25K Workers 'Out Of Luck': Feds Defend Layoffs At 9th Circ.

By Dorothy Atkins

The federal government Friday urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse a finding that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wrongfully fired 25,000 probationary workers shortly after President Donald Trump took office, arguing that the OPM was operating well within its statutory authority, the district court lacked jurisdiction, and the workers are "simply out of luck."

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Calif. County Judges Recuse From Bias Suit Against DA's Office

By Patrick Hoff

The entire bench of a county court recused itself from a lawsuit alleging the San Francisco District Attorney's Office didn't take appropriate action when a Black employee reported a colleague's use of a racial slur, pushing the trial in the decade-old case to early October.

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Judge Reduces Sealy Worker's 'Excessive' Harassment Win

By Grace Elletson

A Washington federal judge reduced a $5 million verdict awarded to a worker who claimed mattress company Sealy Inc. subjected her to sexual harassment, ruling she is owed only $1.25 million in damages after calling the original award "grossly excessive."

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Ex-University Worker Settles 1st Amendment Suit For $250K

By David Aaro

Georgia has agreed to pay $250,000 to end a former Georgia Southern University employee's claims that she was fired after objecting to the school's decision to not provide free chest binders to students.

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Roundup

Employment Authority: 9th Circ. Creates Wage Arbitration Exit

By Benjamin Morse

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on how a Ninth Circuit ruling allowing a worker to abandon arbitration after adding a sexual harassment claim could give employees a new route to keep wage and hour claims in court, why the EEOC's proposal to scrap annual EEO-1 demographic data collection drew divided public feedback, and how the Teamsters are leaning on New York state-level advocacy in their push to organize Amazon delivery drivers amid a less union-friendly National Labor Relations Board.

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NBA's Suns Say Performance, Not Bias, Drove DEI Head Firing

By Elaine Briseño

The NBA's Phoenix Suns asked an Arizona federal court to grant it an early win in a lawsuit filed by its former diversity equity and inclusion chief, arguing it was her poor performance, not discrimination, that led to her firing.

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Airline Caterer Let Harassment Go Unchecked, EEOC Says

By Grace Elletson

A global airline catering company failed to take action after a female employee complained that her male mentor regularly made sexual comments about her body, according to a suit filed Friday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

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Management Consulting Co. Settles Pregnancy Bias Suit

By David Aaro

Boston Consulting Group has struck a deal to end a pregnancy bias suit from a former payroll worker who alleged a boss said she "conned" the company by taking parental leave shortly after joining and later fired her.

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Piggly Wiggly Store To Pay $65K In EEOC Sabbath Work Suit

By Kelcey Caulder

A Piggly Wiggly operator has agreed to pay $65,000 to end a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit alleging the grocer forced a religious deli worker to work on the Sunday Sabbath, according to a Friday filing in Georgia federal court.

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Trump Admin Asks High Court To Uphold Trans Troop Ban

By Katie Buehler

The Trump administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to allow its ban on transgender members of the military to take full effect, arguing the policy is constitutional under the high court's developing transgender case law.

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Mortgage Lender Faces Nationwide Underwriter OT Collective

By Benjamin Morse

A Georgia federal judge conditionally certified a nationwide collective of mortgage underwriters claiming they were wrongly classified as exempt from overtime, finding their evidence sufficiently showed they performed similar work under common guidelines and policies.

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UPS Workers Sue For Security Screening Time Pay

By Brian Steele

United Parcel Service Inc. required employees to go through security screenings before work, wouldn't let them clock in until afterward and forced them through another unpaid check before they could leave, two Connecticut warehouse workers claimed in a proposed class action that accuses the courier of withholding earned wages.

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Ex-Victoria's Secret Worker's Wage Case Sent To Arbitration

By Gina Kim

A California federal judge has ruled that Victoria's Secret can arbitrate a former employee's proposed wage-and-hour class action, finding the parties' arbitration agreement, signed by the plaintiff, has a class action waiver that demonstrates the intent to resolve disputes via individual arbitration.

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Brief

Colo. Hospital Worker's Overtime Suit Ends In Settlement

By Benjamin Morse

A former registration specialist for a Colorado hospital ended her overtime suit against the facility after accepting an offer of judgment to resolve her claims that it stiffed workers through meal-break deductions, time rounding and improperly calculated bonuses.

