11th Circ. Appears Doubtful Of Union Members' Bias Claims

By Chart Riggall

An Eleventh Circuit panel appeared puzzled Thursday by Black union pipe fitters' claims that they were passed over for work assignments in favor of white counterparts, expressing confusion about what legal framework they believed an Alabama federal judge should have used.

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Instacart Can't Halt NYC Tip, Wage Laws On 2nd Circ. Appeal

By Benjamin Morse

A Second Circuit panel refused to pause New York City laws setting minimum pay and other protections for grocery delivery workers while Instacart appeals a lower court order that allowed the rules to take effect.

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Worker Fired Over Kirk Meme Lands $485K From Fla. Agency

By Grace Elletson

A Florida wildlife agency will pay a former employee $485,000 to resolve her suit claiming it violated her free speech rights by firing her for sharing a meme on social media satirizing the killing of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk, the ACLU of Florida announced Thursday.

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Avis To Pay $1.8M To End Managers' Overtime Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Car rental company Avis agreed to pay $1.79 million to settle a collective action claiming it misclassified operations managers as overtime-exempt and failed to pay them for hours worked over 40 in a week, according to a filing in New Jersey federal court.

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Justices Back IAM Pension Fund In Withdrawal Liability Battle

By Kellie Mejdrich

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that multiemployer pension plan actuaries can retroactively change assumptions underlying their withdrawal liability calculations, rejecting employers' argument for time restrictions on the methodology underpinning penalties for pulling out of a pension fund.

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Newsom Order Eyes Labor Protections Amid AI Growth

By Lauren Berg

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued what his office called a "first-in-the-nation" executive order aiming to shore up state labor policies in an effort to prepare workers and businesses in the event of mass workforce disruption caused by artificial intelligence.

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Flores Says NFL Retaliated After He Filed Discrimination Suit

By David Steele

Former NFL head coach Brian Flores has told a New York federal court that the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell are using its arbitration process as a means to retaliate against him for suing the league for hiring discrimination.

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EEOC Disability Bias Suit Threadbare, Retailer Tells 10th Circ.

By Anne Cullen

An appliance retailer called on the Tenth Circuit on Wednesday to preserve its win in a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission disability discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a fired sales associate, arguing there's no evidence the company knew the employee had a disabling medical condition.

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Transgender Police Employee Sues Colo. City, Claims Bias

By MJ Koo

A transgender police community specialist has accused the Boulder Police Department of subjecting him to years of deadnaming, misgendering and bathroom surveillance after he began transitioning, and retaliating against him when he complained, according to a lawsuit in Colorado federal court.

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Brief

Wells Fargo's $85M 'Sham' Hiring Investor Deal Gets Final OK

By Emilie Ruscoe

Wells Fargo & Co. and its investors have gotten a final nod for their $85 million deal settling claims the bank conducted "sham" job interviews to meet diversity quotas.

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Logistics Co. Escapes OT Suit After Sole Plaintiff Withdraws

By MJ Koo

A logistics company defeated a proposed collective action alleging it failed to pay minimum wage and overtime after the suit's only named plaintiff withdrew for personal reasons, leaving the federal court without jurisdiction to proceed, a North Carolina judge ruled.

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Audit Flags Connecticut Agency's Wage Complaint Backlog

By Brian Steele

The backlog of complaints about potential labor law violations received by Connecticut's Department of Labor grew from 843 to 980 between May 2023 and July 2024, said a report released Thursday from state government auditors that also flagged a lack of supporting documentation and approvals for some civil penalties.

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NLRB Will Rethink Immigration Atty Bargaining Unit

By Tom Lotshaw

A National Labor Relations Board panel partly granted a Texas immigration advocacy organization's request to review a decision that allowed some attorneys and legal assistants to remain in a voluntarily recognized bargaining unit, to reconsider whether they are supervisors.

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7th Circ. Doubts Hotel Can Unwind Union's Shelter Arb. Win

By Lauraann Wood

Seventh Circuit judges sounded unwilling Thursday to disturb an arbitrator's finding that a Chicago hotel failed to employ union-represented workers during its use as a migrant shelter, suggesting the hotel took issue with interpretations of key words the arbitrator appropriately drew from the underlying collective bargaining agreement.

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Clark Hill Exits NJ Health Noncompete Dispute After DQ Bid

By Carla Baranauckas

A New Jersey federal judge has signed off on a request from Clark Hill PLC to withdraw as counsel for a nursing home operator amid an adversary's disqualification motion in a noncompete dispute with a medical consulting company.

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AmTrust Unit On Hook In Conn. Collapse Claims, Insurer Says

By Gianna Ferrarin

An AmTrust workers' compensation unit must defend a construction company against bodily injury claims from workers alleging they were seriously injured from the collapse of a floor area of a New Haven building, another insurer for the company told a Connecticut federal court.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: May Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four recent rulings from cases involving allegations of Title VII violations, the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, prison dental care violations and overcharging for PACER access.

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Series

NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

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Analysis

BigLaw Deals Scandal Puts Boston Back On White Collar Map

By Chris Villani

A sweeping insider trading case involving information stolen from BigLaw firms shows a return to bread-and-butter white collar enforcement for Boston federal prosecutors and provides a morale lift in an office that has seen shifting priorities and staff turnover since the signature "Varsity Blues" takedown in 2019, veteran prosecutors told Law360.

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Goldstein Taps Ex-SG Prelogar Before Sentence, Likely Appeal

By Jeff Overley

One of the nation's most accomplished oral advocates, Tom Goldstein, revealed Thursday he has retained another of the nation's most accomplished oral advocates, Elizabeth Prelogar, ahead of his sentencing and likely appeal in a criminal tax case that has captivated the appellate bar.

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Immigration Judges' 'Anxiety' Dialed Up Amid Mass Exodus

By Emma Cueto

Current and former immigration judges spoke on a web panel Thursday about threats to the independence of immigration judges and the strains on the immigration system, such as a massive backlog of cases at a time when many judges have been pushed out or fired.

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Analysis

How Exxon Attys Beat A 10-Year-Old Securities Class Action

By Spencer Brewer

This month, Exxon Mobil's defense team helped deliver a clean sweep victory for the energy giant when a federal jury in Texas found the company did not lie to investors about the profitability of some operations.

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PBM Swaps Cravath For WilmerHale In Price-Fixing Suit

By Bonnie Eslinger

Pharmacy benefit manager Prime Therapeutics LLC has replaced counsel Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP with WilmerHale and another firm in an antitrust case in Michigan federal court brought by the state's attorney general.

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Bush-Appointed Missouri Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge David Gregory Kays of the Western District of Missouri will take semi-retired status in May 2027, according to an update from the federal judiciary on Thursday.

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Feature

5 Podcasts To Keep IP Attys Entertained And Informed

By Theresa Schliep

Whether intellectual property attorneys are hitting the road for a family trip or kicking their feet up at home, podcasts about legal news can offer an easy way for them to stay in the know while (hopefully) not working this Memorial Day weekend.

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