Ministry Stance In Anti-LGBTQ+ Hiring Suit Confuses 9th Circ.

By Rachel Riley

An en banc Ninth Circuit struggled Tuesday to understand a Washington-based Christian ministry's legal stance as it sought to preserve its ability to reject job applicants who are gay, with several judges suggesting it was immune from enforcement action since the state recognized the jobs as ministerial and therefore constitutionally exempt from anti-discrimination laws.

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10th Circ. Sides With Early Retirees In Union Pension Fight

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Tenth Circuit on Tuesday backed a group of union retirees who alleged they were wrongly denied early retirement benefits from a multiemployer pension plan after they withdrew from work that was covered by a collective bargaining agreement, reviving one of their claims while rejecting an appeal from the plan's trustees.

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Aviation Co. Gets Pretrial Win In Remote Workers' Layoff Suit

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida federal judge said Tuesday that a proposed class of remote employees did not have to be noticed under the WARN Act, handing an aviation company an early win in a suit by terminated employees who claimed they were abruptly fired in violation of the federal law.

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Ga. Hospital Escapes LGBTQ+ Bias Suit Over Fertility Benefits

By Patrick Hoff

An Atlanta-area hospital and health system defeated a lesbian nurse's lawsuit alleging she wasn't given the same access to fertility benefits as heterosexual employees, with a Georgia federal judge concluding that a magistrate misapplied the U.S. Supreme Court's blockbuster Bostock ruling when he recommended keeping the case in court.

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Texas Biz Court Pares Southwest Union's Boeing Suit

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas Business Court judge pared back the scope of claims brought by the pilots union for Southwest Airlines against The Boeing Co. after regulators grounded the 737 Max aircraft, saying Monday that the pilots can recover only direct damages, not damages from secondary injuries.

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UCF Administrators Seek Immunity In Prof's Firing Suit

By Carolina Bolado

Administrators for the University of Central Florida told the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday that they should be entitled to qualified immunity on retaliation claims brought by a psychology professor after he posted about the death of George Floyd on social media in 2020.

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EEOC Says Firing Painter After Knee Surgery Violated ADA

By Patrick Hoff

A Colorado-based heavy machinery dealer fired an employee after knee surgery rather than letting her return to work with a lifting restriction, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a new lawsuit.

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Fired Teacher Says AI Tainted Review And Arbitration

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts kindergarten teacher is suing to redo arbitration over her firing, saying the arbitrator who affirmed the school's decision used artificial intelligence to vet her claims that the principal relied on AI to prepare her final, negative performance evaluation.

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UC Davis Women Athletes Get Less Financial Aid, Suit Says

By Gina Kim

University of California, Davis has been discriminatorily awarding less athletic financial aid to women varsity student-athletes than their male counterparts for at least the last decade, in violation of Title IX, according to a proposed class action filed Tuesday in California federal court. 

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Feds Seek To Throw Out States' Challenge To DEI Contract EO

By Ganesh Setty

The Trump administration told a Maryland federal court that it should toss a lawsuit from states challenging its implementation of an executive order targeting diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the government contracting space, arguing the order falls within well-settled law.

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Cleaning Cos. Urge Colo. Judge To Toss EEOC's Bias Suit

By Rachel Konieczny

Two commercial cleaning providers accused by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of illegally favoring Latin American applicants urged a Colorado federal judge to toss the agency's lawsuit, contending the commission failed to show the companies refused to hire non-Hispanic workers.

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Fired Black Teacher Tells 4th Circ. To Revive Race Bias Suit

By Hayley Fowler

A Black teacher is looking to reverse a summary judgment ruling in his racial bias suit favoring the charter school that fired him, telling the Fourth Circuit the school's allegedly conflicting reasons for terminating him support an inference of discrimination.

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Ex-Delta Flight Attendant Says Post-Arrest Firing Unlawful

By David Aaro

Delta Airlines Inc. violated federal law when it fired a flight attendant without conducting a full investigation after a racially charged confrontation at a Marriott hotel in Savannah landed her in jail, according to a lawsuit from the former worker.

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DTE Energy Settles Mich. Off-The-Clock Wage Claims

By Melanie Dorsey

A settlement resolving claims that DTE Energy Corporate Services LLC failed to properly pay employees for time spent starting and shutting down computer programs before and after their shifts was approved by a Michigan federal judge Tuesday.

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Ex-Worker Urges 4th Circ. To Revive Wage, Retaliation Claims

By Benjamin Morse

A former worker at a sports bar in North Carolina urged the Fourth Circuit to revive her wage, retaliation and emotional distress claims, saying that a lower court improperly kept surviving claims from a jury and dismissed another on a ground that she did not have a chance to address.

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Target Accused Of Shorting Colo. Workers On Pay And Breaks

By Zach Dupont

A former Target employee in Arapahoe County, Colorado, claimed in state court Monday that the company is violating state wage laws by not compensating employees for all hours worked or repaying them for business-related expenses.

