Calif. Justices Revive 'Unreadable' Arbitration Agreement Suit

By Hailey Konnath

In a 6-1 decision, the California Supreme Court clarified on Monday that courts must "closely scrutinize the terms of difficult-to-read contracts for unfairness or one-sidedness," but the "illegibility" — font size, placement, prominence, etc. — of agreements do not themselves indicate that it is unconscionable.

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5th Circ. Panel Blushes At Starbucks Worker's Snapchat Notes

By Spencer Brewer

A Fifth Circuit panel pressed the National Labor Relations Board to explain why Starbucks lacks the ability to fire a union organizer who used excessively colorful language in private messages to co-workers, saying Monday the language used would "make any of us blush."

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Worker Fired After Bias Claim Should Get $5M, Jury Says

By Grace Elletson

A Utah federal jury awarded a former human resources worker $5 million in her retaliation suit claiming a hospice provider fired her as punishment for lodging an age and gender bias charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

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Company Agrees To Pay $18M To Settle Truckers' Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A Nebraska-based trucking company agreed to pay $18 million to nearly 100,000 current and former drivers to end a more than 11-year-old consolidated class action over unpaid minimum wages, reaching a deal the day before trial was set to begin, according to settlement papers filed in federal court.

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Bikini Barista Boss Says Wash. AG Defamed Him In Wage Suit

By Rachel Riley

The owner of Seattle-area Paradise Espresso stands slammed the Washington State Office of the Attorney General on Monday for filing a wage theft and employment discrimination lawsuit "containing known falsehoods" and disparaging his bikini barista business in a related press release.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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EEOC Calls School Board's Bias Probe Challenge Premature

By Grace Elletson

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged a New Mexico federal judge to toss a school board's challenge to an agency investigation into alleged hiring discrimination against Native Americans, arguing the case is procedurally out of line.

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Mail Carriers Can't Bring OT Suit Against USPS In NJ

By Irene Spezzamonte

The mail carriers who accused the U.S. Postal Service of automatically deducting time for meal breaks they didn't take failed to show any connection to New Jersey beyond residence, a federal judge ruled, agreeing to toss their overtime case.

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Worker Claims Univ. Of Colorado Health Underpaid Wages

By Rachel Konieczny

University of Colorado Health routinely shortchanged its hourly employees of wages under the healthcare system's rounding policy, a former UC Health worker alleged in a proposed collective and class action in Colorado federal court.

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Brief

Swedish Health Nears Deal In Hospital Workers Wage Row

By Irene Spezzamonte

Seattle-area hospital system Swedish Health Services and the workers who were seeking about $126 million from it told a Washington state court that they agreed to settle a suit claiming meal break violations and rounding practices that led to unpaid wages.

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Brief

Fla. Cemetery, Ex-Employee End Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

The operator of a cemetery and funeral homes and a former employee reached a deal to end a lawsuit alleging that the employer paid her on a commission basis, leading to about $81,000 of unpaid overtime, according to a Florida federal magistrate judge's order approving the settlement.

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Custodians Tell NJ Justices COVID Law Doesn't Preempt CBA

By George Woolston

School custodians urged the New Jersey Supreme Court on Monday to reinstate an award of extra money for their in-person work during the pandemic, arguing an arbitrator had a reasonably plausible interpretation of a state statute when he determined it didn't preempt the custodians' collective bargaining agreement.

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Teamsters Look To Ax Kraft Heinz's Challenge To Grievance

By Emily Brill

Kraft Heinz shouldn't be allowed to scuttle a benefits fight by arguing that it should have been routed through the company healthcare plan's dispute resolution process, a Teamsters local told a Delaware federal judge, saying the dispute can be resolved through the grievance and arbitration process.

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Judge Skeptical Of XAI's Claims In OpenAI Trade Secrets Suit

By Ivan Moreno

A California federal judge has said she's inclined to grant OpenAI's motion to dismiss a trade secrets complaint from Elon Musk's xAI "in full," saying the plaintiffs have not provided enough facts to support claims that OpenAI poached employees and stole source code.

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Curaleaf Can't Ditch All Ill. Whistleblower Act Claims

By Mike Curley

An Illinois magistrate judge on Monday mostly denied a bid from Curaleaf Inc. to throw out a former regional director's Illinois Whistleblower Act claims, saying the complaint is sufficient to allege that he was retaliated against for reporting compliance violations to the state government.

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Philly Art Museum Wins Bid To Arbitrate CEO's Firing Suit

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Former Philadelphia Museum of Art CEO Alexandra "Sasha" Suda's lawsuit against the museum alleging that a "corrupt faction" in its leadership forced her out of her position must be handled in arbitration, a city judge has ruled, citing a contract provision.

