4th Circ. Says Trump Anti-DEI Orders Are Constitutional

By Grace Elletson

The Fourth Circuit on Friday lifted a block on President Donald Trump's executive orders that terminated federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs and aimed to encourage government contractors to do the same, saying it's not the court's role to determine if the directives are "sound policy."

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Starbucks Gets Mo.'s 'Speculative' DEI Bias Suit Thrown Out

By Hailey Konnath

A Missouri federal judge dismissed the state's suit claiming that Starbucks' diversity policies discriminate based on race and gender, finding that its complaint is "devoid of non-conclusory and non-speculative allegations establishing any actual, concrete and particularized injuries to Missouri citizens."

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11th Circ. Says Slur Allegations Back Harassment Suit

By Grace Elletson

A split Eleventh Circuit panel on Friday reinstated a Black truck salesman's harassment suit claiming a supervisor called him "boy" and that his colleagues regularly called nonwhite customers racial slurs, ruling his hostile work environment claims were strong enough to keep his suit alive.

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Atty Wants Jury To Hear Public Defender Overwork Suit

By Rachel Konieczny

A former attorney for the Colorado public defender's office who is alleging the agency overworks its employees asked a state court Friday to send his case to a jury.

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Roundup

Employment Authority: Risk Still Dogs RIFs After EEOC Shift

By Emily Brill

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on how the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's about-face on a popular liability theory doesn't erase risk for companies conducting reductions in force, how the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is faring these days and what the National Mediation Board exercising jurisdiction over SpaceX means for the company. 

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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Paymentus Settles Fintech Atty's Age Bias Suit Ahead Of Trial

By Hayley Fowler

Billing company Paymentus Corp. has settled a former in-house attorney's retaliation, age discrimination and wrongful discharge lawsuit less than two weeks before the case was set to go to trial, court records show.

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Ex-MSU Employee Claims Retaliation For Harassment Reports

By Rae Ann Varona

A former assistant vice president at Michigan State University has sued the university and her former boss in Michigan federal court, alleging that she was fired as payback for reporting claims of sexual harassment.

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Ousted Conn. Public Defender Chief Loses Bias Suit

By Aaron Keller

The commission responsible for Connecticut's public defenders did not violate TaShun Bowden-Lewis' constitutional or legal rights when it removed her as chief of the office in 2024, a state Superior Court judge has ruled, finding no second hearing was necessary before the former top defense lawyer lost her job.

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Trump Admin, States Reach Agreement In School DEI Fight

By Rae Ann Varona

The Trump administration has agreed not to condition federal education funding for state and legal education agencies on what a coalition of nearly 20 states alleged was an incorrect interpretation of law in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion, according to a Friday filing in Massachusetts federal court.

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Brief

DOL Rolls Out New Minimum Wage For Federal Contractors

By Irene Spezzamonte

The new minimum hourly wage for federal contractors will be set at $13.65, the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division said Friday, a move coming after the Trump administration nixed a Biden-era rule setting the wage to $15.

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5th Circ. Backs Texas Farm Bureau In Ex-Manager's OT Suit

By Spencer Brewer

The Fifth Circuit found Friday that a former Texas Farm Bureau agency manager failed to prove his old employer owes him overtime pay, saying the ex-employee didn't show that the Farm Bureau knew he was working overtime.

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FLSA Does Not Bar Claim Waivers, Wash. Judge Says

By Benjamin Morse

The Fair Labor Standards Act does not categorically bar a contract's release of an employee's claims, a Washington federal judge ruled, finding that a former pharmaceutical manufacturing company worker's severance agreement that included a general release of claims precludes his wage suit.

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NC Restaurants Say They Didn't 'Keep' Tips In DOL Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

Two North Carolina restaurants urged a federal court Friday to narrow a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit alleging they unlawfully kept and pooled tips from front-of-house workers and allocated the funds to tip-ineligible back-of-house employees, arguing they did not "keep" the tips by distributing them to nontipped workers.

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Deputies Say Wayne County Flubbed Payroll System Switch

By Melanie Dorsey

Wayne County, Michigan, is facing a proposed class and collective action from sheriff's deputies alleging they were denied straight-time wages, overtime and earned benefits after the implementation of a new payroll system.

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Ex-President Accuses Physician AI Co. Of Fraud, Wage Theft

By Irene Spezzamonte

A data science platform and its top brass persuaded its former chief strategy officer and president to invest $750,000 in the business, only then to not pay him wages, the former employee told a North Carolina federal court, claiming he's owed more than $430,000 in commission wages.

