1st Circ. Skeptical That JPMorgan AI Tool Broke Mass. Law

By Anne Cullen

A First Circuit panel appeared doubtful Tuesday that an artificial intelligence-powered applicant screening tool used by JPMorgan Chase & Co. constituted the kind of lie detector test that Massachusetts law bars employers from using in interviews. 

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DHS Can't Undo Order Halting TSA Union Deal Cancellation

By Rachel Riley

A federal judge in Seattle denied the Trump administration's bid on Tuesday to lift a court order blocking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from canceling a collective bargaining agreement covering thousands of Transportation Security Administration workers, saying the government failed to debunk two independent grounds for the injunction.

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Wash. Panel Upholds DoorDash's $14.5M Insurance Penalty

By Gina Kim

DoorDash must pay $14.5 million in taxes and penalties for failing to pay its Dashers' industrial insurance premiums each quarter from 2017 to 2019, Washington appellate judges ruled Tuesday, finding the Dashers were covered workers under state law since their personal labor was the essence of their contracts.

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1st Circ. Wary Of Reinstating 'Fork In The Road' Suit

By Carolyn Muyskens

A First Circuit judge on Tuesday questioned the repercussions of a court nixing the Trump administration's deferred-resignation program more than a year after federal workers accepted the buyouts. 

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Amazon To Pay $2M To End Suit Over Rest Breaks In Wash.

By Ben Adlin

Amazon will pay $2 million to resolve Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go store workers' accusations that the e-commerce giant failed to provide them with meal and rest breaks required under Washington state law, according to a settlement given final approval by a Pierce County judge.

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Ex-Comcast Worker Says Pie 'Assaults' Punished Low Sales

By Aaron Keller

Comcast Xfinity is being sued by a former Connecticut employee who says his retail store manager repeatedly ordered colleagues to tie her lowest-performing salespersons to a chair and then "violently" hit them in the face with a cream pie, allegedly as a shaming procedure to drive increased sales.

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Houston's Race-Conscious Contracting Program Struck Down

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Houston's program awarding public contracts on a race-conscious basis violated the Fourteenth Amendment in the first federal challenge to such a program following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 decision striking down affirmative action admissions policies.

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Baldoni's Studio Owes NYT $170K For Failed Defamation Suit

By Lauren Berg

"It Ends With Us" director and star Justin Baldoni's production company must pay The New York Times more than $170,000 after it defeated the studio's defamation claims, a New York state judge has ruled, saying the newspaper is entitled to recoup its legal fees.

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Union Pacific Won't Hire Drivers Using Opioid Meds, Suit Says

By Holly DeMuth

Union Pacific Railroad Co. refuses to hire train drivers who take certain medications for opioid use disorder without evaluating their cases individually, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to a proposed class action filed in Wisconsin federal court.

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Delta, EEOC Seek Approval For Pregnancy Bias Suit Deal

By Patrick Hoff

Delta Air Lines Inc. will pay nearly $17,000 to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging it unlawfully revoked a job offer from a worker who was prevented from completing a physical screening because she was pregnant, according to a filing in New York federal court.

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Ortho Practice Owes More Damages After Sex Bias Verdict

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A Pennsylvania-based orthopedic practice and a group of five female employees who accused the healthcare provider and its related entities of sex discrimination came to an agreement Tuesday on how much back and front pay should be awarded to the plaintiffs months after a federal jury awarded them $4.35 million.

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Counsel's Conduct Can't Decertify Server Class In Tips Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A Connecticut state judge refused to decertify a class of steakhouse servers alleging they were shorted on wages for untipped work, ruling their attorney's emotional and unprofessional conduct did not cast serious doubt on the court's ability to reach a just outcome.

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Texas Workers Seek To Void IRS Wage Withholding Regs

By Kat Lucero

The Internal Revenue Service's income tax withholding regulations resulted in employers overdeducting taxes from their employees' paychecks, two workers told a Texas federal court, arguing the agency's rulemaking violated the Administrative Procedure Act.

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Staffing Firm Workers Fight To Keep FLSA Collective Intact

By MJ Koo

Manual laborers who claim a North Carolina staffing company shorted them on wages urged a federal judge to keep their overtime collective intact, arguing that uniform timekeeping failures and coercive time-sheet practices tie all collective members together regardless of which job site they worked.

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Auto Parts Co., Workers Oppose Pretrial Wins In Wage Fight

By Benjamin Morse

An auto parts manufacturer and four North Carolina workers urged a judge to reject each other's partial early win bids, disputing whether rounding practices and time-record edits deprived employees of pay.

