A Fourth Circuit judge on Wednesday sharply questioned the attorney for a physician challenging North Carolina restrictions on the abortion medication mifepristone, citing case law he said treats federal rules as a "floor and not a ceiling" on what states can require.
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

4th Circ. Judge Wary Of NC Abortion Drug Law Challenge

By Dan McKay

A Fourth Circuit judge on Wednesday sharply questioned the attorney for a physician challenging North Carolina restrictions on the abortion medication mifepristone, citing case law he said treats federal rules as a "floor and not a ceiling" on what states can require.

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TB Outbreak In Wash. Prisons Yields $52M Damages Verdict

By Ben Adlin

Washington jurors returned a $52 million verdict in favor of 23 plaintiffs who accused the state's Department of Corrections of allowing an active tuberculosis outbreak to fester and spread to hundreds of people at its prison facilities over nearly two years.

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Sanofi Settles Insulin Pen Antitrust Suit, Avoiding Trial

By Julie Manganis

Sanofi-Aventis US and a group of drug wholesalers have told a Massachusetts federal judge they have reached a settlement to resolve long-running antitrust litigation alleging that the drugmaker improperly sought to thwart competition for its single-use insulin injector pen.

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Patients Tell Colo. Justices Hospital Defied Gender Care Order

By Rachel Konieczny

Transgender youth patients of Children's Hospital Colorado are challenging a judge's discharge of their contempt citation against the hospital for not resuming the provision of medical gender-affirming care to them, urging Colorado's justices to decide whether the hospital complied with an injunction prohibiting it from refusing to provide the care.

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POLICY & REGULATION

Roundup

Product Liability's Regulatory & Legislative Recap So Far

By Emily Field

Over the summer and early fall, lawmakers proposed measures aimed at putting safeguards around the rapidly growing industry of artificial intelligence, as public concerns over its safety climb in tandem. The new nominee to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration also faced sharp queries over her views on vaccines and birth control.

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LITIGATION

Ga. University System On Hook For $3M In Child Death Suit

By Y. Peter Kang

The Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled that the parents of a child who allegedly died due to negligent cancer treatment at a state-owned hospital are owed $3 million rather than $2 million under a Georgia law that caps damages for public entities.

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BakerHostetler Malpractice Case To Expand With RICO Claim

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia federal judge has allowed a trustee who has accused BakerHostetler and an Atlanta-based attorney of legal malpractice to file an amended complaint after the trustee asked to add claims of Georgia RICO Act violations.

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Celgene Defends Dismissal Of Cancer Drug Antitrust Suit

By Danielle Ferguson

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and its subsidiary Celgene Corp. urged the Second Circuit to uphold the dismissal of health plans' proposed antitrust class action alleging that the drugmaker fraudulently obtained patents for the cancer drug Pomalyst, saying it properly disclosed materials to the patent office and filed valid patent infringement lawsuits against generic-drug makers. 

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Cruise Co. Settles Fla. Doc's Whistleblower Suit Over Billing

By David Minsky

A Florida doctor said he reached a quick settlement with Norwegian Cruise Lines Holdings Ltd. one month after filing his lawsuit alleging he was fired for opposing the company's practice of overbilling passengers, the state's federal court records show.

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NJ Health System Hit With Class Action Over Retirement Plan

By Gianna Ferrarin

Retirement plan participants and beneficiaries told a New Jersey federal court in a proposed Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action that a hospital network mismanaged their "jumbo-sized" plan.

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Patients Seek OK Of Connecticut Rehab Data Breach Deal

By Brian Steele

Patients accusing a Connecticut medical rehab network of waiting almost a year to disclose a cyberattack have asked a state court judge to preliminarily bless a deal that would provide about 61,000 people up to $2,500 in cash, plus $1 million in identity theft insurance.

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Cannabis Event Founders Accused Of $750K Fraud

By Jonathan Capriel

A Los Angeles attorney and his business partner are accused in a California state lawsuit of diverting investor money to pay for private jet flights, bar dues and other personal expenses instead of funding business-to-consumer cannabis trade shows, including the failed 2022 Green Street Festival.

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Pharma Co. Settles Workers' 401(k) Forfeiture Suit

By Kellie Mejdrich

Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corp. and workers who accused the pharmaceutical company of misusing forfeitures from an employee 401(k) plan have settled their federal benefits dispute, parties told a Connecticut federal court Wednesday.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

New Manhattan DA Task Force Puts Antitrust In Its Crosshairs

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office's new corporate crime and antitrust task force is adding local criminal enforcement to a field long led by federal authorities, meaning companies need to account for potential parallel federal and state antitrust investigations when responding to misconduct, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

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3 Strategies To Reduce AI Sycophancy In Legal Work

The tendency of generative artificial intelligence models to tell users what they want to hear can reinforce attorneys’ confirmation bias when testing the strength of arguments, and it can’t simply be prompted away — but a few practices can help mitigate it, says Michael Ott at Ice Miller.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

Weil To Wind Down As Top Attorneys Abandon Firm

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Alex Wittenberg and Aebra Coe

Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the restructuring powerhouse that led Lehman Brothers, Enron and General Motors through bankruptcy, told Law360 Pulse Wednesday that the firm is preparing to wind down operations.

