'You're Not Ready': Judge Warns Tesla, Agency Of Sanctions

By Dorothy Atkins

A California state judge presiding over the California Civil Rights Department's lawsuit alleging Tesla fostered racism at its Fremont factory admonished both parties Friday for violating orders and being unprepared for an upcoming bench trial, telling counsel, "Frankly I'm ready to start lobbing sanctions against every person in this room."

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Ex-Marathon Worker Says AI Caught Her Bosses' Gender Bias

By Gina Kim

A Marathon Engineering environmental scientist has sued her former employer in New Jersey state court, alleging she was fired due to her gender, after an AI assistant that recorded her termination meeting sent her a transcript showing that one of her supervisors said he hoped to replace her with a "relatively strapping young man."

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Ex-Workers Want Firm Sanctioned For Unpaid Arbitration Fees

By Rose Krebs

Former employees of a New Jersey personal injury law firm have asked a state court to revive claims in two complaints, one alleging discrimination and the other asserting that the firm owes overtime pay, arguing the firm should be sanctioned for missing payments that led to arbitration proceedings being terminated.

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Roundup

Employment Authority: NLRB Poised For Precedent Shift

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on how the Senate's confirmation of a third Republican member gives the National Labor Relations Board a cemented majority poised to move quickly on overturning President Joe Biden-era precedent, and how a year after the California Supreme Court's Hohenshelt ruling, employers still face uncertainty over what counts as a willful or grossly negligent late arbitration fee payment.

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Atty Hits Conn. Prosecutors With Pregnancy Bias Suit

By Brian Steele

An attorney who was terminated from the Connecticut prosecutors' office that responds to habeas petitions has brought a federal lawsuit alleging she was isolated, punished, overwhelmed with assignments and then let go because she took maternity leave.

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Smithfield Says It Shouldn't Face Jury In EEOC's Age Bias Suit

By Gina Kim

Smithfield Foods challenged a Georgia magistrate judge's report recommending the meat processor face the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's suit claiming it fired a senior sales employee due to her age, arguing Thursday the report cannot try to dictate how the company should've saved costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Law Student's Race Bias Claim Survives In Kirk Discipline Suit

By Matt Perez

A Texas federal judge on Friday allowed a former Texas Tech law student to proceed with her claim that the university board was discriminatory in disciplining her over comments she made allegedly celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk because non-Black students who spoke about the assassination weren't investigated.

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Immigration Judge Says Anti-DEI Bias Led To Her Ousting

By Elaine Briseño

A Black immigration judge has sued the U.S. Department of Justice for discrimination, alleging her firing was related to anti-DEI sentiments at the agency that overwhelmingly targeted older, nonwhite women.

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Disney Beats Ex-ESPN Worker's COVID Vaccine Suit, For Now

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut federal judge on Friday dismissed a former ESPN remote video operator's lawsuit claiming the company's COVID-19 booster requirement violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and breached his employment contract, determining the worker failed to plausibly allege ESPN or its majority owner, Disney, were entangled with the government.

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Chicago Deputy Corp. Counsel Accused Of Disability Bias

By Lauraann Wood

A deputy corporation counsel in Chicago's legal department has been hit with discrimination claims for allegedly treating a supervising attorney's physical disability and workplace accommodation with "open hostility" before summoning her to a baseless disciplinary meeting in retaliation against her internal complaint.

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Fed. Circ. Overrules Precedent On Veteran Hiring Protections

By Madeline Lyskawa

The Federal Circuit on Friday revived a disabled veteran's challenge to the U.S. Navy's handling of his promotion application, which the agency rejected after mistakenly finding he didn't submit certain documents, and then reviewed only after giving the job to someone else.

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HUD Grant Conditions Void For Failing APA, Judge Rules

By Rae Ann Varona

A Rhode Island federal judge Friday vacated new conditions for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants that nonprofit grantees said unlawfully targeted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, among other things, saying the government failed to sufficiently explain why the conditions were needed.

