McDonald's Used Deloitte Tool To Fix Menu Prices, Suit Says

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

McDonald's Corp. and Deloitte Consulting have been hit with a proposed class action alleging the fast food chain's internal pricing system used to set the cost of each item is based on confidential transaction data obtained from ostensibly competing McDonald's franchises and company-owned restaurants.

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Costco Beats Customers' 100% Agave Tequila Labeling Suit

By Rachel Riley

A Seattle federal judge on Friday shot down consumers' proposed class action accusing Costco of selling Kirkland Signature tequila falsely labeled as "100% de Agave," deferring to Mexico's purview over tequila regulation and citing a Mexican government body's rejection of similar adulteration claims.

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Stop & Shop 'Cheap Trick' Hides App Order Fees, Suit Says

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Massachusetts resident said grocery chain Stop & Shop adds "sneaky fees" to online pickup orders at checkout, claiming in a new complaint that the tactic violates the state's price transparency regulations.

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Conn. Judge Again Bars Wrongful Death Claims In Cookie Suit

By Emily Field

A Connecticut state court judge has stopped wrongful death claims from proceeding against grocery store chain Stew Leonard's, its CEO and several employees over a professional ballet dancer's allergy death from eating an allegedly mislabeled cookie, reiterating a previous ruling.

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Quarterly IPO Volume Fell Short Of Expectations Amid Delays

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Third-quarter capital markets activity in the U.S. proved to be robust with a solid string of initial public offerings, but capital markets attorneys say it did not fully meet expectations due to delays of notable IPOs caused by market uncertainty.

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5th Circ. Revives Snapper Switch Suit Against Upscale Resto

By Rae Ann Varona

The Fifth Circuit Friday revived a proposed class action that accused a historic fine-dining Mississippi restaurant of scheming to sell inexpensive foreign fish while pricing them as more expensive premium local fish, saying in a published opinion that a diner plausibly alleged the fish mislabeling was "widespread and routine."

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Target Can't Nix Wash. Workers' Unpaid Walking Time Claims

By Rachel Riley

Target must face proposed class claims that it shortchanged distribution center workers on wages for minutes spent passing through security checkpoints and walking to their departments each shift, a Washington federal judge said Friday, finding the plaintiffs had shown the time qualified as "on duty."

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Whataburger Can't Arbitrate Ex-Worker's Sex Assault Suit

By Y. Peter Kang

A Texas appellate court has declined to send a former Whataburger employee's lawsuit to arbitration, finding that the allegations of unwanted sexual touching trigger a federal law that bars arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment claims.

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Analysis

11th Circ. ERISA Exhaustion Shift Furthers Textualist Trend

By Kellie Mejdrich

An Eleventh Circuit decision overruling decades-old precedent that took a strict view of when federal benefits law claims could be brought in court continues a trend of courts excising judicially imposed rules not contained in statutory text, attorneys say.

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Ill. Judge Issues Injunction Against Pizzeria In TM Row

By Adam Lidgett

An Illinois federal judge has said family-owned pizzeria Ledo's Inc. can only use its mark within a certain radius of its restaurant, while also limiting how it accepts delivery and shipping orders.

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San Benito Foods Deal Gets Early OK, With Notice Concerns

By Jonathan Capriel

A California federal judge has given her initial blessing to a nearly $1 million deal that would end a Monterey Bay-area township's lawsuit against a tomato cannery that claimed the cannery's noxious odors diminished residents' property values.

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Texas Court Revives REIT's Claims Over Short Seller Article

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas appellate court has partially revived a suit by a farmland-centered real estate investment trust against a Texas hedge fund that allegedly helped pen a defamatory article while short selling the REIT, saying the REIT pled valid business disparagement claims.

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Analysis

Could A Criminal Sentencing Case Upend Loper Bright?

By Katie Buehler

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is concerned that a ruling instructing trial courts to defer to the U.S. Sentencing Commission's interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines could blow a "pretty big hole" in the court's recent rejection of deference doctrines. His colleagues, however, don't appear as perturbed.

