5 million Denver franchise by misrepresenting the league's size and corporate sponsors and reneged on a settlement agreement, according to a lawsuit in Colorado federal court.

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Academic Publishers Tell 2nd Circ. Antitrust Case Fell Short

By Matthew Perlman

Major publishers of academic journals urged the Second Circuit to reject an appeal from researchers accusing them of colluding to eliminate pay for peer reviewers and impose other restrictions, saying the case is based on ethical guidelines that do not reflect a conspiracy at all.

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Brief

TD Bank 'Cash-Like' Advance Loans Suit Voluntarily Dropped

By Katryna Perera

A proposed class action accusing TD Bank of violating its cardholder agreement by treating undisclosed transactions as "cash-like" and keeping policies about what counts as a cash advance hidden from consumers while charging fees and interest was voluntarily dropped by the plaintiff.

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Mass. Fund Says It Was Sidelined After Lining Up $300M

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts life sciences investment fund says SPRIM Global Investments strung it along on a pledge to bring it in as a co-general partner in a new joint fund, then backed out of the agreement and took control of the fund after the plaintiff lined up a $300 million investment, according to a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts state court.

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LA Judge Rejects Bid For $134K Default In Pot Co. Loan Suit

By Mike Curley

A California state judge has rejected a lender's bid for default judgment in a suit alleging that a cannabis oil extraction company's owner failed to pay back a $134,000 loan, saying the lender is asking for too much without sufficient evidence.

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Retiree Says Pot Entrepreneur Scammed Him Of $3M Savings

By Mike Curley

A California retiree and his relative are suing a cannabis entrepreneur and his businesses in Los Angeles court, alleging that the entrepreneur duped them into investing more than $3 million into a cannabis business, only to string them along and fail to live up to his promises of repayment.

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Lemonade Gets Final OK For $10.5M Data Breach Settlement

By Mike Curley

A New York federal judge has granted final approval to a $10.5 million settlement to end consolidated claims that Lemonade Inc. negligently exposed 190,000 people's driver's license numbers to cybercriminals.

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Attorneys Using AI May Have Ethical Duty To Redact Docs

The trajectory of legal ethics guidance in recent years strongly suggests that as redaction technology becomes more accessible, the failure to use it when uploading highly confidential materials into artificial intelligence tools will become increasingly difficult to defend as reasonable, say attorneys at Lewis Brisbois.

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Senior Lawyers Survey: Tell Us About Your Career

How are senior lawyers adapting to evolving career paths and emerging technologies? Share your perspective in this five-minute survey.

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Greenberg Traurig, Eckert Seamans Hit By Data Breaches

By Ryan Boysen

Greenberg Traurig LLP and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC have publicly revealed that they've been hit by data breaches, adding to the dozens of cybersecurity incidents U.S. law firms have suffered this year.

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Analysis

Midterm Wins Could Help Dems Probe Trump's BigLaw Deals

By Courtney Bublé

If the Democrats take back one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, a big item on their oversight agenda will be to step up ongoing investigations of the deals that nine major law firms cut with the Trump administration last year.

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Trial Errors 'Crippled Goldstein's Defense,' 4th Circ. Hears

By Jeff Overley

Appellate luminary Tom Goldstein unveiled a sweeping and forceful critique aimed at erasing his felony fraud convictions, telling the Fourth Circuit that prosecutors were hell-bent on convicting him "no matter the facts or law," disregarded a star witness "incompetence" and benefited from a trial judge's "inexplicable" rulings.

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In-House Atty Org. Says Rival Ripped Off Data For AI Tool

By Andrea Keckley

The Association of Corporate Counsel alleges in Delaware federal court that its competitor used the nonprofit's proprietary materials to train its artificial intelligence tool Lloyd and "brazenly promoted its Lloyd product by showing the public that ACC materials could be accessed via Lloyd."

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Interview

ABA Cyber Task Force Co-Chair Eyes AI Education Boost

By Allison Grande

With the legal industry presenting a more and more enticing target for cyberattacks, it's becoming increasingly important for practitioners to know how to best protect clients' data and most effectively use emerging artificial intelligence tools — a task that the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force is well positioned to assist with, its incoming co-chair recently told Law360.

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Personal Injury Firm Beats Atty's Bid For 'Birth Justice' TM

By Adam Lidgett

A former associate at a personal injury and medical malpractice law firm can't register in her own name a trademark for birth-injury legal services that she helped develop before and during her employment with the firm, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has ruled.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

AI is driving a significant gap between in-house legal departments' budgets and the cost of their workloads, according to a new study. Speaking of gaps, a new Law360 Pulse report on women in law found that men still make up 71% of law firm equity partners and 63% of nonequity partners. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Elias Law Group LLP and Stinson LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri cannot use a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in the midterms.

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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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