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$900M Va. Resort Contractors Face Wage Theft Class Action

By Jared Foretek

Carpenters building Kalahari Resorts' $900 million resort in Virginia are accusing general contractor Hensel Phelps and its subcontractor of misclassifying workers as independent contractors and stiffing them on overtime pay in a proposed class action.

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Brief

Colo. Construction Co. Stiffed Workers On OT, Suit Says

By Benjamin Morse

A construction company denied overtime premiums to hourly workers, including a laborer who worked as many as 65 hours a week for straight-time pay, according to a proposed collective action filed in Colorado federal court.

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SAG-AFTRA Plan Members Seek Final OK Of Data Breach Deal

By MJ Koo

Members of the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan have asked a California federal court for final approval of a $950,000 class action settlement resolving claims that a 2024 data breach exposed the personal and medical information of approximately 94,000 plan members.

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Insurer Denies $10M Duty To Recycler In Lead Exposure Case

By Jonathan Capriel

An insurance company is arguing it has no obligation to cover any part of a $279 million insurance pool that battery recycler Gopher Resource LLC promised to folks who filed a class action claiming they suffered lead poisoning from the company's smelter.

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Worker Says Private Jail Co. Fired Him For Aiding Drug Probe

By Carolina Bolado

Private prison operator CoreCivic Inc. terminated an employee for cooperating with a local sheriff's investigation into drug smuggling at a Florida detention center, according to a suit filed Friday in federal court.

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Employee-generated content is rapidly becoming a popular marketing strategy, as illustrated by Starbucks' new TikTok program, but it raises several legal risks for employers, including wage and hour exposure, federal disclosure obligations, and intellectual property concerns, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

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Law Firms See Revenue, Demand Grow In First Half Of 2026

By Anna Sanders

Despite rising expenses driven by artificial intelligence and return to office mandates, the legal industry is performing well in 2026, with U.S. law firms recording a double-digit jump in revenue and strong growth in demand so far this year, according to new survey results from Citi Global Wealth at Work's Law Firm Group.

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Morgan & Morgan Sues Fla. Bar Over Celebrity Ad Ban

By Carolina Bolado

Personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan PA has sued the Florida Bar, claiming a bar rule that bans any use of a celebrity's voice or image in lawyer advertising violates the First Amendment.

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3 NY Injury Firms Get Uber's RICO Suit Tossed

By Lauren Berg

A New York federal judge threw out Uber Technologies Inc.'s lawsuit accusing three personal injury law firms of conspiring with physicians and exploiting passengers to pursue fake or exaggerated injury claims in order to strongarm settlement payouts from the ride-hailing giant.

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Nussbaum-Linked Firms' Ch. 11s Tossed For Bad Faith

By Ben Zigterman

A New York bankruptcy judge has dismissed the Chapter 11 cases of two commercial real estate law firms headed by Mark J. Nussbaum, finding their petitions were filed in bad faith and that the cases instead belonged in an assignment for the benefit of creditors process in New York state court.

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Chattah Can't Serve As Acting Nevada US Atty, 9th Circ. Says

By Emma Cueto

The Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that Nevada's top prosecutor was not put in place lawfully and was barred from overseeing the criminal cases giving rise to the appeal, the latest state where courts have shut down attempts by the Trump administration to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

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Clifford Chance Pushes To Send Clawback Suit To Arbitration

By Ryan Boysen

Clifford Chance LLP wants a high-profile partner pay dispute sent to arbitration, accusing two ex-partners who claim they're facing a $6 million clawback demand of "gamesmanship" by filing suit in New York federal court.

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NYCBA Cautions Against Recording Nonclient Calls

By Emily Sawicki

New York City attorneys who have been granted permission may ethically use artificial intelligence to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with nonclients, according to the latest ethics guidance by the New York City Bar Association Monday, which added that just because they can doesn't mean they should.

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