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Transfer Pricing Analyses May Apply To Tariff Refunds Claims

Both plaintiffs and defendants in consumer class actions over tariff refunds should examine transfer pricing analyses, which can offer contemporaneous evidence as to how much of a tariff was borne in the U.S. by the importer or consumers rather than absorbed earlier in the supply chain, say economists at The Brattle Group.

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Womble Bond Reports Data Breach Exposing Personal Info

By Jake Maher

Womble Bond Dickinson was hit with a data breach in August that revealed personal information to an unauthorized third party, the firm said in a notice with the Massachusetts state government this week.

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Suing The Trump Admin Can Have Massive Impact, Attys Say

By Bonnie Eslinger

Lawyers representing clients against the federal government spoke Friday about the challenges and rewards of such litigation in the Trump era, with plaintiff-side powerhouse Elizabeth Cabraser pointing to the potential for massive impact, including one case in which she successfully got more than a billion dollars in grant funding reinstated.

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Dems Press Kirkland Again For Details Of $125M Trump Deal

By Courtney Bublé

A trio of congressional Democrats once again accused Kirkland & Ellis LLP of subverting their oversight requests into the $125 million deal the firm cut with the Trump administration last year.

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Brief

Cooley Reportedly Matches Milbank Pay Scale Starting In '27

By Matt Perez

Cooley LLP will reportedly increase U.S. associate base compensation in line with the pay scale set by Milbank LLP in June beginning on Jan. 1.

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Google Class Attys Get $22.7M Despite Hourly Rate Rebuke

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has approved Google's $68 million class action settlement to resolve a long-running privacy suit, including class counsel's requested $22.67 million fee award, commending the parties' hard work while also criticizing a plaintiffs attorney's "patently unreasonable" proposed $3,000 hourly rate.

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Google Users' $85M Fee Ask Stalls Over 'Utterly Lacking' Bill

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge on Thursday rejected an $85 million attorney fee request following a $700 million settlement in a consumer-led case against Google, ruling that counsel's submitted billing records are "utterly lacking in information demonstrating what work was done and for what purpose," while granting leave to amend the request.

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Analysis

Expect These Post-Midterm Probes If The Hill Changes Hands

By Phillip Bantz

The top investigative priorities of a potentially Democratic-controlled Congress are coming into sharper focus with the midterms weeks away and could impact an array of companies and individuals in technology, finance and energy, experts say.

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Fla. High Court Says 'COVID Brain' Can't Excuse Atty Blunder

By David Minsky

The Florida Supreme Court found an attorney guilty of misconduct over his lack of candor when questioned about an interaction with his own witness in a paternity trial, saying there's no way "COVID brain" caused him to violate a sequestration rule and lie to a judge. 

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Attys Can Still Protect Voting Rights During The Midterms

By Cara Bayles

With the midterm elections approaching, a coalition of local and national nonprofits are seeking volunteers, especially lawyers, to safeguard the vote during an election with more states in play as battlegrounds and growing anxiety about federal interference in local elections.

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Survey Of Ill. Attys Reveals Mental Health Struggles, Stigma

By Celeste Bott

A survey of nearly 7,000 Illinois lawyers found roughly 20% rated their mental health as fair or poor, according to an Illinois Supreme Court commission report documenting the toll of workplace stress on the state's attorneys and judges, their alcohol and drug use, and barriers to getting them care.

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Balancing The Scales: Criminal Appeals, Sentencing Rules

By Orlando Lorenzo

The Second Circuit has been ordered to take another look at a murder-for-hire conviction in light of the high court's new miscarriage-of-justice exception for criminal appeal waivers, and the top courts in Pennsylvania and Michigan will look at the retroactivity of new sentencing rules. Here, Law360 highlights access to justice stories arising from litigation, verdicts and judgments you may have missed.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Schlichter Bogard LLC leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the full Eleventh Circuit overturned decades-old precedent that took a strict view of when federal benefits law claims could be brought in court.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The top investigative priorities of a potentially Democratic-controlled Congress are coming into sharper focus with the midterms just weeks away and could impact companies in various sectors. In the meantime, one BigLaw firm formed a board to oversee the use of artificial intelligence and evaluate proposals from its practice groups and sectors. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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