9th Circ. Won't Unblock Calif. Captive Meeting Law

By Tim Ryan

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday upheld a lower court order blocking California from implementing its law banning so-called captive audience meetings, saying the employer groups that challenged the law showed the law likely infringed on their First Amendment rights.

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EEOC Eliminates Long-Standing Criminal History Guidance

By Vin Gurrieri

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has revoked Obama-era guidance that outlined employers' legal obligations in their use of workers' arrest and conviction records to make employment decisions, the agency announced Thursday.

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NLRB Backs Tesla In Workplace Tech Rule Row

By Katherine Smith

Tesla did not unlawfully maintain a workplace rule restricting the use of its technology at a New York manufacturing plant where employees were organizing, the National Labor Relations Board has found, applying a 2019 ruling the board's former top prosecutor sought to revisit.

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9th Circ. Probes Warehouse Workers' Arbitration Exemption

By Max Kutner

A Ninth Circuit panel on Thursday appeared somewhat skeptical of an argument that a transportation worker exemption to federal arbitration requirements doesn't apply to a proposed class of warehouse workers, after the appellate court found warehouse workers fit the carveout in a separate case.

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Google Cut Worker's Duties After Military Leave, Feds Say

By Vin Gurrieri

Google failed to reinstate a former employee to a similar role after he returned from a yearlong stint in the U.S. Army's Cyber Command unit and eventually laid him off, according to a lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed Thursday in Manhattan.

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Uber, Amazon, Instacart Fight NYC Courier Deactivation Law

By Linda Chiem

Uber, Amazon and Instacart have accused New York City of overstepping by enacting a law prohibiting them from "deactivating" delivery couriers without formal notice and investigation, claiming in a new federal lawsuit that the regulation unconstitutionally interferes with their contractual rights.

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9th Circ. Drops Speech Holding In Seattle Gig Worker Ruling

By Benjamin Morse

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday withdrew its earlier finding that Seattle's protections for app-based delivery workers don't regulate speech, replacing it with a narrower ruling that assumes the law involves speech but still passes First Amendment scrutiny.

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DOJ Says Immigration Judge Isn't Shielded From Removal

By Elaine Briseño

The U.S. Department of Justice told a Massachusetts federal judge that an ex-immigration judge who claims he was fired for his political ideology and advocacy work was an at-will employee who cannot show his firing was discriminatory.

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Pot Use Firing Suit Can Be Arbitrated Despite Flawed Clause

By Mike Curley

A California state judge has granted Aarris Healthcare Staffing LLC's bid to compel arbitration against a former employee alleging she was wrongly fired for off-duty cannabis use, despite finding portions of the agreement unenforceable.

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Groups Drop Suit Over Trump's DEI Mandate For Contractors

By Grace Elletson

A coalition of organizations ended their challenge of an executive order from President Donald Trump that requires government contractors to disavow "racially discriminatory DEI activities," stating that while they lost their bid to freeze the order, they gained crucial clarity from the court about the directive's scope.

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Wingstop Worker Says Race Bias, Harassment Led To Firing

By David Aaro

A former manager for a Wingstop franchisee sued the company in Georgia federal court Thursday, claiming that its director of operations said the company preferred white people in management and that she was later fired after turning down her boss's sexual advances.

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Meat Plant Workers Say DOJ's Wrong On Wage-Fixing Deals

By Matthew Perlman

Beef and pork plant workers seeking final approval for $200 million in wage-fixing settlements reached with major meat processors told a Colorado federal court the U.S. Department of Justice is raising concerns about conduct that stopped years ago.

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Boston TV Station Must Face Workers' Blizzard Pay Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Three Boston television station employees can pursue claims that they weren't paid for preparing blizzard coverage, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled, finding they adequately alleged that transporting broadcasting equipment is compensable work under federal wage law.

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Amazon Workers Narrow Connecticut Screening Time Claims

By Aaron Keller

Amazon workers who prevailed after posing a security screening wage-and-hour question to the Connecticut Supreme Court have narrowed their claim period and adjusted allegations regarding the time they believe should be compensated, telling a federal judge the process lasted "several minutes, as opposed to 10-20 minutes originally alleged."

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Union Sues IRS Over Termination Of Workers' Contract

By Katherine Smith

The Internal Revenue Service violated federal law by terminating its collective bargaining agreement with a union representing the agency's employees in light of a 2025 executive order from President Donald Trump, the union has claimed in a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court.

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NLRB Urges 7th Circ. To Ponder Injunction Harm Burden

By Braden Campbell

The National Labor Relations Board urged the full Seventh Circuit to rethink a ruling that raised the bar for the agency to win injunctions, saying the panel's merits conclusions and its take on what constitutes irreparable harm to workers' labor rights conflict with U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

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NJ Panel Says State Shields Military Leave Past Federal Cap

By MJ Koo

A New Jersey state appeals court on Thursday upheld a decision giving an Atlantic City police officer his job back after the city fired him for staying on military leave for more than five years, saying a federal five-year limit is a minimum, not a maximum.

