7th Circ. Skeptical Of Bid To Block Ill. 'Captive Audience' Ban

By Celeste Bott

Two interest groups asking the Seventh Circuit to revive their challenge to an Illinois law banning captive audience meetings by employers faced pointed questions Friday about whether the law has injured them at all, with one judge saying their suit is based on a "series of ifs."

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Reed Smith Defends Docs Production In Ex-Atty's Bias Suit

By Jake Maher

Reed Smith LLP urged a New Jersey court on Thursday to reject an "impulsive" motion from a former attorney suing it for gender discrimination seeking to strike its answer and affirmative defenses.

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Split 7th Circ. Rejects NLRB's Bid To Reinstate Union

By Dorothy Atkins

A split Seventh Circuit panel on Friday upheld a decision denying the National Labor Relations Board's bid to reinstate a truck-seller's union, with the majority finding that the union hasn't shown irreparable harm justifying such "extraordinary relief," while a dissenting judge criticized the majority for making harm nearly impossible to show.

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9th Circ. Asks Wash. Justices About Indirect Employer Claims

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit panel has asked the Washington State Supreme Court to clarify whether the state's law permits common law wrongful firing claims against indirect employers and certain individuals, saying the answers are key to assessing a former solar company CFO's claim he was unjustly ousted by a private equity backer.

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Wayne State Beats Doctor's Race Bias Suit Over Chair Job

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge tossed a Black physician's discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Wayne State University and several officials over his unsuccessful bid to become permanent chair of the medical school's obstetrics and gynecology department, finding that he never formally applied for the job.

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CIA Officers Urge 4th Circ. To Reject DEI Firings Rehearing

By Jared Foretek

Career intelligence officers fighting their terminations following the Trump administration's anti-DEI executive orders told the Fourth Circuit Thursday that there's no point in granting an en banc rehearing of a panel's order allowing them to internally appeal the firings, arguing the panel's ruling has limited application beyond their own case.

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Dems Seek Probe Of Suspect Comments On DOL Proposal

By Patrick Hoff

A trio of Democratic lawmakers urged the federal government to open a probe into reports that a U.S. Department of Labor proposal to expand retirement plans' access to alternative investments was flooded with fake comments, asserting the allegations raise questions about whether the public comment process has been corrupted.

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Roundup

Employment Authority: Blizzard Inks Labor Deal With Union

By Katherine Smith

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on the potential impact Blizzard Entertainment's new labor contract with a union could have in the video game industry, mass arbitration demands filed in wage and hour disputes and recent legislative developments in state discrimination laws.

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11th Circ. Won't Revive Bias Suit Against Lockheed Martin

By Kelcey Caulder

The Eleventh Circuit on Friday refused to revive a former employee's discrimination suit against Lockheed Martin, saying a lower court rightly tossed the case after the worker failed to comply with discovery obligations and multiple court orders.

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Mass. Court Upholds Troopers' Firings Under Vax Order

By Julie Manganis

Massachusetts' intermediate appellate court on Friday affirmed the firings of 13 state police troopers who failed to get COVID-19 vaccinations in 2021, finding that disciplinary decisions were not subject to an arbitration clause in their union contract.

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Construction Co. Settles EEOC Suit Over Sex Contract

By Patrick Hoff

A home improvement company has settled a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit alleging it unlawfully fired an office manager after she refused to sign a "dominant/submissive contract" given to her by an executive, according to a filing in North Carolina federal court.

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Conn. Town Beats Firefighter's Appeal In Pot-Use Firing Suit

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut appellate panel declined Friday to reverse a firefighter's loss in a lawsuit he brought against the town of Waterbury after he was fired for using medical marijuana, holding that his challenge to a state court's posttrial dismissal was inadequately briefed.

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Court Rules Doctor's Burnout Not Disability Under ADA

By MJ Koo

A Colorado federal court dismissed a radiation oncologist's disability discrimination suit against a Catholic health system, finding his burnout did not qualify as a disability under federal law and that he failed to show the hospital's stated reasons for withdrawing his job offer were pretextual.

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Swift Seeks To Narrow Truckers' OT Class Over Rest Time

By MJ Koo

A trucking company has asked a Washington federal court to clarify that truck drivers certified to pursue overtime claims cannot also pursue a separate theory that rest and sleeper berth time is compensable, arguing the theory was never included in the lawsuit or addressed when the court certified the class.

