Trump Taps 3rd Surgeon General Pick, Drops Casey Means

By Mark Payne

President Donald Trump nominated his third pick to be surgeon general on Thursday, withdrawing consideration for Casey Means after her confirmation stalled in the Senate. 

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Gov't Pauses Medicaid Data Use For ICE Amid Injunction Fight

By Ben Adlin

The Trump administration agreed at a hearing Thursday to temporarily halt the use of 22 states' Medicaid data for immigration enforcement purposes until a San Francisco federal judge clarifies the boundaries of an injunction that the largely Democratic-controlled states had accused the government of flouting.

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Jury Begins Mulling If Doctors Are Liable For Fatal Overdose

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A Philadelphia jury on Thursday began deliberations in a lawsuit accusing two doctors of enabling a 26-year-old man with chronic back pain to become hooked on opioid painkillers and fatally overdose.

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Trump Says Fixed-Price Procurement Deals Will Be Default

By Madeline Lyskawa

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Thursday making fixed-price contracts the default for federal contracting, as a part of an effort to tackle "unpredictable costs, bloated overhead, and weak performance incentives," which the president attributed to cost-reimbursement contracts.

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Early Release Denied For Pharmacist With Blood Cancer

By Susan Smiley

A former pharmacist on Wednesday was denied an early release from his 35-month sentence for his role in a $5.6 million fraudulent prescription scheme, as a Michigan federal judge said the Bureau of Prisons was providing sufficient treatment for the pharmacist's blood cancer.

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Fla. Judge Denies FTC Sanctions In Fake Health Benefits Suit

By David Minsky

A Florida federal judge Wednesday denied the Federal Trade Commission's request for sanctions against two siblings accused of destroying evidence in a lawsuit claiming they sold $91 million of fake Affordable Care Act plans, saying it's "too much of a leap" to find they violated a temporary restraining order.

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Debt Collectors Owe Charity Care Notice, Wash. Justices Say

By Lauren Berg

Just as hospitals must inform low-income patients they might qualify for financial assistance, so too must agencies collecting on medical debt, the Washington Supreme Court clarified Thursday.

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Mental Health Co. Can't Undo Jury Verdict In NC Wage Suit

By MJ Koo

A mental healthcare company's bid to throw out a jury verdict finding it willfully violated federal and state wage laws fell short because its post-trial arguments lacked supporting evidence, a North Carolina federal judge ruled Thursday.

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Express Scripts, Cigna Seek End To Ohio PBM Price Suit

By Mark Payne

After the Sixth Circuit ruled that a legal dispute between Ohio and a group of pharmacy benefit managers belongs in federal court, Express Scripts and Cigna now want dismissed the lawsuit accusing them of participating in an antitrust conspiracy that is driving up prescription drug prices. 

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Roundup

NC Biz Court Bulletin: Corporate Raid, MV Realty Settlement

By Hayley Fowler

A major case settled in the North Carolina Business Court in April as new lawsuits emerged, including a complaint by health information technology company IQVIA Holdings Inc. accusing its former top brass of orchestrating a corporate raid and defecting to a competitor. In case you missed this story and others, here are the highlights.

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Medtronic User Says Data Hack Exposed 9M Client Records

By Hailey Konnath

A Medtronic customer filed a proposed class action Thursday accusing the medical device company of failing to safeguard more than 9 million records containing personally identifiable information — including health information — exposed in a data breach earlier this month.

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Acadia Investors Get Final OK For $179M Deal, Atty Fees

By Katryna Perera

A Tennessee federal judge has given final approval to a $179 million settlement between investors and Acadia Healthcare Co. Inc., ending a class action that alleged the company misled investors about the strength of its U.K. operations.

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Brief

Judge Gives $27M Settlement Final Nod In DuPont PFAS Case

By Jonathan Capriel

A New York federal judge has granted final approval to a $27 million deal between DuPont and the Hoosick Falls residents who claimed the company's chemicals contaminated their drinking water for years, damaging their property values and leaving toxic levels of "forever chemicals" in their blood.

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Kroger's Health Plan Tobacco Fee Shirks ERISA, Suit Says

By Grace Elletson

Supermarket giant Kroger violated federal benefits law by requiring workers to pay an extra fee through their health plan if they used tobacco while failing to give them a fair opportunity to avoid the charge, according to a proposed class action filed in Ohio federal court.

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Immigrant Minors Lose Bid To Block Repeat Sponsor Vetting

By Lauren Berg

A Washington, D.C., federal judge Thursday refused to block a Trump administration policy requiring that previously approved custodians reapply to sponsor "unaccompanied" children while the minors are held in government facilities, finding that the plaintiffs have not established the government is likely acting contrary to law.