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Brief

Mass. Coke Bottler Misclassified Worker To Save OT, Suit Says

By Julie Manganis

A regional Coca-Cola bottler misclassified a worker as an exempt employee to avoid paying overtime, a new lawsuit in Massachusetts state court alleges.

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DOL Scraps 1980s Farmworker Protection Coordination Rule

By Elaine Briseño

The U.S. Department of Labor is repealing longtime regulations that required federal agencies to coordinate protections for migrant and seasonal workers, saying they are obsolete and have not been used for decades.

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Brief

Doctor Shorted Practice Co-Owner On Distributions, Suit Says

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado ophthalmologist failed to pay the co-owner of his practice the full distribution amounts owed to that physician while overpaying himself, according to a lawsuit filed in state court.

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Ex-Eli Lilly Rep Can't File Whistleblower Claims In NJ

By Carla Baranauckas

A New Jersey federal judge on Friday dismissed a former Eli Lilly sales manager's suit alleging she was fired after objecting to pressure to promote off-label use of the diabetes drug Mounjaro, finding that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over the Indiana‑based drugmaker.

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Ex-Sergeant Says Prosecutors Charged Him In Retaliation

By MJ Koo

A former Colorado sheriff's sergeant has told a federal court the district attorney and her investigator who charged him with failing to report suspected child abuse lacked probable cause and the prosecution was motivated by retaliation for his First Amendment activity rather than any genuine belief he committed a crime.

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Buchalter Adds Litigator In Atlanta From Chamberlain Hrdlicka

By Emily Johnson

Buchalter PC has added a former Chamberlain Hrdlicka White Williams & Aughtry shareholder in its Atlanta office, strengthening its litigation practice with an attorney with significant experience representing businesses in commercial litigation and creditor rights matters, according to an announcement Friday.

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9th Circ. Wage Ruling Shows Arbitration Pacts Are Still Useful

After years of uncertainty for California employers, the Ninth Circuit’s recent Cocom v. ABM Aviation decision signals that workplace arbitration agreements remain a powerful and enforceable tool — if thoughtfully drafted and employment-focused, says Benjamin Runge at Thompson Coburn.

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McDermott Closing Health Policy Shop In DC

By Alison Knezevich

McDermott Will & Schulte is closing its healthcare lobbying and consulting shop after a dozen years in business.

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Feature

Rachael Rollins Pitches Scandal As Asset In Comeback Bid

By Taylor Bowie

Rachael Rollins rode a progressive wave to become Suffolk County's district attorney in 2019. After a scandal derailed her stint as Massachusetts U.S. attorney, she's trying to win her old DA post back, and leaning into her alleged ethical missteps as a resume boost.

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'Exemplary Performance' Earns Google Users' Attys $146.8M

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge Friday awarded plaintiffs' attorneys $146.8 million in fees after they secured a $425 million jury verdict against Google LLC in a privacy class action covering about 98 million people, calling the one-third fee award "extraordinary" but justified given their "exemplary performance."

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House Eyes Vote To Lock Supreme Court At 9 Justices

By Courtney Bublé

The House returns from recess on Monday, and its agenda could include a vote to keep the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices at nine.

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Trump Denied New Bid To Federalize Hush Money Prosecution

By Pete Brush

A New York federal judge on Friday again denied President Donald Trump's bid to move his criminal hush money conviction out of state court, finding as he did earlier that a federal law defense that Trump was operating in his official capacity would be meritless.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen shoe brand Crocs bring an appeal against the chief executive of the U.K.'s Intellectual Property Office, singer Alanis Morissette sued by the former head of operations at Live Nation Israel and the son of convicted fraudster Guo Wengui file an appeal against the Chapter 11 trustee controlling his father's bankruptcy estate. 

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

KKR will pay a $250 million civil penalty to end allegations that it hid key documentation and entire transactions for merger notification. In the meantime, Apple told an Illinois federal judge that a recent Seventh Circuit decision affirming Samsung's win in a biometric privacy suit means the tech giant should prevail over similar claims. These are among 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

WilmerHale leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California federal judge held that the U.S. Department of Defense's designation of Anthropic PBC as a supply chain risk to national security was retaliation for the company's public criticism of the Trump administration.

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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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