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BigLaw Tip Middleman To Admit Role In $3.5M Trading Scheme

By Chris Villani

An alleged middleman in a sweeping scheme to trade off of deal information stolen from major law firms has agreed to plead guilty and potentially faces a prison term of nearly a decade, according to a plea agreement filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court.

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Judge Hellerstein, Gruff Moderator Of Major Cases, Dies At 92

By Pete Brush

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a former litigator and sometimes impatient Manhattan federal jurist who presided over decades of high-profile cases that often came under close appellate scrutiny, died Wednesday at the age of 92.

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LA's Top Federal Prosecutor 'Unlawfully Serving,' Judge Finds

By Christine DeRosa

A federal judge has ruled that Los Angeles' top federal prosecutor isn't legally serving in the role and that he is disqualified from participating in or supervising two criminal prosecutions.

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Proskauer, Reddit Attys Called To Testify In Data-Scraping Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A New York federal judge on Wednesday called for live testimony from two Proskauer Rose LLP attorneys and Reddit's deputy general counsel as he weighs the law firm's bid to represent Perplexity AI in a lawsuit from Reddit, the firm's former client, over alleged data scraping.

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Mich. Judge Weighs Toshiba Legal Bills Discovery Fight

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether she needs to review specific objections to DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co.'s multimillion-dollar attorney fee request before deciding whether Toshiba Corp. must disclose its own legal bills and litigation expenses following a nearly $394.4 million jury verdict over a botched power plant overhaul.

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SC Gov.'s Counsel Still In The Running For Federal Judgeship

By Courtney Bublé

The chief legal counsel for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is "being actively considered" for a federal judgeship, according to the White House, but it's not a done deal yet.

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Analysis

Albright Left Key Issue In Billion-Dollar IP Fight Unanswered

By Dani Kass

In May 2025, then-U.S. District Judge Alan Albright watched a jury hold that VLSI Technology is controlled by Fortress Investment Group, but by the time he left the bench in August 2026, the judge had yet to decide whether that ownership would let Intel avoid billions of dollars in patent infringement verdicts.

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COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Alliance Defending Freedom

Anthropic PBC

Apple Inc.

BNP Paribas SA

Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Louisiana

Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc.

Boston Children's Hospital

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Cardinal Health Inc.

Celgene Corp.

Cencora Inc.

Children's Hospital Colorado

Citrix Systems Inc.

Enstar Group Ltd.

Epic Games Inc.

Finjan Holdings Inc.

First Brands Group

Fortress Investment Group LLC

Google LLC

H.D. Smith LLC

Intel Corp.

Johnson & Johnson

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Lincoln National Corp.

Merck & Co. Inc.

Meta Platforms Inc.

Mutual Drug

Norwegian Cruise Line

OpenAI OpCo LLC

Platinum Partners LP

Poshmark Inc.

Raine

Reddit Inc.

Sanofi

Steward Health Care System LLC

The Cigna Group

The Harvard Drug Group LLC

Thoma Bravo LLC

Toshiba Corp.

Viatris Inc.

iRobot Corporation

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Alston & Bird

Arnold & Porter

Baker & Hostetler

Bartlit Beck

Bondurant Mixson

Bryson Harris Suciu & DeMay

Burr & Forman

Bush Seyferth

Case Law Group

Childers Schlueter

Cowdery Murphy

Cravath Swaine

Dugan Law Firm

Edelson Lechtzin

Faruqi & Faruqi

Fennemore

Foley & Lardner

Frails & Wilson

Freeman Mathis

Garnett Powell

Garwin Gerstein

Goodwin Procter

Hach Rose Schirripa

Hagens Berman

Handley Farah

Healy LLC

Ice Miller

Jackson Lewis PC

Jenner & Block

Jones Day

Keker Van Nest & Peters

King & Spalding

Latham & Watkins

Linley Jones Firm

Lowenstein Sandler

Lowey Dannenberg

McGuireWoods

McNair Law Firm

Paul Weiss

Proskauer Rose

Radice Law Firm

Ropes & Gray

Sidley Austin

Simmons Sweeney

Siri & Glimstad

Sirianni Youtz

Smith Segura Raphael & Leger

Sperling Kenny

Stroock & Stroock

Sullivan & Cromwell

Walcheske & Luzi

Walsh Pizzi

Ward & Smith

Weil Gotshal

White & Case

Williams & Connolly

Willkie Farr

Wollmuth Maher

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Colorado Supreme Court

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

Food and Drug Administration

Georgia Attorney General's Office

Georgia Court of Appeals

Georgia Supreme Court

Michigan Supreme Court

New York Attorney General's Office

New York County District Attorney's Office

North Carolina Attorney General's Office

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

U.S. Army

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Transportation

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey

U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Senate

U.S. Supreme Court

Washington State Department of Corrections