Uber Eats To Pay $4.4M To End Seattle Wage Theft Claims

By Ben Adlin

Uber Eats will again fork out millions of dollars to settle allegations from Seattle officials that the food delivery giant failed to pay its couriers what they're owed under municipal app-based worker laws, the Seattle Office of Labor Standards announced Tuesday.

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3rd Circ. Nixes Prof's Disability Bias Win, Calls For Trial

By Grace Elletson

The Third Circuit scrapped Tuesday an early win handed to a Kutztown University professor who claimed she faced disability discrimination when her requests to teach remotely to manage an autoimmune condition were denied, ruling the lower court was too quick to resolve the case given the disputes at play.

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Southwest's Religious Bias Memo To End Contempt Flap

By Vin Gurrieri

A Texas federal judge on Tuesday ordered Southwest Airlines to send flight attendants a statement saying the company isn't allowed to discriminate based on religion, in order to dissolve a contempt finding in a case from a flight attendant who successfully claimed her views on abortion got her fired.

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Troutman Sidelined Associate After Heart Attack, Suit Says

By Patrick Hoff

Troutman Pepper Locke LLP derailed an associate's career because he took medical leave to recover from a heart attack and spoke up about senior attorneys' fraudulent billing practices, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in New Jersey federal court.

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Ex-DOJ Atty Says Trump's University Probes Were Political

By Hailey Konnath

Trump administration officials forged ahead with investigations into Harvard, Columbia and other universities despite its own lawyers raising legal concerns and, in some cases, finding "little to no factual predicate justifying opening them," according to a whistleblower disclosure from a former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer made public Tuesday.

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Feds Seek Full 4th Circ. Review Of DEI Firings Row

By Madeline Lyskawa

The federal government urged the Fourth Circuit to review a split panel's decision requiring the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to allow intelligence officers who were fired for their involvement with assignments related to DEI and accessibility to appeal their terminations.

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Belle Tire Wins Arbitration Of Technician's Overtime Claims

By Melanie Dorsey

A former Belle Tire alignment technician must individually arbitrate claims that the automotive service company failed to pay overtime and improperly reduced workers' pay rates, a Michigan federal judge ruled, finding the employee agreed to arbitration through onboarding paperwork in 2023. 

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Gun Co. Palmetto Shorted Workers On OT, Suit Says

By Jonathan Capriel

Firearms retailer Palmetto State Armory cheated hundreds of its call-center employees out of wages by forcing them to perform unpaid tasks before clocking in and shaving overtime hours, according to a proposed class action filed in South Carolina federal court.

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Ex-NFL Player Sues Disability Benefits Plan Over Denial

By Kia Fatahi

A former National Football League player who reportedly suffered brain injuries from nearly two decades of playing the sport hit the league's disability benefit plan with a lawsuit Tuesday, telling a Maryland federal judge that the plan wrongfully denied his application for total and permanent disability benefits despite his own doctor's diagnosis.

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Brief

Alaska Airlines Gets Initial OK For $500K Military Leave Deal

By Benjamin Morse

Alaska Airlines Inc. has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a class action accusing it of denying vacation accrual to pilots during qualifying military leaves, according to a Washington federal judge's preliminary approval order.

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Pa. Justices Find 'Loophole' For Out-Of-State Pension Credit

By Matthew Santoni

A public school teacher can claim credit in Pennsylvania's pension system for her years of service in Arizona because of an apparent "loophole" that doesn't bar such carryovers if the employee has cashed out their other state pension, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

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FAA Contractor Says Ex-VP, Competitor Cannot Use Its IP

By Elaine Briseño

A Federal Aviation Administration contractor asked a Virginia federal court to prohibit its former vice president and his new company from recruiting the firm's employees and using its proprietary information, saying their actions could cause irreparable harm to its business.

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Ex-Meta Worker Says His EB-2 Letter Concerns Got Him Fired

By Carla Baranauckas

A former Meta Platforms Inc. product design manager sued the social media giant and his former supervisor in New Jersey federal court, claiming that he was fired after refusing to sign an immigration support letter for a colleague because he believed it contained inaccurate or unsupported facts.

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Colo. House Aide Says Dem Lawmakers Forced Her Out

By Benjamin Morse

A former Colorado House legislative aide accused three Democratic lawmakers in state court of violating her constitutional rights by retaliating against her for criticizing the handling of her medical leave and refusing to perform campaign work, creating conditions that forced her to resign.

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Jackson Lewis Atty Appointed Privacy, AI Lead Of L&E Global

By Matt Perez

Labor and employment firm Jackson Lewis PC announced Tuesday that its attorney Mary T. Costigan was appointed co-leader of data protection and artificial intelligence at L&E Global, an alliance affiliated with Jackson Lewis.