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Pa. Court OKs Unemployment Comp Despite Off-Duty Lie

By Matthew Santoni

A Pennsylvania nurse didn't commit "willful misconduct" by refusing to answer questions about a coworker visiting her while he was on duty and she was off duty, so the nurse remained eligible to collect unemployment benefits after she was fired, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday.

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Ex-Property Management VPs Owe $1.6M For Poaching Clients

By Hayley Fowler

Two former officers and directors at a North Carolina property management company must pay their ex-employer more than $1.6 million in damages to make up for clients they allegedly poached for a rival business they ran, a state court judge ruled, granting the company a partial pretrial win.

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West Point Prof's Suit Tests Public Employee Speech Limits

A recent complaint in New York federal court alleging that West Point unlawfully terminated a professor who challenged a directive banning references to human causes of climate change could illuminate how academic freedom and public employee speech protections apply at a military academy, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

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How To ID And Respond To 5 Types Of Misleading Witnesses

Witnesses can mislead fact-finders using a variety of tactics — from strategic amnesia to manufactured ignorance — but lawyers can learn how to identify and expose this testimony to come out on top, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

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Are You Happy With Your In-House Role? Take Our Survey

Is your company giving you everything you need to succeed? What are some misconceptions about working in-house? Help Law360 Pulse answer these questions and more in this year's In-House Satisfaction Survey.

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DOJ Backs Ex-Wisconsin Judge's ICE Obstruction Conviction

By Andrea Keckley

The U.S. Department of Justice told the Seventh Circuit that the high-profile conviction of a former Wisconsin state court judge for interfering with an ICE arrest was not compromised by her position on the bench or by jury instructions.

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Roundup

Hub Hires: WilmerHale, Womble Bond, Kirkland

By Chris Villani

Falling temperatures didn't bring a cooldown in the Boston legal lateral market as WilmerHale and Robinson & Cole LLP both welcomed former assistant attorneys general, Honigman LLP established its first office in the market, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP snagged a partner from Ropes & Gray LLP.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Consovoy McCarthy PLLC and Smith Porsborg Schweigert Armstrong Moldenhauer & Smith lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Eighth Circuit struck down the Federal Reserve's regulatory cap on the swipe fees that larger banks may collect on debit card transactions.

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Cyberattack Class Action Against Fox Rothschild Dropped

By Madison Arnold

Three data breach victims have dismissed their proposed class action against Fox Rothschild LLP after ransomware group Silent Ransom Group targeted the firm.

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Ramona Nee, Tapped To Lead Weil, Now In Talks With Kirkland

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

Ramona Nee, the co-leader of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP's U.S. private equity practice who had been poised to become its leader, is engaged in talks to join Kirkland & Ellis LLP, a source with knowledge of the situation told Law360 Pulse on Friday.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Meta reached a settlement during jury selection in the second Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims its Instagram platform harms the mental health of children, leaving Snap as the lone defendant facing trial. In the meantime, current and former in-house lawyers for Google and Meta said that the ability of AI to write patent applications is rapidly improving, and that in blind tests, experienced attorneys often deem AI-drafted patents to be superior to those from humans. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Jackson Walker Inks $500K Deal In EXCO's Ch. 11 Fee Fight

By Clara Geoghegan

Jackson Walker has agreed to pay EXCO Resources Inc. $500,000 to end litigation over fees paid to the firm while one of its partners was in an undisclosed relationship with the former bankruptcy judge who mediated in the reorganized oil and gas driller's Texas Chapter 11.

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Fed. Judge A No-Show Amid Inquiry Into Her Mental Health

By Craig Clough

U.S. District Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas failed to appear Friday before a judicial investigative committee examining allegations that she abandoned her post and concerns that a mental condition may be interfering with her ability to perform her duties.

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K&L Gates DQ'd In Trust's Mortgage Loan Agreement Dispute

By Isaac Monterose

A Washington federal judge disqualified K&L Gates LLP from a trust's dispute over a residential mortgage loan sale agreement, ruling that the law firm must leave the suit because it drafted the form agreement used in the transaction.

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Cruz Counsel Returns To FCC As Space Bureau Chief

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission has named a former employee with experience in both the public and private sectors to head the agency's Space Bureau, after a stint as chief telecommunications counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee.

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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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Kalshi Taps Clement For High Court Sports Contracts Fight

By Elaine Briseño

Kalshi has hired appellate heavyweight Paul D. Clement of Clement & Murphy PLLC to represent the company in its potential U.S. Supreme Court battle over whether the prediction markets platform's sports wagering is subject to state or federal oversight.

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