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Kroger And Albertsons Win Dismissal In Antitrust Labor Case

By Zach Dupont

A Colorado federal judge on Friday dismissed a grocery store employee's proposed class action against Kroger and Albertsons alleging the pair violated antitrust law through a no-poach agreement to not hire competitor employees during a strike.

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Boston Globe Accused Of Skipping Pension Fund Payments

By Katherine Smith

A union pension fund has filed a lawsuit against the Boston Globe in D.C. federal court, accusing the news organization of failing to pay monthly contributions and provide records of the hours employees worked.

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Fed. Circ. Revives Navy Veteran's Benefits Claim

By Elaine Briseño

The Federal Circuit revived a protest over the denial of certain benefits for a retired Navy veteran, saying the Board of Veterans' Appeals erred when it refused to consider evidence he submitted in a lawful and timely manner.

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Insulet Gets $14.9M Fee Award For Trade Secret Trial Win

By Ivan Moreno

A Massachusetts federal judge awarded Insulet Corp.'s attorneys almost $15 million for their $452 million jury trial victory in a trade secrets dispute that was later reduced to $59.4 million, but the fees Goodwin Procter LLP netted were significantly less than the nearly $25 million it requested.

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Jury Awards $8.4M In Oilfield Trade Secrets Theft Case

By Elliot Weld

A Texas federal jury has handed an oilfield services company $8.4 million in damages after finding a rival had willfully pilfered trade secrets related to nitrogen rejection unit technology when an employee left to start the rival firm.

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Brief

Ex-Yale New Haven Hospital Exec Drops Covenant Payment Suit

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut federal judge has accepted a deal to dismiss a lawsuit claiming Yale New Haven Hospital withheld $994,000 in contractually required payments to its former chief operating officer, but said the parties can reopen the dispute if they need the court's intervention.

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Bojangles Let Russian Hackers Steal Worker Data, Suit Says

By Hayley Fowler

Fried chicken fast food chain Bojangles allegedly let Russian hackers infiltrate its computer system and steal hundreds of thousands of files on its employees, resulting in the exposure of their sensitive personal information on the dark web, according to a new complaint in North Carolina's business court.

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EEOC, Law Students End Legal Battle Over Firm DEI Letters

By Lynn LaRowe

A proposed class action brought by law students last year challenging the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's requests for diversity data from 20 law firms ended Monday with the government agreeing compliance "was not mandatory, and that most law firms did not provide any of the requested information."

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Ill. Legislation Targets Outside Investments In Legal Sector

By Emma Cueto

Two bills introduced in the Illinois state Legislature seek to place restrictions on the use of private equity-backed managed service organizations in the legal industry and on any fee-sharing between Illinois lawyers and firms owned by nonlawyers in states like Arizona.

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Goldstein's Defense Questions Missing Tax Emails

By Jared Foretek

Document retention at the outside accounting firm for SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein and his law firm took center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court lawyers' tax fraud trial Monday, as the defense claimed that the accountants' internal emails about Goldstein's tax returns were never produced despite being sought in subpoenas.

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Conn. Atty Sanctioned For Another Case Of AI Misuse

By Emily Sawicki

A Connecticut labor litigator's vow to permanently cease using generative artificial intelligence tools in his practice after he allowed AI-generated errors to appear in separate but similar June filings has weighed in his favor as a Bridgeport federal judge ordered sanctions against the attorney.

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High Court Asked To Take Up Malpractice Case Against Akin

By Adam Lidgett

A former Cornell University graduate student wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review the dismissal of his suit accusing Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP attorneys of manipulating patent litigation to steal his DNA sequencing intellectual property.

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Sentencing Commission's Reform Ideas May Cut Prison Time

By Stewart Bishop

Proposed new amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines could lead to shorter prison terms for many offenders, including by revising loss calculations for financial crimes and providing a first-of-its-kind path to reward defendants for post-offense, pre-sentence rehabilitative efforts.

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10th Circ. Ends Civil Rights Suit, Sanctions Atty For AI Errors

By Emily Sawicki

A self-represented Maryland attorney could not revive her $15 million racial discrimination suit against Denver-based Frontier Airlines after a Tenth Circuit panel found the district court had not erred in its dismissal, in a ruling that also sanctioned the lawyer for misusing generative artificial intelligence.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's chancellor has rejected a bid for dismissal of a derivative suit accusing Coinbase Global Inc. insiders of massively unloading shares ahead of a steep stock drop, stressing a special litigation committee's failure to meet independence standards.

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