Morgan Stanley Boots VP's Sex Bias Suit To Arbitration

By Grace Elletson

A New York federal judge kicked a Black Morgan Stanley executive's race and gender bias suit to arbitration, ruling she couldn't invoke a law that blocks out-of-court resolutions for sexual misconduct disputes because the general mistreatment she allegedly faced didn't amount to sexual harassment.

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DLA Piper, Vax Refuser Reach Deal To End Religious Bias Suit

By Patrick Hoff

DLA Piper has struck a deal to wrap up a Christian former employee's lawsuit claiming he was fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine because of his religious beliefs, an Illinois federal judge said Thursday.

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16 DOGE Staffers Ordered Unmasked In Data Privacy Suit

By Lauren Berg

The government must publicly identify more than a dozen Department of Government Efficiency agents in a lawsuit alleging the U.S. Office of Personnel Management unlawfully gave DOGE access to millions of federal employees' personal information, a Manhattan federal judge has ruled, saying the staffers are not entitled to confidentiality.

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6th Circ. Says DOL Could Back OT For Home Care In 2013 Reg

By Irene Spezzamonte

The U.S. Department of Labor had the authority to issue a 2013 rule expanding wage protections for home care workers, the Sixth Circuit ruled, saying that a U.S. Supreme Court decision remains good law despite the justices recently nixing the Chevron doctrine.

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Space Needle Fights Arbitrator's Order To Rehire Worker

By Emily Brill

The operator of Seattle's Space Needle has asked a Washington federal court to reverse an arbitrator's order to reinstate a fired worker, arguing that discharge was the correct discipline for a worker who violated several workplace rules while spending time with an ex-coworker who visited her at work.

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Air Force Wins Disability Bias Suit Over Pandemic Leave

By Benjamin Morse

The U.S. Air Force won an early victory in a former assistant lodging manager's lawsuit alleging he was denied paid safety leave during the COVID-19 pandemic because of his disability, after an Arizona federal judge found he failed to show discrimination and did not exhaust administrative remedies.

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McMahon Accuser Says WWE Seeks Arbitration To 'Silence' Her

By Alex Lawson

The former World Wrestling Entertainment legal staffer suing the company and founder Vince McMahon for sexual assault and trafficking is fighting to keep the case in open court, framing the WWE's push to arbitrate the dispute as an attempt to silence her.

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Wyndham Escapes Trafficking, RICO Claims In Pa. Suit

By Matthew Santoni

A Pennsylvania federal court has once again trimmed claims against Wyndham Hotels & Resorts from a lawsuit alleging that three employees were "trafficked" at hotels in Pennsylvania and West Virginia by being forced to work solely in exchange for lodging.

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Adult Performers, Cos. Seek Wins In Misclassification Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Adult-content performers and a streaming platform's operators filed dueling bids for quick wins in their dispute over the workers' classification, as the performers insisted to a Connecticut federal court that they are not independent contractors while the company contended that performers' control over work justifies the classification.

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Brief

CBD Co., Workers Settle Overtime Class Action

By MJ Koo

A CBD company and a class of former employees have agreed to settle a suit alleging the company failed to pay overtime premiums to assembly line workers who regularly worked more than 40 hours a week, according to a filing Thursday in Colorado federal court.

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Convenience Store Chain Denied Quick Appeal In Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Han-Dee Hugo's can't immediately appeal a decision conditionally certifying a collective action of gas and convenience store managers in an overtime pay dispute, a North Carolina federal judge ruled, finding that it failed to show that doing so would speed up the litigation.

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Brief

Enterprise Settles Ex-Assistant Manager's Overtime Suit

By MJ Koo

Enterprise Rent-A-Car and a former assistant branch manager have agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging the company misclassified him and other managers as overtime exempt, according to a filing in Massachusetts federal court.

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Curaleaf Must Bargain With Union In Mass., NLRB Says

By Katherine Smith

Cannabis giant Curaleaf violated federal labor law when it refused to bargain with a United Food and Commercial Workers Union local in Massachusetts, the National Labor Relations Board ruled.

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Brief

Musk, X Settle Former Twitter Workers' Severance Suit

By Katryna Perera

X Corp. and Elon Musk have agreed to settle claims by a group of six former Twitter employees that they were falsely promised severance benefits in connection with Musk's acquisition of the social media company.

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UNITE HERE Healthcare Fund Beats SoCal Workers' Rate Suit

By Emily Brill

A union healthcare fund has beaten back a class action accusing it of wrongfully charging Southern California workers higher rates than Las Vegas workers, with an Illinois federal judge holding that the class hasn't shown the fund violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

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Brief

Teva $35M Delayed Generic Inhalers Deal Gets Initial OK

By Kellie Mejdrich

A Massachusetts federal judge Thursday granted initial approval to a $35 million deal that Teva Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay to resolve claims from a coalition of union healthcare funds that say the company schemed to delay generic competition for its QVAR asthma inhalers.

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Ex-Pharma Exec Hit With $5.3M Fee Award In Del.

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has ordered a former pharmaceutical executive to pay more than $5.3 million in attorney fees following years of litigation over alleged disloyal conduct and trade secret misuse, concluding that the award is reasonable despite objections that the amount was excessive.

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Power Co. Claims Ex-Worker At Rival Copied More Than 1,100 Files

By José Luis Martínez

A mobile power generation company sued one of its former managers in Texas federal court, saying he copied more than 1,100 files from his work computer and later accessed some of them while working at a competitor.

