Walmart Hit With $23M Verdict For Wash. Worker Retaliation

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal jury has found Walmart on the hook for retaliating against a former store employee who claimed she was fired for standing up for colleagues who were sexually harassed by another co-worker, awarding the plaintiff $23 million in damages.

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DOJ's Pot Shift Leaves Key Questions For Cannabis Industry

By Sam Reisman

The Trump administration's recent moves to relax federal restrictions on marijuana through the administrative process will have unclear ramifications for all industry players unless Congress steps in to rewrite cannabis law, attorneys heard Wednesday.

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DoorDash Sued For Kicking Off Seattle Drivers Without Notice

By Ben Adlin

A former DoorDash driver is accusing the delivery platform of violating a Seattle ordinance by "deactivating" driver accounts without providing proper notice or justification, claiming in a proposed class action that the company abruptly cut off his access to delivery offers despite a sterling service record.

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Buyers Say Chobani Misleads With '20g Protein' Yogurt Label

By Mike Curley

A proposed class of yogurt buyers is suing Chobani LLC in New York federal court, alleging it inflates the serving size on the 32-ounce packages of its yogurt so it can claim it has "20g protein" per serving, in violation of federal regulations.

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Grocery Chain Says Aon Put $40M In Opioid Coverage At Risk

By Gianna Ferrarin

Supermarket chain Giant Eagle on Wednesday hit insurance brokerage firm Aon with claims in Pennsylvania federal court that it jeopardized $40 million in coverage allegedly owed to the chain for settlement and defense costs in opioid litigation.

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Amazon Hit With OT Suit By Ex-Assistant Manager

By Benjamin Morse

Amazon Fresh misclassified salaried assistant store managers as overtime-exempt while assigning them routine store work, according to a proposed collective action filed by a former manager in Washington federal court Wednesday.

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Goodwin Steers Tripadvisor On $700M Sale Of TheFork

By Al Barbarino

Goodwin Procter LLP is advising Tripadvisor Inc. on its agreement to sell TheFork, an online restaurant reservation and management platform in Europe, to American Express for $700 million. 

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Aquarion Cleared To Borrow $214M, Some For PFAS Work

By Aaron Keller

Aquarion Water Co. of Connecticut can take on nearly $214 million in new debt, including $200 million through unsecured bonds and nearly $14 million in safe drinking water loans, some of which are earmarked for PFAS "forever chemical" treatment and mitigation systems, Connecticut's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority decided Wednesday.

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Harvest Sherwood Gets OK On $150M Replacement DIP

By Alex Wittenberg

Defunct food distributor Harvest Sherwood secured a Texas bankruptcy judge's approval on Wednesday to take on $150 million in new Chapter 11 financing and set up bidding procedures for its exit funding, defeating an objection from a litigation finance firm.

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Opinion

Rule Of Law Requires Gov't Engagement With Bar, Not Retreat

A federal agency's absence from national and local bar conferences, most recently illustrated by the U.S. Department of Justice's withdrawal from a New York City Bar Association white collar conference, disserves the bar, the government lawyers themselves and, ultimately, the administration of justice, says Muhammad Faridi at Linklaters.

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Full Fed. Circ. To Hear Immigration Judges' Firing Challenge

By Ganesh Setty

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday agreed to conduct en banc review over the firing of two immigration judges, after the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled that they constituted inferior officers who are subject to at-will removal by the president.

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No Discipline For DOJ Atty's 'Lapse Of Judgment' In ICE Case

By Emily Sawicki

A Rhode Island federal prosecutor who knowingly withheld information about a detainee's criminal history at the behest of immigration enforcement, leading to an "unfounded attack" against a federal judge by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the detainee's release, violated his duty of candor but will not face discipline, the district's chief judge determined.

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Trump Halts Clayton Director Hearing Over Blue-Slip Dispute

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump directed Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not to appear for his confirmation hearing Wednesday on his nomination to be director of national intelligence, in part over a blue-slip issue.

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Maya Kowalski Sues Ex-Atty Over Fees, Funding Loan

By Carolina Bolado

Maya Kowalski, the subject of the Netflix documentary "Take Care of Maya," filed a malpractice suit against her former attorney on Wednesday, accusing him of charging excessive fees and improperly orchestrating an advance funding loan after winning a $213 million judgment.

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Sanctioned IP Atty Tells Fed. Circ. 'Integrity' On The Line

By Elliot Weld

An attorney who was sanctioned in a trade dress infringement case due to what a judge said were his repeated misrepresentations has asked the Federal Circuit to lift the penalties against him and his client, saying his "professional and personal integrity, and my family, depends on it."

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Bosch Receives First DOJ Declination Under New Policy

By Sarah Jarvis

German technology company Bosch on Wednesday became the first company to avoid criminal prosecution under a new U.S. Department of Justice enforcement policy after it cooperated with the federal government and agreed to pay $36 million to settle allegations it improperly exported technology products to sanctioned Chinese company Huawei.

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