Whole Foods Defeats Ex-Worker's Race Bias, Retaliation Suit

By Patrick Hoff

Whole Foods defeated a former employee's lawsuit alleging he was fired because he's Black, with an Illinois federal judge concluding he couldn't overcome the supermarket chain's explanation that he was let go for fudging the time he was at work.

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Roundup Often Got On Gardener Plaintiff's Skin, Jury Hears

By Cara Salvatore

A plaintiff in a Roundup trial in Missouri state court testified Friday that she had the Monsanto Co. herbicide splash and spray on her during hourslong gardening sessions around her Florida home, where she said she is "not a shoe person."

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Amazon, Nitrous Cos. Marketed Gas For Inhaling, Suit Says

By Jonathan Capriel

Nearly 100 consumers are suing Amazon.com Inc. and multiple nitrous oxide manufacturers in Washington state court, alleging the companies marketed candy-flavored gas canisters for recreational inhalation without warning them that they are addictive or could cause paralysis, brain damage and even death.

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Roundup

ERISA Recap: 6 Notable Decisions From September

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Tenth and Seventh circuits issued published opinions in two union retirement disputes, while the Sixth Circuit found that the Commonwealth of Kentucky's lawsuit against pharmacy benefit managers does not belong in state court, citing colorable federal preemption arguments. Here's more on those decisions and three other notable rulings involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act that came down in September.

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Brief

EU, China Make Trade Pledges On Hybrid Vehicles, Minerals

By Dylan Moroses

The European Union and China said Friday that they reached mutual understanding on several key trade matters following a bilateral meeting, including the facilitation of Chinese minerals to EU companies and limiting China's exports of hybrid vehicles to the bloc.

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Amazon Wants Out Of Website Patent Suit, Citing EBay Ruling

By Adam Lidgett

Amazon said Thursday it shouldn't have to face a lawsuit accusing it of infringing a pair of patents on customizing access to websites, telling a Washington federal court that not only are the patents expired, the inventions were not patent eligible in the first place.

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Colo. Milling Co. Fights To Keep $6M Coverage Suit Alive

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado-based flour processor urged a state court not to toss its claims over $6 million in coverage for equipment destroyed in a Texas mill explosion, contending insurance adjusters improperly refused to inspect the company's damaged equipment.

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Campbell's Driver Wage Suit Counterclaim Survives For Now

By George Woolston

A North Carolina federal judge denied a bid to toss Campbell's Co.'s unjust enrichment counterclaim against a proposed class of drivers alleging they were misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees, finding it too early in the litigation to do so.

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Squire Patton, Holland & Knight Report Data Breaches

By Jake Maher

Squire Patton Boggs LLP and Holland & Knight LLP were hit with cyberattacks exposing sensitive information, according to disclosures filed this week.

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Up Next At High Court: Criminal Sentences & Video Privacy

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will close out its October sitting by hearing oral arguments in two cases that ask what level of deference federal district courts should give to commentary interpreting the federal sentencing guidelines, and what purchases are protected under a video consumer privacy statute.

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DOJ Aims To 'Attack Fraud From All Angles' Via New Division

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice's new fraud division has issued fresh guidance on its prosecution methodology, with the division's head directing prosecutors to seize assets before indictments and pursue upward variances in sentencing guidelines in some cases as part of a stated push to use the division's "full arsenal of criminal statutes" in combating fraud.

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Ill. Judge Lays Out Doc Demands For DOJ Misconduct Probe

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge asked the government Friday to turn over six months of communications and certain other records as she investigates in-court inaccuracies Chicago prosecutors offered while prosecuting six anti-immigration protesters, rejecting its request to seal a filing in the process.

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Atty With False AI Citation Filings Ordered To Pay $39K

By Bonnie Eslinger

A New York federal judge who imposed case-terminating sanctions on an attorney who submitted filings with false citations generated by artificial intelligence ordered him on Friday to pay nearly $39,000 to lawyers who uncovered the problematic AI use, noting he had given them the "runaround" when they tried to collect directly.

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Grassley Attacks Dems' Claims Of Rule-Breaking Over Hearing

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, clapped back at Democrats for their accusations that Republicans broke Senate rules during a hearing last week at which former special counsel Jack Smith appeared.

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Calif. Jurists' Atty Tips: 'Emulate Lincoln,' 'Don't Be Boring'

By Bonnie Eslinger

Three current and former Northern California federal judges and one Morrison Foerster LLP partner during a Federal Bar Association panel discussion Thursday gave attorneys tips on "courtroom persuasion," including knowing the judges, keeping things interesting and, like the nation's 16th president, getting quickly to the winning point.

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Brief

Legal Services NYC Gets $2.5M To Build Novel Resource Hub

By Tracey Read

Legal Services NYC announced Friday that it has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the New York State Interest on Lawyer Account Fund to create a first-of-its-kind statewide knowledge-sharing platform to help legal advocates spend more time seeking justice for low-income clients.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

The new federal fraud division is threatening faster action and broader targets under a new enforcement policy announced recently. And the SEC warned shareholder advocacy groups that join forces could face legal scrutiny in the future. 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

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Alston & Bird LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Sixth Circuit overturned a pivotal decision in multidistrict opioid litigation that had dramatically expanded claims against the nation's largest pharmacy benefit managers.

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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 PrivatBank sue its former oligarch owner, building materials provider Kingspan face a €100 million ($112 million) claim over Grenfell Tower cladding and energy giants VaroPreem and Viaro Energy become embroiled in an intellectual property row.

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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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