Courts Let Military Ban Trans, HIV-Positive Troops For Now

By Anne Cullen

Two federal appellate courts have cleared the federal government to enforce a pair of controversial policies restricting transgender and HIV-positive people from serving in the military, with each lifting trial court blockades on the rules while litigation challenging them plays out.

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4th Circ. Icy To Reviving Retired Miners' Health Coverage Fight

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Fourth Circuit seemed disinclined Wednesday to reopen a dispute over lifetime retirement health and life insurance benefits from a proposed class of retired coal miners, as two judges knocked the coal company's attempt to pick apart the results of a seven-day bench trial that broadly favored them.

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6th Circ. Mulls NLRB's Injunction Burden After Justices' Tweak

By Braden Campbell

A Sixth Circuit panel on Wednesday probed a judge's inference that Michigan hospital workers would suffer without an order making their employer resume dealing with their union in the circuit's first National Labor Relations Board injunction case since the U.S. Supreme Court altered the courts' test last year.

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Fla. Atty Faces Bar Referral Over 'Hallucinated' Case In Filing

By Madison Arnold

A Florida appeals court will refer an attorney to the state's Bar after she filed a brief that included a "hallucinated" case.

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'Crazy' To Link Talc With Ovarian Cancer, J&J Expert Says

By Craig Clough

Johnson & Johnson rested its defense Wednesday in a Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims its talc products caused two women's ovarian cancer, with a gynecologic oncologist appearing as its last witness and telling the jury the idea of talc used for feminine hygiene reaching the ovaries is "crazy."

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Feds Seek 10 Years For Ex-Harvard Morgue Manager

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania have recommended that the court impose a 10-year prison sentence for former Harvard Medical School morgue manager Cedric Lodge following his admission to stealing and selling body parts from cadavers donated to the school for scientific research.

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Nursing Home Owners Defrauded Medicaid For Years, NJ Says

By George Woolston

The owners of two New Jersey nursing homes diverted nearly $100 million in Medicaid funds to themselves while intentionally understaffing the facilities and neglecting the residents, according to a state comptroller report released Wednesday that called for more scrutiny of for-profit residential care facility operators.

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Hospital Nonprofit's Ex-COO Gets 80 Months For $7M Fraud

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the former chief operating officer of the fundraising arm for a taxpayer-funded Miami health system to more than six years in prison for embezzling $6.9 million through a scheme in which she received kickbacks after submitting false vendor invoices.

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Akerman Beats Healthcare Cos.' Bid To Escape Fee Suit

By Madison Arnold

Akerman LLP can continue its fees lawsuit against Rennova Health Inc. and other defendants after they lost their motion to dismiss the suit for being "facially time-barred, factually flawed and legally indefensible," a Florida state judge has ruled.

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Kaiser Asks 9th Circ. To Make Nurses Arbitrate Wage Claims

By Bonnie Eslinger

Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and a staffing company urged the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday to force traveling nurses to arbitrate their claims that they were cheated out of compensation, saying a judge erred when he found the agreement unconscionable due to a potentially confusing fee shifting provision.

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Ga. Health Providers Say It's Too Late For Subpoena, Judge DQ

By Emily Johnson

A pair of Georgia healthcare providers asked a federal court to throw out a Florida couple's subpoenas for documents, arguing that their subpoenas and attempt to disqualify a Georgia federal judge are too late and not valid because they came after the dismissal of their medical malpractice suit was affirmed on appeal.

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Med Delivery Co. Fired Workers For Pay Complaints, Suit Says

By Benjamin Morse

A pharmaceutical delivery company misclassified drivers as independent contractors even though it controlled nearly every aspect of their work and fired 12 named drivers at once for speaking up about it, according to a proposed class action filed in Kentucky federal court.

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HealthEC Data Hack Class Seeks OK Of $5.5M Privacy Deal

By Gina Kim

Over 1.6 million patients affected by HealthEC's cybersecurity attack in 2023 asked a New Jersey magistrate judge for her final stamp of approval on a $5.48 million class action settlement, arguing Monday the resolution includes additional, significant benefits like Medical Shield Complete which protects them from healthcare-related fraud. 

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Diagnostic Co. Agrees To Oversight Reforms In Derivative Suit

By Sydney Price

A California federal judge has granted preliminary approval to a deal ending shareholder derivative claims that diagnostics company CareDx's executives and directors damaged the company by concealing its scheme to inflate its testing services revenue.

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Calif. Panel Reinstates Child Porn Rap Despite Abuse History

By Elizabeth Daley

A man who was abused as a child and raped as an adult cannot escape a child pornography conviction by arguing the abuse he endured led to the offense, a California state appeals court has ruled, finding in a reversal that his many traumas made it hard to ascertain a direct link to his crime.