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Process Server ABC Legal Inks $2.5M Deal Over Cyber Breach

By Ben Adlin

Seattle-based ABC Legal Services LLC, which bills itself as the nation's largest network of legal process servers, would pay $2.5 million under a tentative deal to settle workers' putative class action claiming a 2024 cyberattack exposed their personal information, the plaintiffs told a Washington federal court Wednesday.

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Brief

Clifford Chance Brings On NY Tax Partner From White & Case

By Tracey Read

Clifford Chance LLP has hired a former White & Case LLP attorney as a partner in its tax, pensions and employment group in New York.

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Justices May Hesitate To Limit Courts' Arbitration Review

Based on Monday's argument in Jules v. Andre Balazs, the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to preserve federal jurisdiction over arbitral award enforcement stemming from actions originated in federal court, a holding that would markedly limit the court's 2022 Walters v. Badgerow decision, says Ashwini Jayaratnam at DarrowEverett.

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Pension Case Offers Entertainment Work Exception Insights

A recent Ninth Circuit decision clarified that any amount of entertainment work can satisfy the entertainment industry exception under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act, reinforcing that statutory language, rather than evolving business models, dictates withdrawal liability outcomes, say attorneys at Seyfarth.

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Series

Ultramarathons Make Me A Better Lawyer

Completing a 100-mile ultramarathon was tougher, more humbling and more rewarding than I ever imagined, and the experience highlighted how long-distance running has sharpened my ability to adapt to the evolving nature of antitrust law and strengthened my resolve to handle demanding, unforeseen challenges, says Dan Oakes at Axinn.

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ABA, Ex-Judges And Many More Back BigLaw In EO Appeal

By Dorothy Atkins

Numerous bar associations, 239 former judges, 21 states, lawmakers and dozens of other amici curiae have thrown their weight behind BigLaw firms in the Trump administration's consolidated D.C. Circuit appeal seeking to revive executive orders targeting the firms, broadly arguing that the orders are an affront to foundational constitutional rights.

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Legal Sector Lost 700 Jobs In March, Ending Hiring Streak

By Tracey Read

The legal sector began to slow down in March after a year and a half straight of gains, with 700 fewer people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in February, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Progressive Org. Rolls Out $3M Anti-Trump High Court Push

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump does not have any vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court, but a progressive court advocacy organization is not waiting for a justice's departure to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign opposing a possible Trump pick.

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Brief

Justice Alito Treated For Dehydration After Federalist Event

By Courtney Buble

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito felt ill during a Federalist Society event last month and was seen by a doctor "out of an abundance of caution," the high court announced on Friday.

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6th Circ. Axes Atty For 'Inexcusable' AI 'Transgressions'

By Rae Ann Varona

An attorney committed "inexcusable transgressions" by relying on Westlaw's internal CoCounsel artificial intelligence platform for appellate filings and by failing to catch erroneous AI-generated content, the Sixth Circuit said Friday and removed the lawyer from further representing a man who pled guilty to drug trafficking charges.

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Analysis

'Political' Deals Pit DOJ Against State AGs, And Not Just Dems

By Bryan Koenig

Controversial U.S. Department of Justice settlements with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Live Nation, along with the approval of Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, are increasingly inspiring state attorneys general to strike out on their own as antitrust enforcers, often in direct challenge to a federal government that Democrats have cast as "corrupt."

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Florida Gov., AG Face Criticism For Judge Impeachment Push

By Rose Krebs

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier faced pushback this week from some in the state's legal community for calling for the impeachment of a judge for releasing a man who went on to allegedly kill his five-year-old stepdaughter, with critics blasting those calls as being politically motivated and "unethical."

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Analysis

DOJ's New Corporate Enforcement Policy May Eclipse SDNY's

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice has put to use for the first time its new corporate enforcement policy of declining prosecutions when companies self-report potential criminal violations, but experts say the new, department-wide initiative has rendered a more business-friendly approach by the Southern District of New York moot.

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Ex-DOJ Official Wants Epstein-Talk Suit Kept In District Court

By Emily Sawicki

A former U.S. Department of Justice acting deputy chief who was fired last year after a hidden-camera video of him discussing the Epstein files was posted online has told a D.C. federal judge his due process case must survive in district court because the Trump administration now controls federal oversight agencies.

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Trump Seeks 13% Boost In DOJ Funding

By Courtney Bublé

The White House budget request for fiscal 2027, released on Friday, seeks $40.8 billion in discretionary funds for the U.S. Department of Justice, a 13% increase from the current year level.

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Judge Stands By Block Of DOJ Subpoenas In Powell Probe

By Jon Hill

A Washington, D.C., federal judge on Friday rejected a U.S. Department of Justice attempt to revive subpoenas from its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the government hadn't "come close" to giving him a reason to rethink blocking them.

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Schneider Wallace Loses Bid For Bigger Piece Of $75M Fee

By Lauren Berg

A California federal magistrate judge on Friday rejected Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's bid to increase its cut of a $75.4 million fee award for representing plaintiffs in a $228.5 million Sutter Health antitrust deal, saying lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP's allocation of $1.4 million to Schneider Wallace was fair.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

PayPal was hit with a proposed investor class action that claims the payments giant hid slowing growth for its critical branded checkout business. In the meantime, a Shopify lawyer encouraged his peers during a webinar to make sure their outside counsel have "met the moment" by leveraging artificial intelligence in smart ways. These are some of 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

Alliance Defending Freedom, Pearman Law Firm PC and attorney Barry Arrington lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado ban on therapy intended to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to viewpoint discrimination against a Christian therapist.

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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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