Allstate Not Liable For Contractor's Spam Calls, 7th Circ. Says

By Danielle Ferguson

Allstate Insurance Co. can't be held vicariously liable for a subcontractor's spam calls to a man on a do-not-call list because the insurer did not know the company had been hired and could not be directly linked to allowing that extra layer of marketing, the Seventh Circuit said Wednesday.

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Meta Fails To Knock Out BIPA Voiceprint Privacy Claims

By Rae Ann Varona

A California federal judge has refused to let Meta Platforms Inc. escape an Illinois woman's proposed class claims that Meta collects "voiceprints" in violation of Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act, saying in a ruling unsealed Thursday that whether Meta obtained her voice recordings in a way capable of identifying her was still up for dispute.

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Facebook's Ex-Policy Director Sues Meta Over Gag Order

By Lauren Berg

Former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams says Meta Platforms has trampled her First Amendment rights by running to an arbitrator to prevent her from disclosing the social media company's "illegal and indefensible workplace conditions and corporate misconduct," in a lawsuit filed Thursday in California federal court.

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Universal Trucker Gets Class OK In Ill. Biometric Privacy Row

By Allison Grande

An Illinois federal judge granted class status to a former Universal Intermodal Services employee in his suit accusing the company and affiliates of illegally collecting workers' biometric data, finding the potential inclusion in the certified classes of temporary workers or those who might have signed consent forms didn't foreclose the move.

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Yelp Denied 'Improper Tactical Boost' Via Google Expert Docs

By Bryan Koenig

A California federal magistrate judge refused Thursday to let Yelp get a peek, at least for now, at expert reports prepared in the U.S. Justice Department's monopolization case against Google's search business, concluding that the "overbroad and premature" request could provide an unfair early advantage for Yelp's own antitrust lawsuit.

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Brad Pitt Gets OK To Sue Oligarch In Calif. Over Winery Sale

By Hailey Konnath

A California appellate court has vacated a lower court's jurisdictional ruling, holding that Brad Pitt could indeed sue the new part-owner of the French winery he once owned with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie in California court because the owner has sufficient ties to the Golden State.

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CFPB Updates Online Complaint Process To Stem 'Abuse'

By Sarah Jarvis

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is updating its complaint submission process, including by requiring those who submit complaints online to verify their email address and phone number, in moves that the National Consumer Law Center said aim to discourage complaints against the major credit reporting companies.

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FCC Crafts New License Rules For Undersea Cable Lines

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday adopted new rules covering industry deployment of undersea communications cables, including the first licensing regime of its kind for submarine line terminal equipment.

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NJ Justices Clarify Face Recognition Discovery Rules

By Parker Quinlan

New Jersey's highest court has clarified when prosecutors are required to turn over information to defendants about facial recognition tools used as part of a criminal investigation, saying judges must examine such discovery requests on a case-by-case basis.

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Apple's Safari Doesn't Protect Data As Advertised, Suit Says

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Apple allows third parties to track customers using its web browser Safari despite promises that it protects user privacy, according to a recent proposed class action filed in California.

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Webinar Site Accused Of Recording, Posting Private Meetings

By Nadia Dreid

A website that touts itself as a platform providing the "world's best webinars" is actually sneaking into private videoconferences, secretly recording them and then posting them online for profit, according to a new lawsuit.

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Customer Drops Data Breach Suit Against Fiber Internet Co.

By Rachel Konieczny

A customer of a Denver-based fiber internet provider dismissed Thursday a proposed class action in Colorado federal court that claimed the company failed to protect customers' sensitive personal information in a cyberattack and waited five months to notify those affected.

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Weighing The Implications Of The Anthropic Export Directive

The Trump administration recently issued an export control directive against Anthropic to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, representing one of the first uses of the regime against a frontier large language model in widespread commercial distribution, says attorney Sohan Dasgupta.

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Series

Moshing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Entering a mosh pit is much like entering the practice of law — it is difficult, you have to know both the written and unwritten rules, and conduct yourself according to the expectations of each community, says Christopher Deubert at Constangy Brooks.

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Groombridge Wu Tops Milbank Pay Scale For Associates

By Kevin Penton

Groombridge Wu Baughman & Stone LLP is the latest firm to top the pay scale for associates announced earlier this month by Milbank LLP, with attorneys set to earn as much as $470,000.

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Senate Confirming Judges Faster Than In Trump's 1st Term

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate has confirmed 45 judges in the second Trump term, outpacing the rate of his first administration, Senate Republicans announced on Thursday.

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Attys Urged To Challenge Clients Who Demand AI Research

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut federal judge urged attorneys during a Thursday sanctions hearing to push back against clients who demand lawyers use generative artificial intelligence tools to conduct legal research, saying the technology is no substitute for professional judgment and discretion because it "aims to please" and can misstate the law.

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Lack Of Evidence Sinks Insurance Fraud Case, Atty Says

By Emily Sawicki

A Louisiana law firm and lawyer found guilty of criminal conspiracy and wire fraud for staging vehicle crashes as part of a scheme to defraud insurance carriers and trucking companies are seeking acquittal or a new trial, arguing that federal prosecutors failed to support their claims with evidence.

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SCOTUSblog Founder Goldstein Blasts 'Inflated' DOJ Tax Math

By Jared Foretek

Convicted SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein and federal prosecutors are clashing again over their dramatically divergent sentencing recommendations, with the defense accusing the government of presenting a "one-dimensional caricature" of the famed lawyer in seeking an eight-year sentence, and prosecutors accusing him of potentially deleting "secret chats" with his gambling backers.

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Feds Say Would-Be Kavanaugh Assassin Was Let Off Easy

By Nadia Dreid

Both federal prosecutors and a Stephen Miller-founded public interest group believe that a Maryland federal judge let a woman accused of trying to kill U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh off too easy because of her gender identity and want the Fourth Circuit to order resentencing.

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Quinn Emanuel Says 3M Fee Proposal Undervalues Its Work

By Carolina Bolado

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP has objected to a special master's recommendation on the allocation of common benefit fees in the $6 billion settlement that ended multidistrict litigation against 3M over allegedly faulty combat earplugs, saying the amount doesn't value the "length, extent and impact" of the firm's work.

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