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Excavation Co. Off The Hook For Fund Payment, Judge Says

By Emily Brill

A Chicago-area excavation company has dodged an obligation to pay about $182,000 to an International Union of Operating Engineers local's scholarship fund, with an Illinois federal judge ruling Friday that a 2023 arbitration award can't be enforced against the company.

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Apple Says Ex-Worker Took 33 Files, Wiped Mac For OpenAI

By Ivan Moreno

Apple has told a California federal judge that a former engineer now at OpenAI downloaded at least 33 confidential files from Apple's Box repository after his departure, wiped an Apple-owned computer before returning it, and later told another former Apple employee who had joined OpenAI to erase her device.

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JPMorgan Likely Can't Void Arbitration Loss Over Food Platter

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge has said he is unlikely to vacate an arbitration panel's decision awarding a wealth manager $4.25 million from a JPMorgan Chase & Co. subsidiary, saying that although he finds the panel's award "exceptionally questionable," it doesn't meet the standard for the court to undo the decision.

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9th Circ. Ruling Raises Bar For Arbitration Pacts Via Email

The Ninth Circuit's recent holding in Rickes v. Thermo Fisher that the mere delivery of an email doesn't establish an employee's assent to the arbitration agreement underscores that rollout processes should both give employees notice of the agreement and create evidence of their assent, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

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Resetting For Success After Corporate Litigation Loses Focus

Corporate litigation that has lost strategic coherence may barrel disastrously ahead if counsel’s understanding of the matter drifts from the client’s goals, but cases can be wrenched back on track by diagnosing how facts have evolved, determining where resources are justified and deploying practical strategies for restoring discipline, says Jonathan Morris at Gordon Rees.

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How Bifurcation And Verdict Forms Can Sway Jury Outcomes

The bifurcated trial structure used in a Nevada personal injury case — where the jury recently awarded the plaintiff more than $56 million — highlights a strategic option that litigators often overlook and raises considerations about the potential advantage of carefully assembled verdict forms, says litigation consultant Clint Townson.

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Legal Deserts: Millions Across America Struggle To Access Lawyers

Tens of millions of Americans live in towns and counties across the nation with limited or no access to legal services. By one estimate, at least a third of the nation's counties qualify as a "legal desert," having only one or no attorney per 1,000 residents. Roughly 24 million Americans reside in these counties.

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Greenberg Traurig Hit With Action Over Client Data Breach

By Matt Perez

A proposed class of Greenberg Traurig LLP clients said the New York law firm failed to secure their personal data prior to a preventable data breach and delayed notifying clients of the breach for two weeks, in an action filed over the weekend in New York federal court seeking injunctive and other equitable relief to protect client data.

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Tesla Atty Misled Witness Days Before Bias Trial, Judge Hears

By Dorothy Atkins

The California Civil Rights Department asked a California judge for a protective order Monday on the first day of a bench trial over claims Tesla Inc. fostered racism at its Fremont factory, after a witness testified that an in-house Tesla attorney recently called him and misled him into believing he represented the agency.

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New Calif. Law Bars Legal Funders From Influencing Litigation

By Jack Karp

Corporate investors and litigation funders will be barred from influencing litigation strategy in California under a new bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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Q&A

She Has A Point: Fenwick's Jessica Kaempf

By Theresa Schliep

Jessica Kaempf of Fenwick & West LLP is a pragmatic yet tenacious attorney whose representation of her clients has earned her plaudits from Kathi Vidal of Winston Taylor, who praised Kaempf as part of a Law360 series celebrating women litigators.

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$1.35M Class Deal Reached Over Botched Calif. Bar Exam

By Emily Johnson

Takers of the February 2025 California bar exam that was marred by technical failures have agreed to settle their proposed class action against the proctor for $1.35 million, while the company also agreed to complete quality checks before proctoring future bar examinations, according to a motion seeking preliminary approval in federal court.

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Ex-Prosecutor Escapes Jan. 6 Atty's Defamation Suit

By Jared Foretek

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on Monday won judgment on the pleadings in a defamation case brought by attorney Stefan Passantino, who had represented Cassidy Hutchinson, after Passantino alleged Weissmann had defamed him when saying he'd "coached" Hutchinson "to lie" to the January 6th Select Committee.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week dismissed a challenge to Alteryx Inc.'s $4.4 billion take-private sale, resolved a fight over the removal of a security technology company's director and declined to let Empery Digital Inc. immediately appeal a proxy contest ruling.

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