Industrial Lighting Co. Sheds $41.9M Injury Verdict On Appeal

By Brian Steele

Connecticut's second-highest court on Friday threw out a $41.9 million award to a warehouse worker who was paralyzed when an intoxicated co-worker knocked a 1,300-pound box of lighting products onto him, finding that Signify North America Corp. did not owe the plaintiff any duty to prevent his injury.

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Streamers Deemed NJ Employees, Contractors Under FLSA

By Benjamin Morse

A New Jersey federal judge ruled Friday that adult entertainers who perform on a streaming service are independent contractors under federal wage law but employees under New Jersey law, handing both sides partial wins in a wage class and collective action over the platform's pay practices.

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7th Circ. Backs Pension Fund's Power To Expel Penske Unit

By Patrick Hoff

The Seventh Circuit ruled Friday that a Teamsters pension fund didn't overstep when it tried to kick out a Penske bargaining unit in Dallas, finding it was reasonable for plan trustees to conclude the agreement with the company allowed it to expel the unit.

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GAO Says DOD Hasn't Analyzed Impact Of Workforce Cuts

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Department of Defense shed about 10% of its civilian workforce in 2025 yet failed to consistently analyze the impact of those reductions on military readiness and operational effectiveness, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report Friday.

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Roundup

Employment Authority: Gig Drivers Win First-Of-Kind Union

By Emily Brill

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on Massachusetts' landmark certification of a ride-hailing app drivers' union, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that keeps more delivery drivers' wage claims in court and what the Pope's AI warning means for complying with discrimination law in the workplace. 

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CNN Strikes Tentative Deal To End Breastfeeding Bias Case

By Kelcey Caulder

CNN America and a former worker who claimed she was unlawfully denied a proper place to pump breast milk on the job told a D.C. federal court they had agreed on the broad strokes of a deal to resolve her suit.  

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U. Of Oregon Women Athletes Denied Class Cert. In Bias Suit

By David Steele

An Oregon federal judge has ruled that four proposed classes of women athletes accusing the University of Oregon of treating them unequally compared with men did not meet class certification criteria but said certifying another group later was possible.

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U. Of Mich. Surgeon Sues Over Teaching Suspension

By Melanie Dorsey

A University of Michigan surgeon has sued the school's Board of Regents and a department chair, claiming they suspended him from teaching over protected classroom speech and retaliated against him for prior lawsuits claiming age discrimination and other misconduct.

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T-Mobile Denied Call Center Workers Preshift Pay, Suit Says

By MJ Koo

T-Mobile required its hourly call center workers to boot up computers and log in to multiple software systems before their shifts without paying them for any of it, a former employee said in a collective and class action filed in Washington federal court.

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Mich. Plumbing Co. Hit With Overtime, Retaliation Suit

By Melanie Dorsey

Three plumbers have sued a Michigan plumbing company and its owner, claiming they were wrongly denied overtime pay and fired after one worker contacted the U.S. Department of Labor about the company's pay practices. 

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USW Can't Block Retiree Healthcare Shift, Pa. Judge Says

By Katherine Smith

A Pennsylvania federal judge has rejected the United Steelworkers' bid to block materials manufacturer Saint-Gobain from changing union retirees' healthcare benefits, ruling that the union fell short in proving its members would suffer irreparable harm if the changes are made before the parties have finished arbitrating them.

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Employer Tips For Navigating Tenn. Noncompete Law

Although a new Tennessee law will limit the enforceability of noncompetes, including by categorically prohibiting them for lower-wage earners and establishing rebuttable presumptions on their duration, it also gives employers clearer guideposts for drafting enforceable agreements, say attorneys at Burr & Forman.

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Your Next Litigation Hold Should Cover AI Chat Logs

The Delaware Chancery Court’s recent decision in Fortis Advisors v. Krafton to treat a CEO’s artificial intelligence chats as substantive evidence is being read as a discovery warning to litigators, but there is a second duty-to-preserve lesson that is especially pertinent to in-house counsel, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

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Double Shooting Renews Courthouse Safety Fears In NC

By Hayley Fowler

The shooting of two Fox Rothschild LLP attorneys outside a courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, ahead of Memorial Day weekend has renewed calls to protect the safety of judges and lawyers in an increasingly volatile justice system.

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Baker McKenzie Asks Judge Not To Toss Suit Against Ex-Atty

By Alison Knezevich

A lawyer for Baker McKenzie on Friday urged a Washington, D.C., judge not to dismiss the BigLaw firm's defamation suit against a former tax associate who accused a firm office leader of sexual assault, telling the court the accusations were false and made with "malice."

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Bonus Spotlight

Selendy Gay Doles Out Spring Associate Bonuses

By Aebra Coe

New York litigation boutique Selendy Gay PLLC paid its associates spring bonuses of as much as $25,000 this week, according to the firm.

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Akin Gump Owes Fees For Winebow's 'Self-Indulgent' Appeal

By Dorothy Atkins

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday ordered an importer's Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP attorneys to pay a European winemaker fees for having to defend against the importer's "spurious objections" to the winemaker's valid arbitral award, ruling that the importer's "self-indulgent" appeal warrants sanctions in the form of fees.

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Calif. Panel Reverses Order For Citing Atty's Bogus Case Law

By Dorothy Atkins

A California appellate panel on Thursday reversed a judgment in favor of a man accused of abusing his son, finding that "without doubt" the trial judge abused her discretion by incorporating the man's bogus legal citations into her ruling, despite being alerted to the mistakes in advance.

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NY Judge Doubts Nussbaum-Linked Firms Belong In Ch. 11

By Emily Lever

A New York bankruptcy judge on Friday questioned whether his court was the proper venue to wind down two commercial real estate law firms headed by Mark J. Nussbaum as the debtors sought to ditch an assignment for the benefit of creditors process in New York state court.

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Dems Say DOJ Blocked Bondi On Trump Questions

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats were incensed on Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys who accompanied former Attorney General Pam Bondi to her committee interview stopped her from answering questions about President Donald Trump.

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Civil Rights Icon Clarence B. Jones Dies At 95

By Andrea Keckley

Civil rights icon Clarence B. Jones, a speechwriter and personal attorney to Martin Luther King Jr., died May 22 at an assisted living facility in the Santa Clara County city of Cupertino, California, his family confirmed earlier this week. He was 95.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen the billionaire who donated £5 million ($6.7 million) to Nigel Farage sue Ben Habib, the leader of far-right party Advance UK, for defamation; Mashreqbank bring claims against three subsidiaries of dissolved private equity giant Abraaj Group for commercial fraud; and the property and investment vehicle of the State of Kuwait be targeted by four real estate figures who filed a miscellaneous claim. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Kirkland & Ellis says it's investing a half billion dollars into developing its own artificial intelligence platform to better serve clients. And Law360 looks at the general counsel who is guiding BP through its latest leadership crisis after the company abruptly dismissed its board chair.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Hogan Lovells and Watkins & Eager PLLC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Black Mississippi death row prisoner who argued racial discrimination tainted his jury selection is entitled to habeas corpus relief.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Boies Schiller's Matthew Schwartz

By Sarah Jarvis

Matthew L. Schwartz oscillated among many career aspirations as a kid, from astronaut to mayor of New York. When it was time to head off to college, the man who would go on to handle the prosecution of employees tied to Bernie Madoff and become chair of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP set his sights on science, earning an undergraduate degree in physics.

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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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