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Brief

NY Clinic Settles Retaliation Suit With Doctor

By Irene Spezzamonte

A physician has agreed to settle his suit accusing a medical clinic of withholding his bonus and then firing him for complaining about unsanitary conditions in an autopsy suite, a New York federal judge said, discontinuing the case.

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Akerman Hires DOJ Civil Division Lawyer For Healthcare Team

By Jack Rodgers

Akerman LLP has brought on a former member of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division, who will be joining the healthcare practice group as a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C., office, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

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How 11th Circ.'s Qui Tam Review Could Affect FCA Litigation

On Dec. 12, the Eleventh Circuit will hear arguments in U.S. ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, setting the stage for a decision that could drastically reduce enforcement under the False Claims Act, and presenting an opportunity to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the act's whistleblower provisions, say attorneys at Epstein Becker.

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Series

The Biz Court Digest: Welcome To Miami

After nearly 20 years in operation, the Miami Complex Business Litigation Division is a pioneer upon which other jurisdictions in the state have been modeled, adopting many innovations to keep its cases running more efficiently and staffing experienced judges who are accustomed to hearing business disputes, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

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Bonus Spotlight

Pallas Offers Up To $232K In Bonuses To Top US, UK Lawyers

By Tracey Read

Litigation boutique Pallas Partners announced Thursday that it is offering high-performing senior U.S. and U.K. associates and counsel as much as $232,000 in bonuses this year.

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'Totally Unacceptable': Alsup Rips Feds In Student Loan Deal

By Bonnie Eslinger

U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Thursday denied the U.S. Department of Education's request for an 18-month extension to process over 200,000 loan cancellation applications for students claiming they were defrauded by colleges they attended, calling it "totally unacceptable" and setting an April deadline to get the job done.

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White House Pushes Halligan's Confirmation Despite Hurdles

By Courtney Bublé

The White House is forging ahead with its bid to win confirmation of the president's controversial pick for U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after a federal judge ruled she was serving illegally on an interim basis.

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Grassley Urges White House To Step It Up On Noms

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had a message for the White House Thursday: "Get on the ball" with nominations for U.S. attorneys and the judiciary.

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NJ Sens. Urge Cooperation On Next NJ US Attorney Nom

By Courtney Bublé

The New Jersey senators are looking to collaborate with the White House to find a new nominee for U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey after the president's initial pick failed.

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DC Firm Faces Proposed Class Action Over Data Breach

By Andrea Keckley

A Washington, D.C., law firm failed to notify clients of a data breach that compromised their personal information for six months, a proposed class action alleged in federal court on Wednesday.

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Trump Orders Review Of Proxy Advisers' 'Substantial Power'

By Rae Ann Varona

President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order that aims to scrutinize the influence that proxy adviser firms like Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co. LLC have, including in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion agendas.

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Feds Reportedly Fail To Reindict NY AG Letitia James, Again

By Lauren Berg

New York Attorney General Letitia James' attorney Thursday celebrated reports that another Virginia federal grand jury declined to reindict her on charges of mortgage fraud, the second jury in a week to reject a case President Donald Trump had pushed prosecutors to pursue against a political opponent he's called "guilty as hell."

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Grants Can Be Axed For Political Reasons, DOJ Atty Says

By Jared Foretek

A Trump administration lawyer said Thursday that the president had blanket authority to cancel every discretionary grant slated for states that broke against him in the general election, and it wouldn't amount to a violation of the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee.

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10th Circ. Reveals Judge Contacted Ex-Atty In 'Tiger King' Case

By Ivan Moreno

A Tenth Circuit panel considering a copyright infringement claim against Netflix over a video clip in its popular "Tiger King" docuseries has requested the parties' input on whether a judge on the panel should recuse himself after inadvertently contacting a former attorney of the plaintiff last month on an unrelated legal matter.

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Tracking Challenges To USPTO's Discretion Policy

By Dani Kass

Leaders at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have significantly altered the Patent Trial and Appeal Board playing field since March, making changes to institution reviews that have led to unprecedented levels of petition denials. A steady stream of companies has challenged those changes through mandamus petitions to the Federal Circuit, and here Law360 tracks where those petitions stand.

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SEC Must Provide Names To Compliance Chief In Fraud Suit

By Katryna Perera

An Illinois federal judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to comply with a chief compliance officer's request for the names of agency staffers familiar with his whistleblower claims as he defends allegations that he played a role in a purportedly fraudulent stock offering by a "sham" energy company.

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