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Upping Fed, FDIC's Insider Loan Cap May Ease Bank Burdens

Coordinated Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve proposals to raise the 1970s-era cap for bank executives borrowing from their institutions represent a long-needed regulatory recalibration that would lighten compliance obligations caused by the outdated ceiling without diminishing the original protections against conflicts of interest, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

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SCOTUSblog Founder Goldstein Seeks Release During Appeal

By Rachel Rippetoe

SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein on Tuesday asked to be released from federal custody while he appeals his 12 tax and mortgage fraud convictions and a six-year prison sentence, saying he is not a flight risk and it would be a "grave injustice" for him to begin a sentence he believes will eventually get axed.

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Davis Wright Vets Scolded: Don't Tell Foes 'How To Run Firm'

By Jeff Overley

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP veterans have failed to dodge six-figure sanctions in a prominent discovery donnybrook, and a California magistrate judge added invective to the financial injury, lambasting "troubling" omissions in case citations and heavy-handed "nitpicking" akin to commandeering an adversary's law firm.

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Atty, Son Charged In Probe Of Alleged Penn State Drug Ring

By Rose Krebs

An equity partner based in Meyer Darragh Buckler Bebenek & Eck PLLC's Pittsburgh office has been charged with tampering with evidence and obstructing an investigation in connection with an alleged cocaine ring at Penn State University that allegedly involved his son, according to news reports.

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Texas Judge Flags 'Alarming' Number Of Bogus Citations

By Emily Sawicki

A federal judge presiding over an Austin, Texas, immigration case is warning of possible future sanctions after an attorney included an "alarming" number of "hallucinated" case citations in support of a habeas corpus petition.  

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Jackson Walker Says US Trustee Can't Claw Back Legal Fees

By Clara Geoghegan

Jackson Walker said this week that the U.S. Department of Justice's bankruptcy watchdog is beyond the bounds of its authority in a yearslong effort to force the firm to return millions of dollars in legal fees over an undisclosed relationship between a former partner and a Texas bankruptcy judge.

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Over 120 Ex-Judges Demand Probe Of DHS GC's 'Worst' Posts

By Adrian Cruz

A pair of nonprofits along with a bipartisan group of 128 former state and federal judges have asked the Florida Bar to investigate the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for a recent series of social media posts attacking sitting judges.

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Polsinelli Can't Rep Doctor In 'Bad Faith' IP Suits, Cos. Say

By Lauren Berg

Two medical device companies suing Polsinelli PC and its longtime client, a patent-holding doctor, for allegedly pursuing "bad faith" infringement claims asked federal courts in Tennessee and Mississippi to disqualify the firm from defending the doctor in the lawsuits, citing their "diverging interests and liabilities."

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Ex-US Attys Protest Trump's Swift Firing Of Rogoff In Seattle

By Rachel Riley

Thirty former U.S. attorneys backed Roger Rogoff's bid for reinstatement as Seattle's top federal prosecutor after President Donald Trump fired him on the heels of his court-ordered appointment, arguing Tuesday that Trump is trying to "sidestep the Senate's advice-and-consent role and sideline the judiciary" by letting unappointed individuals play such roles.

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DOJ Urges Court Not To Dismiss Suit Against DC Bar

By Alison Knezevich

The U.S. Department of Justice is urging a federal judge not to toss its lawsuit against Washington, D.C., attorney disciplinary authorities, saying the court "needs to halt defendants' flagrantly unconstitutional overreach into the president's executive power."

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Firms Cut From $101M Anthropic Atty Fees Appeal To 9th Circ.

By Lauren Berg

Two law firms involved in securing artificial intelligence company Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement with a class of authors and publishers are appealing to the Ninth Circuit an order excluding them from attorney fees awarded to court-appointed class counsel.

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USPTO Says Patent Atty's Suit Shouldn't Stop Discipline Case

By Theresa Schliep

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has said an Ohio federal court shouldn't pause professional discipline proceedings against an attorney while he sues the agency, saying he's likely to fail with his suit challenging the fact that a judge from another agency is overseeing his discipline case.

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Sinema Says Brief Signal Chat Can't Anchor NC Affair Suit

By Hayley Fowler

A single exchange on the encrypted messaging app Signal became the focal point of former Arizona U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's testimony on Wednesday as she sought to convince a North Carolina federal judge that she cannot be hauled into court in the Tar Heel state over an affair — which she declined to characterize as a "passionate" romance — she had with her married security guard.

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