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Charges Dropped Against SEIU Official Who Protested ICE

By Emily Brill

Federal prosecutors in California have dropped charges against a Service Employees International Union official who was arrested after he blocked a police vehicle during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Los Angeles, according to a court filing.

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Flawed NLRB Protections Can't Stop Case, Texas Judge Says

By Braden Campbell

National Labor Relations Board members' and judges' job protections are unconstitutional, but these flaws don't block the agency from prosecuting labor violations, a Texas federal judge said in a decision splitting with a recent ruling from a different district.

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Amtrak Says Arbitral Award Can't Dictate Future PTO Claims

By MJ Koo

Amtrak has asked a District of Columbia federal court to toss a lawsuit brought by two railroad unions over its paid time off accrual policy, arguing the dispute must go to arbitration because it involves the interpretation of existing labor agreements rather than a unilateral change to those agreements.

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Judge Mulls Pausing Medicaid Work Rule For 'Frail' Recipients

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge said Tuesday he anticipates deciding by the end of the week whether the Trump administration will have to pause part of a new rule states must follow in determining whether medically frail Medicaid recipients are exempt from new work or school requirements.

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3rd Circ. Upholds Alecto Health's Small-Biz Ch. 11 Plan

By Emlyn Cameron

The Third Circuit affirmed Tuesday that hospital owner Alecto Healthcare Services' streamlined Chapter 11 and the resulting plan confirmation withstood an appeal by a creditors' group.

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Sullivan & Cromwell Rehires DOJ Lawyer For Antitrust Work

By Jack Rodgers

A former U.S. Department of Justice trial attorney who worked on the government's successful challenge of the Northeast Alliance partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue has rejoined Sullivan & Cromwell LLP as a partner in the firm's antitrust practice.

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Rare DOJ Military Bias Suit Shows Peril Of Co. Admissions

Although the government rarely litigates Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act claims against private employers, Opara v. UV Memory Care demonstrates that it will do so when an employer's own admissions build the case, potentially resulting in significant compliance obligations and long-term consequences, says Bradford Kelley at Littler.

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Discovery Ruling Shows How Extant Rules Mesh With AI Tools

A California federal court’s recent ruling in Schulte v. LinkedIn reinforces that existing discovery rules can and should accommodate emerging artificial intelligence technologies, providing litigants with confidence that well-designed AI-enabled workflows can satisfy reasonableness and proportionality standards, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

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Trader In BigLaw Deal-Tipping Scheme To Plead Guilty

By Chris Villani

A Florida resident is set to plead guilty to his alleged role in a sweeping scheme to trade on insider information about impending acquisitions that was stolen from major law firms, according to a court filing Tuesday.

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Simpson Thacher Stock Work Hurt 2 Companies, Jury Told

By Madison Arnold

The chief financial officer for an insurance company told a Florida jury Tuesday that a stock drop for Patriot National Inc. — which is suing Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP for malpractice for allegedly putting together a shoddy securities offering — dramatically affected his own business as well.

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AT&T Whistleblower Told To Cut Facts From Ethics Case Filing

By Sue Reisinger

Former AT&T in-house counsel and whistleblower Theodore Marcus has been asked to delete part of his response to professional misconduct charges pending against him in Washington, D.C., because the filing allegedly contains privileged information.

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1st Circ. Asked To Save Mayer Brown $21M Fee Bid In RI Suit

By Linda Chiem

The American Trucking Associations told the First Circuit that its attorneys at Mayer Brown LLP reasonably justified their request for $21 million in fees and costs after securing "substantial" wins in long-running litigation over Rhode Island's truck tolling program, disputing a district court's determination that the trucking trade group wasn't actually a "prevailing party."

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Winston Taylor Seeks Sanction Against Ex-Client Hunter Biden

By Rae Ann Varona

Winston Taylor urged a D.C. state court on Monday to sanction its former client Hunter Biden in its legal bills collection suit, saying the former president's son destroyed Signal communications that would have proved he understood that he owes the law firm more than $50,000.

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Court Is In Session Whenever A Judge Says It Is, 6th Circ. Told

By Susan Smiley

Court is wherever and whenever a judge says it is, counsel for a Detroit judge told a Sixth Circuit panel Tuesday, arguing that subjecting a student to a mock arrest and trial because she fell asleep during a field trip was within his jurisdiction.

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Senate Confirms Jay Clayton As National Intelligence Chief

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, two weeks after Clayton, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, refused to answer who he thought won the 2020 election during his confirmation hearing.

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Queens Defenders Head Gets 3.5 Years For Looting The Nonprofit

By Pete Brush

A Brooklyn federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the former director of the Queens Defenders to more than 3.5 years in prison after the longtime attorney admitted to a course of embezzlement that destroyed the group dedicated to legal services for the poor.

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