Calif. Appeals Court Nixes Arbitration Of Ex-Tech's PAGA Suit

By Benjamin Morse

California workers can pursue representative claims under the state's Private Attorneys General Act without bringing individual claims, even after the law's 2024 amendments, a California appeals court ruled, rejecting an agricultural equipment company's bid to force a former employee into arbitration.

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Ashley Furniture Must Face Fired Worker's Age Bias Claims

By David Minsky

A Florida federal judge on Tuesday allowed age discrimination claims to proceed against Ashley Furniture, but tossed a wrongful discharge count alleged by a former worker, finding their employment was dictated by terms of an independent contract. 

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5th Circ. Revives Ex-Union Pacific Conductor's ADA Case

By Grace Elletson

The Fifth Circuit reinstated a suit from an ex-conductor who said Union Pacific wouldn't let him return to his job after passing a color vision test, rejecting the company's claim that he had waited too long to lodge his claims after being excluded from a similar class action.

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JPMorgan Seeks Sanctions In Ex-Banker's Bias Suit

By Katryna Perera

A former JPMorgan Chase employee's claims of racial discrimination and sexual harassment were completely false and manufactured, JPMorgan and the employee's former supervisor said in motions urging a New York federal judge to levy sanctions against Chirayu Rana for his "fraudulent litigation."

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UCLA Says It Helps, Not Hurts, Jewish Staff In DOJ Case

By Madeline Lyskawa

The federal government's lawsuit accusing the University of California, Los Angeles, of systematically discriminating against its Jewish and Israeli employees ignores significant steps the university has taken to make sure those same employees thrive, UCLA said in a motion to dismiss.

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IHOP Franchisee Settles Ex-Employee's Disability Bias Suit

By Patrick Hoff

The former training and development director for an IHOP franchisee has wrapped up his lawsuit alleging he was fired for missing work after his manager promised to tell human resources he'd entered an alcohol treatment program, according to a filing Tuesday in Georgia federal court.

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NJ Courts Office Says City Was Former Judge's Employer

By George Woolston

The New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts urged a state court to toss a former municipal judge's retaliation claims, arguing that the office is not the judge's employer and that his suit lacks facts to support the claims.

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Michigan Civil Rights Panel OKs Changes To Exemption Bids

By Melanie Dorsey

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission unanimously approved a resolution Monday directing the state's Civil Rghts Department to clarify procedures for seeking exemptions from Michigan's anti-discrimination law, including situations in which religious freedoms and other constitutional protections may conflict with state civil rights requirements.

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World Cup Workers' Attys Deserve Sanctions, Colo. Cos. Say

By Rachel Konieczny

Companies that managed the construction of stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar urged a Colorado federal judge Tuesday to sanction opposing counsel in Filipino workers' forced labor lawsuit against the companies, alleging the workers' attorneys took "shortcuts" that resulted in wasted legal costs for the companies.

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Ga. Children's Hospital System Hit With Time-Shaving Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A major Georgia pediatric healthcare system rounded clock-in and clock-out times to exclude work performed before and after scheduled shifts, according to a proposed class and collective action filed in Georgia federal court.

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Union Fights To Preserve Challenge To Texas A&M 'Woke' Ban

By Emily Brill

A Texas federal judge should preserve claims that Texas A&M is violating the First Amendment by banning "woke" teachings on race, gender and sexual orientation, a professors' union argued, saying the university system's argument in favor of the censorship policy violates U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

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Deal In NFL 'Race-Norming' Benefits Suit Gets Final OK

By Grace Elletson

A Maryland federal judge gave the final green light Tuesday on a settlement that says an NFL disability benefits plan will reassess former players' cognitive health to resolve claims that it discriminated against nonwhite players by adjusting them to a lower cognitive baseline.

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NC Health Plan, Atrium Settle Spat Over Cost-Sharing Program

By Hayley Fowler

The North Carolina state health plan said on Tuesday that it will add Atrium Health to its list of in-network providers next year after a public showdown over the nonprofit health system's exclusion from the plan's new preferred provider program.