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Brief

Davis-Bacon Rule Fight Resumes In Texas

By Benjamin Morse

A Texas federal court will rule on dueling bids for early wins between construction groups and the U.S. Department of Labor over a challenge to 2023 Davis-Bacon Act regulations, according to an order lifting a stay in the case.

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Providence Tells Wash. Justices $230M Loss Upends CBAs

By Ben Adlin

Counsel for Providence Health & Services, Washington state's largest healthcare provider, urged the state's highest court on Tuesday to overturn workers' $230 million trial win over missed meal breaks, arguing that the judgment could put large employers at risk for complying with collective bargaining agreements.

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A's Player Sues Tigers Over Exposed Fence Injury

By Susan Smiley

A third baseman ​​​​​​for Major League Baseball's Athletics is suing the Detroit Tigers, its parent company and the Detroit-Wayne County Stadium Authority in Michigan state court, claiming they are responsible for an injury he suffered in July after sliding to catch a ball and banging his knee against a metal fence.

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Greenberg Traurig Adds Employment Atty In West Palm Beach

By Katherine Smith

Greenberg Traurig has hired a former Carlton Fields attorney in West Palm Beach to help lead the continued growth of the Florida office's labor and employment practice, the firm announced on Tuesday.

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How Employers Can Navigate NLRB Rulings Ripe For Reversal

Given a recent National Labor Relations Board memo seeking to reverse several precedents — including on severance agreements and workplace policies — employers should prepare now to restore broader protections when the board acts, while following the law as it exists today, says Howard Lavin at Thompson Coburn.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: September Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses six recent rulings involving pecuniary loss in false price comparison advertising, privity in an insurance fee class, antitrust standing, immigration class representatives, retirement beneficiary class commonality, and Rule 23(f) appeals in Fair Labor Standards Act claims.

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The Law360 Pulse Prestige Leaders: A Look At The Top Firms

Today's most prestigious firms attract top talent and marquee clients while posting record profits. Here's a look at the top 10 firms in this year's Law360 Pulse Prestige Leaders, a ranking of the firms that stand out for their prominence, power and distinction.

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DOJ Accuses Judges Of Ethics Violations With Press Remarks

By Jack Karp

Several Minnesota federal judges ran afoul of their ethical obligations when they commented on President Donald Trump's immigration policies in a recent news article, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a judicial misconduct complaint filed Wednesday.

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Federal Bar Discussion Looks At Courts' Role In Regulating AI

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Federal Bar Association discussion Wednesday in California about AI and how it will be regulated in the United States prompted the Northern District's new chief judge to ask whether Congress' "inability to pass laws" will leave it to the courts "to figure out how we're going to do this."

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DOJ Atty Picked For Judgeship Probed On Fulton County Raid

By Courtney Bublé

A top U.S. Department of Justice official tapped for a federal judgeship faced questions from Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday about the department's investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, over Trump's allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.

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Texas AG Says ABA Stifling Law School Competition

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas Attorney General announced an investigation into the American Bar Association relating to alleged anticompetitive conduct in the association's accreditation of law schools, claiming Wednesday that the ABA "weaponized its accreditation authority" to push "unconstitutional racial and gender preference requirements."

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Sen. Blackburn Sues Smith For Seizing Phone Records

By James Boyle

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn alleges in a federal complaint filed Wednesday that Jack Smith illegally subpoenaed her phone records as part of an investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

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3rd Circ. Calls Westlaw AI Fight 'Ordinary Copyright Case'

By Ivan Moreno

The Third Circuit said the first appellate fight over artificial intelligence training and fair use ultimately came down to an "ordinary copyright case," affirming that Ross Intelligence infringed Thomson Reuters' Westlaw headnotes when it used them to train a competing legal research platform.

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Blank Rome Seeks Time To Exit LIV Golf's Fla. Office

By Ben Zigterman

Blank Rome LLP on Wednesday filed a limited objection to LIV Golf's motion to reject its sublease at an office building in West Palm Beach, Florida, saying it didn't receive any advance notice and would like until the end of October to transition to a new office.

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Roundup

Defamation Litigation Roundup: Candace Owens, Firm DQ

By Theresa Schliep

In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 highlights a new suit over right-wing media personality Candace Owens and her conspiracy theories about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, as well as Quinn Emanuel's disqualification from a suit against a former client.

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Tort Report: Uber Owes $40M In Abandoned Rider Death Case

By Y. Peter Kang

A $40 million arbitration award in a case over an Uber incident and looming litigation against the federal government over a highly publicized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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Roundup

Hub Hires: Mintz, Foley Hoag, Barclay Damon

By Chris Villani

Boston saw several significant moves across its legal landscape as the summer wound down, with Foley Hoag adding an experienced debt finance attorney from Goodwin Procter, a boutique white collar firm snagging a longtime federal prosecutor, and Mintz getting new leadership for the first time in nearly two decades.

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