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Brief

Feds Appeal Order Freezing CDC Childhood Vaccine Changes

By Carolyn Muyskens

The Trump administration said late Wednesday that it's appealing a court order that stopped its pared-down childhood vaccine schedule from going into effect.

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Carbon Health Says It Needs Another $11M In DIP Financing

By Emily Lever

Carbon Health Technologies said it needs another $11 million in debtor-in-possession financing to bring its loan total to $30.5 million, as it is on the verge of running out of money to continue operating its business in Chapter 11.

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Goodwin, Davis Polk Lead Avalyn's Upsized $300M IPO

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Biotechnology firm Avalyn Pharma Inc. began trading publicly Thursday after raising $300 million in an upsized initial public offering.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

A pair of door manufacturers ended a landmark private merger challenge, state enforcers are gearing up for a potential Live Nation breakup bid following a crucial jury win, and a separate group of states and DirecTV are challenging Nexstar's $6.2 billion deal for rival broadcaster Tegna.

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Previewing FDA National Priority Vouchers In Psychedelics EO

President Donald Trump's recent executive order on psychedelic drug access represents a watershed moment in federal drug policy, but its significance lies in two distinct regulatory pathways, the first being the Commissioner's National Priority Vouchers, which offer a significant opportunity to compress U.S. Food and Drug Administration review, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell and Odette Hauke at Odette Alina.

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Why Product-Based Public Nuisance Claims May Be Waning

The Maryland Supreme Court's recent decision in Express Scripts v. Anne Arundel County is the latest in a national trend of rulings rejecting product-based public nuisance claims — but other forms of government litigation against companies that allegedly increase the cost of public services are likely to continue, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

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What's At Stake For Employers In Fight Over Visa Pause

For employers that rely on foreign talent, the Trump administration’s suspension of immigrant visa issuance for the nationals of 75 countries is creating practical problems, and a recently filed lawsuit challenging the pause could determine whether consular processing, for some, ceases to be an individualized process, says attorney Lisa Eisenberg.

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Series

Playing Magic: The Gathering Makes Me A Better Lawyer

The competitive card game Magic: The Gathering offers me a training ground for the strategic thinking skills crucial to litigation, challenging me to adapt to oft-updated rules, analyze text as complicated as any statute and anticipate my opponent’s next moves, says Christopher Smith at Lash Goldberg.

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Q&A

How Paul Clement Does It All

By Katie Buehler

For most lawyers, getting to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court is a once-in-a-lifetime event, but for a select few, it's a common occurrence. Clement & Murphy PLLC name partner Paul Clement is one of those lawyers. 

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Don't 'Throw' Young Attys Under Bus, Judge Warns Musk Atty

By Dorothy Atkins

The California federal judge presiding over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion criticized Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff on Friday for eliciting "waste of time" trial testimony into Musk's $97.4 billion acquisition bid, warning Toberoff he "shouldn't throw young lawyers under the bus" by not quickly acknowledging his role.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California federal jury cleared Armistice Capital and two of its executives of class action claims that it pumped and dumped $250 million in Vaxart stock during the COVID-19 pandemic and violated federal securities law with insider trading.

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Whistleblower Says DOJ Rushed SPLC Indictment

By Courtney Bublé

A whistleblower has come forward to say a top U.S. Department of Justice official ordered prosecutors in Alabama to "rush" the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center despite concerns about the viability of the case, according to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

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California High Court Rejects Dunn's Bid To Nix Suspension

By Adrian Cruz

The California Supreme Court has declined to review a California State Bar decision to impose a one-year stayed suspension on former State Bar executive Joseph Dunn.

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FTC, DOJ Say ABA Reliance Limits Law School Competition

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division told the Tennessee Supreme Court the American Bar Association's monopoly over law school accreditations is driving up the cost of legal education.

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Analysis

SEC's Corp. Governance Shift Puts Onus On States, Cos.

By Sarah Jarvis

Lawyers who work with clients on corporate governance matters had a warm response to a recent pledge from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins to let states handle such issues, saying the shift marks a return to the agency's historical approach and may spur increased activity among state regulators.

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Ex-Bondi Adviser Tapped As Fraud Task Force's Chief Lawyer

By Phillip Bantz

Ousted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's former adviser is taking on a new role as general counsel for the White House's fraud task force.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

A pair of proxy advisory firms have sued two state attorneys general over laws they say impose burdensome requirements for issuing recommendations that go against corporate managers' wishes. Meanwhile, KPMG reports that legal is evolving into a key driver of business performance, and AI is a core component of the department. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of April

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Intel, Colgate and Tripadvisor. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from April.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen a Swiss energy trader bring a Financial List claim against shipping benchmarking company Baltic Exchange, law firm Slater and Gordon sued by a former client, Slack and Salesforce hit Microsoft with an antitrust claim, and Stephen Fry bring a personal injury claim after he broke bones falling off a stage. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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