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Ga. Panel Lets Lyft Escape Liability In Driver Assault Suit

By Y. Peter Kang

A Georgia appellate court ruled Tuesday that Lyft was properly dismissed from a suit by a passenger who was badly beaten by his driver, ruling that reports of unsafe driving and suspected drug or alcohol use did not make the driver's violent assault reasonably foreseeable.

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Weyerhaeuser Targeted In New Suit Over Wash. Mill Implosion

By Ben Adlin

The families of two workers killed in a May chemical tank rupture at a Washington paper mill filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Washington state court against plant operator Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. LLC and former owner Weyerhaeuser Co., alleging negligence in the tank's installation and use.

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Mallet Wins Injunction On Release Of Baking Product Secrets

By Elliot Weld

Baking product company Mallet & Co. was granted a permanent injunction Tuesday to stop a rival from accessing or disclosing its trade secrets after a federal judge ordered the rival to pay $11.4 million in legal bills for sharing copied goods in publicly accessible court documents.

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Accenture's FCA Deal Shows DEI Risks For Gov't Contractors

The U.S. Department of Justice recently settled allegations that Accenture falsely certified compliance with antidiscrimination requirements in its federal contracts, underscoring how diversity goals can become a False Claims Act issue when the company requests payment from the government, say attorneys at Bass Berry.

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Judge Hellerstein, Gruff Moderator Of Major Cases, Dies At 92

By Pete Brush

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a former litigator and sometimes impatient Manhattan federal jurist who presided over decades of high-profile cases that often came under close appellate scrutiny, died Wednesday at the age of 92.

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Texan Claims Austin Firm Hasn't Alerted Him To Data Breach

By Andrea Keckley

Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, an Austin, Texas-based law firm focused on collecting debts and taxes for public-sector clients, failed to protect its clients' personal information from a data breach, the plaintiff in a proposed class action claimed in Texas federal court Tuesday.

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BakerHostetler Malpractice Case To Expand With RICO Claim

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia federal judge has allowed a trustee who has accused BakerHostetler and an Atlanta-based attorney of legal malpractice to file an amended complaint after the trustee asked to add claims of Georgia RICO Act violations.

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Weil To Wind Down As Top Attorneys Abandon Firm

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Alex Wittenberg and Aebra Coe

Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the restructuring powerhouse that led Lehman Brothers, Enron and General Motors through bankruptcy, told Law360 Pulse Wednesday that the firm is preparing to wind down operations.

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NJ Atty Mishandled Property Damage Dispute, Court Told

By Hope Patti

A man told a New Jersey federal court that he was forced to pay excessive and avoidable fees to an attorney hired to represent him in a property damage dispute after the attorney mishandled the case by failing to advise him to tender the claim to his homeowners insurer.

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BigLaw Tip Middleman To Admit Role In $3.5M Trading Scheme

By Chris Villani

An alleged middleman in a sweeping scheme to trade off of deal information stolen from major law firms has agreed to plead guilty and potentially faces a prison term of nearly a decade, according to a plea agreement filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court.

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Mich. Judge Weighs Toshiba Legal Bills Discovery Fight

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether she needs to review specific objections to DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co.'s multimillion-dollar attorney fee request before deciding whether Toshiba Corp. must disclose its own legal bills and litigation expenses following a nearly $394.4 million jury verdict over a botched power plant overhaul.

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Proskauer, Reddit Attys Called To Testify In Data-Scraping Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A New York federal judge on Wednesday called for live testimony from two Proskauer Rose LLP attorneys and Reddit's deputy general counsel as he weighs the law firm's bid to represent Perplexity AI in a lawsuit from Reddit, the firm's former client, over alleged data scraping.

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SC Gov.'s Counsel Still In The Running For Federal Judgeship

By Courtney Bublé

The chief legal counsel for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is "being actively considered" for a federal judgeship, according to the White House, but it's not a done deal yet.

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