John Deere Inks $99M Deal In Farmers' Right-To-Repair Suit

By Celeste Bott

John Deere has agreed to pay $99 million to a putative class of farmers to resolve claims that it limits competition for farm equipment repairs by preventing unaffiliated shops from acquiring the necessary tools, and will also provide injunctive relief that would allow those independent repair providers to be able to diagnose and fix John Deere-brand agricultural equipment.

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11th Circ. Reinstates Ex-Pepsi Worker's Title VII Race Bias Suit

By Gina Kim

The Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday revived a Black former Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. employee's suit alleging he was fired for complaining about racist harassment, saying the lower court relied too heavily on a long-established legal framework for analyzing workplace bias evidence when dismissing his case.

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Keurig's K-Cup Pods Are Largely Unrecyclable, Suit Says

By Gina Kim

Keurig Dr Pepper was hit with a proposed class action in California federal court Tuesday alleging that it misleads consumers into believing that its single-serve plastic coffee pods are recyclable despite the fact that most recycling centers in the country don't accept them due to their size, irregular shape and other characteristics.

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$58M Verdict Against Givaudan Upheld In Toxic Exposure Suit

By Mike Curley

A Missouri appeals court on Tuesday refused to throw out a $58 million judgment against Givaudan Flavors Corp. in a suit from a worker who alleged that exposure to its chemicals gave him an incurable lung disease, rejecting the company's argument that his experts were wrongly allowed to testify.

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Brief

Chipotle Settles Suit Over Pandemic Change Shortfalls

By Carla Baranauckas

Chipotle Mexican Grill has reached a settlement with a customer who accused the chain of shortchanging cash‑paying patrons during the 2020 COVID‑19 coin shortage, according to a joint status report filed in Pennsylvania federal court.

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Chipotle Worker In Seattle Alleges Scheduling Law Violations

By Ben Adlin

Restaurant chain Chipotle violated two Seattle employment laws by failing to provide workers with adequate notice of scheduling adjustments and withholding additional pay owed to those affected by late scheduling changes, according to a proposed class action in Washington state court.

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2nd Circ. Backs Cheese Producer In Whey Contract Battle

By Brian Steele

A nutritional supplement maker forfeited an argument that its whey supplier was required to engage in ongoing sale negotiations by failing to raise it in the lower court, the Second Circuit ruled in upholding a summary judgment win for the world's largest producer of mozzarella cheese.

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Hormel Foods Faces Class Cert. Bid In Retirement Fund Suit

By Sydney Price

An ex-worker for Hormel Foods Corp. asked a Minnesota federal judge to certify a class in his federal benefits lawsuit alleging the company failed to remove high-cost investment options with poor return rates from its $1.2 billion in employee retirement plans.

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Wash. Panel Nixes Insurer's Gordon Rees Malpractice Claims

By Rachel Riley

A Washington Court of Appeals panel said a Great American insurance unit can't inherit an equipment manufacturer's legal malpractice claims against Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP and Sinars Slowikowski LLC because of "potential conflict" between the insurer and manufacturer in the underlying dispute over a climber's fall.

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Texas Panel Keeps Ex-GC's Suit Over Unpaid Bonuses Alive

By José Luis Martínez

A Texas appeals court on Tuesday kept in play a suit by a dairy equipment manufacturer's former general counsel over unpaid bonuses, holding that updated anti-SLAPP rules applied to newly added claims in the suit and that the company failed to meet procedural requirements in trying to dismiss them.

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Sushi Chef Fights Restaurant's Bid For Quick Win In OT Suit

By Benjamin Morse

A sushi chef pushed back against a restaurant's contention that he is a "serial filer" of "baseless" wage suits whose experience in the restaurant industry precludes his wage claims, telling a Connecticut federal court that overtime liability turns on whether an employee performed uncompensated work, not prior experience.

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NJ Food Biz Owner Fights Sanctions Bid Over Death Claims

By Jake Maher

A New Jersey businessman suing the widow of a former business partner in a food industry contract dispute denied that he insinuated that his opponent played a role in her husband's death, saying the statements in question support his case.

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Frozen Eels Must Be Released By FDA, Food Importer Says

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wrongly and arbitrarily blocked four shipments of frozen roasted eels from China — and unlawfully pulled back another — that match other approved shipments, an importer told a North Carolina federal district court.

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Brief

Squires Panel To Rehear Herd Management Patent Invalidation

By Elliot Weld

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has convened a rehearing panel to reconsider whether a Patent Trial and Review Board decision that invalidated an animal management patent had done so properly.

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Fat Brands Landlords Want More Info On Lease Sales

By Rick Archer

Mall owner Simon Property Group has joined with other landlords of Fat Brands' eateries to tell a Texas bankruptcy court that the restaurant group's proposed Chapter 11 sale procedures don't give the property owners sufficient input into the sale of their leases.

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Pivotal 6th Circ. Ruling Threatens Decades Of NLRB Decisions

The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Brown-Forman v. National Labor Relations Board fundamentally challenged the NLRB's long-standing practice of establishing policies through adjudication rather than formal rulemaking, giving employers and unions a new avenue to procedurally attack the vast majority of its rules, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

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Pregnant DLA Piper Atty Recounts Firing: 'This Feels Wrong'

By Pete Brush

A former associate who claims DLA Piper unlawfully fired her after she announced she was pregnant told a Manhattan federal jury Tuesday that she got positive feedback as she worked with large corporate clients and was "shocked" when she was terminated.

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Blanche Says Only Trump Knows Why Bondi's Leaving DOJ

By Courtney Bublé

Todd Blanche said on Tuesday he is now acting attorney general and no one, beyond the president, knows why Pam Bondi is out and he is in.

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Calif. Lawmakers Advance Bill To Curtail PE Role In Litigation

By Emily Sawicki

A California bill to ban corporate investors from influencing litigation strategy is heading to the state Senate, backed by bipartisan support from the Assembly.

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Top DOJ Immigration Atty Faces Ethics Complaint

By Jack Karp

The head of the U.S. Department of Justice's immigration litigation office has lied to judges, disobeyed court orders and failed to stop attorneys he supervises from engaging in misconduct in high-profile immigration cases, according to an ethics complaint filed Tuesday.

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Analysis

Habeas Orders Sharpen As Due Process Concerns Mount

By Britain Eakin

Federal judges are issuing increasingly detailed, critical and decisive orders for habeas relief in immigration cases, stepping in as what immigration experts say is a last resort check on a system viewed as having crumbling due process safeguards.

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DOJ Pushes To End Former Immigration Judge's Bias Suit

By Jake Maher

The U.S. Department of Justice moved to dismiss a former Ohio immigration judge's discrimination suit in D.C. federal court this week, calling the complaint "heavy on conclusory statements and speculation and light on allegations of fact."

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Calif. Atty Apologizes, Blames OpenCase For False Citations

By Matt Perez

A California attorney has filed a response to an order for potential sanctions over his alleged use of artificial intelligence, which resulted in false citations, saying the hallucinations appeared in a later draft after using OpenCase to perform a cite check.

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Audio

Approach The Bench: Judge Robinson On Community Court

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

Judge Devin Robinson's courtroom at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn looks and feels very different from the courthouse archetype.

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States, DC Back NY AG James In DOJ Probe Appeal

By Emily Sawicki

Backed by amici including the attorneys general of 20 states and the District of Columbia, New York Attorney General Letitia James is fighting the U.S. Department of Justice's bid to reopen an investigation into her office launched by a federal prosecutor found to have been serving unlawfully.

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