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State Dept. Accused Of Overreach With 75-Country Visa Pause

By Britain Eakin

A group of U.S. citizens, nonprofits and foreign workers sued the Trump administration on Monday over its pause of immigrant visas for applicants from 75 countries over public charge concerns, arguing that the executive branch can't rewrite federal immigration law.

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Staffing Agencies Beat Ill. Workers' BIPA Revival Bid

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois Third District Appellate Court panel has refused to reverse two staffing agencies' pre-trial win over manufacturing workers' claim that the agencies illegally collected their time-clock fingerprint data, saying simply helping another entity obtain such data cannot trigger liability under a statutory provision requiring informed consent to collect it.

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Wollmuth Maher Picks Up Attys From Paul Hastings, SDNY

By Vin Gurrieri

Wollmuth Maher & Deutsch LLP has added the longtime leader of Paul Hastings LLP's New York employment law department and has bolstered its white collar bench by bringing in a veteran former assistant U.S. attorney.

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5th Circ. Ruling Clarifies Tax Rules For Limited Partners

The Fifth Circuit’s Jan. 16 decision in Sirius Solutions v. Commissioner provides greater tax planning certainty by adopting a bright-line test for determining when partners in limited liability companies are exempt from self-employment tax, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

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Series

The Biz Court Digest: Dispatches From Utah's Newest Court

While a robust body of law hasn't yet developed since the Utah Business and Chancery Court's founding in October 2024, the number of cases filed there has recently picked up, and its existence illustrates Utah's desire to be top of mind for businesses across the country, says Evan Strassberg at Michael Best.

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NYC Bar Opinion Warns Attys On Use Of AI Recording Tools

Attorneys who use artificial intelligence tools to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with clients should heed the New York City Bar Association’s recent opinion addressing the legal and ethical risks posed by such tools, and follow several best practices to avoid violating the Rules of Professional Conduct, say attorneys at Smith Gambrell.

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Paul Weiss Chair's Emails To Epstein Include Apollo Info

By Aebra Coe

Files released by the Department of Justice over the weekend belonging to the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein show a yearslong relationship between Epstein and Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp, which included dinners, phone calls and meetings, as well as communication related to Paul Weiss client Apollo Global Management.

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Ex-Goldstein Employee Claims Accountants Made Mistakes

By Jared Foretek

Defense attorneys for SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein presented evidence Monday that his firm's tax accountants made serious mistakes in tax filings for Goldstein's wife, Amy Howe, in 2021.

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6th Circ. Clears Judge Boasberg In DOJ Ethics Complaint

By Courtney Bublé

The complaint the U.S. Department of Justice filed against Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia has been dismissed.

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Analysis

Wheeling & Appealing: The Latest Must-Know Appellate Action

By Jeff Overley

What happened to a GOP donor's $250,000 Swiss watch? Can cigarette warnings show jarring medical images? Will a circuit split of "far-reaching importance" for arbitration get even wider? That's a taste of the oral argument menu we'll help you digest in this preview of February's top appellate action.

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Fenwick Reaches Deal In FTX Crypto Scam Suit

By Madison Arnold

Fenwick & West LLP and victims of the infamous FTX Trading Ltd. cryptocurrency scam are working toward a settlement in a case over the firm's alleged role in the trading platform's collapse.

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Watchdog Renews Halligan Bar Complaint After Court Rulings

By Emily Sawicki

The nonprofit Campaign for Accountability on Monday once again launched a bar complaint against former interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in Virginia, after the Virginia State Bar declined to pursue an ethics investigation against the attorney last year, calling it a matter for the courts to determine.

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Brief

Judiciary Open As Usual Until Thursday Despite Shutdown

By Courtney Bublé

The federal judiciary has enough funding to sustain normal operations until Thursday, following the partial government shutdown that started at midnight on Saturday.

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DOJ Defends NJ US Atty Office Funding Amid Scrutiny

By Matthew Santoni

Defending the three-person leadership structure of New Jersey's federal prosecution operations since the departure of Alina Habba, an administrator told a federal court that two of the attorneys running the office are paid through the office's budget and the third is funded through the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

U.S. enforcers reached three new merger settlements, while the Federal Trade Commission successfully blocked a $945 million heart valve deal and lodged an appeal for its case targeting Meta's past acquisitions.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jeff Montgomery

A pair of new high-dollar suits in Delaware's Court of Chancery showed last week that post-deal stock appraisal suits still have legs, despite some efforts to reduce potential from deal-price gains challenges. The week ended with Delaware's justices nipping $100 million from the attorney fees owed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk from $176.2 million to roughly $70.9 million, rejecting part of a Court of Chancery fee calculation.

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The Top In-House Hires Of January

By Sue Reisinger

Legal department hires over the first month of 2026 included high-profile appointments at SiriusXM, at a host of West Coast tech companies including Microsoft and Meta, and at Black & Decker. Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from January.

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