Makary Out As FDA Commissioner, Trump Says

By Mark Payne

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is departing the agency, President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday, bringing to an end a tumultuous, one-year run as one of the nation's top health officials.

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Pa. Panel Struggles With Oversight Of $2.2B Opioid Fund

By Matthew Santoni

A Pennsylvania appellate court on Tuesday questioned the system for distributing opioid companies' settlement money, after three counties and the city of Philadelphia said a review board unfairly disapproved their projects after the money was spent.

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DOJ Playing 'Dirty Pool' With Hospital In Trans Care Subpoena

By Mark Payne

A Rhode Island federal judge indicated Tuesday she's likely to quash a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to obtain gender-affirming care medical records from Rhode Island Hospital, saying the DOJ was playing "dirty pool" by filing a motion to enforce the subpoena in another jurisdiction.

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How They Won It

Attys For Tufts Profs Didn't Blink In A Tenure Standoff

By Julie Manganis

When Jennifer Henricks and Kevin Peters first learned what was happening to tenured professors at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston a few years ago, they knew that what was at stake involved more than just a dispute over the terms of a contract.

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Commerce Details Path To Discount For 100% Pharma Tariff

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Department of Commerce released guidance for pharmaceutical companies looking to show they have made sufficient onshoring commitments to qualify for a discount on the 100% tariff on certain imported drugs coming this summer.

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Texas AG Targets CVS DEI Program, Threatens Fraud Probe

By Danielle Ferguson

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday warned CVS Health its diversity, equity and inclusion program for suppliers may violate state and federal antidiscrimination laws and gave the company 14 days to respond or risk a Medicaid fraud investigation.

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Mass. Appeals Court Tosses Convictions For Assault On Police

By Elizabeth Daley

A Massachusetts man who was convicted of assaulting police officers was not criminally responsible because the state hadn't shown he wasn't insane, an appeals court majority said Tuesday.

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6th Circ. Says Jailers Entitled To Immunity In Detainee Death

By Parker Quinlan

The Sixth Circuit has ruled that a group of jail officials in Michigan should be given qualified immunity from a lawsuit alleging they ignored the medical needs of a man who was incarcerated in their facility and later died from cardiac arrest.

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Nurse's Family Fights Workers' Comp Loss Over COVID Death

By Hayley Fowler

The family of a North Carolina nurse who died from COVID-19 is challenging the denial of their workers' compensation claim, saying the state incorrectly determined she most likely contracted the virus in the community despite federal standards indicating healthcare workers faced an increased risk of exposure at work.

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Drone Co. Skirts Unfair Biz Practices Claim In Ex-VP's Pay Suit

By Hayley Fowler

North Carolina's Business Court pared down a dispute between a company that makes emergency response drones and its former vice president of sales, finding his claim that the company misled him about its intent to pay him a bonus doesn't rise to the level of an unfair or deceptive business practice.

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​​​​​​​Amazon Beats Sanctions Bid Over Supplement Product Pages

By Ben Adlin

A Washington federal judge declined to sanction Amazon for allegedly failing to preserve product pages for dietary supplements that shoppers claim were improperly labeled, ruling that the retail giant fulfilled its duty to retain the information despite storing it as lines of code instead of viewable documents.

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Cigna Says HIPAA Doesn't Save Website Privacy Suit

By Matthew Santoni

A proposed group of Cigna health plan participants can't cite HIPAA to keep up their claims that the insurer improperly tracked their private information through its websites, since the privacy law doesn't cover the kind of information the company collected, the insurer told a Pennsylvania federal court.

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AliveCor Wants Apple Health Monitor Patent Claims Tossed

By Adam Lidgett

A medical software company has told a California federal court that claims in a pair of health monitoring patents Apple has accused it of infringing are actually invalid, saying they only cover abstract ideas without a technological innovation to save them.

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White & Case Seeks Contempt In Modivcare Ch. 11 Fee Spat

By Clara Geoghegan

White & Case said Modivcare Inc. should be held in contempt for not moving $1.6 million to a Texas bankruptcy court escrow, intensifying a fight over fees the law firm racked up representing unsecured creditors in the reorganized healthcare services group's Chapter 11.

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Fox Rothschild Adds Trial Partner From Nelson Mullins In Fla.

By Madison Arnold

Fox Rothschild LLP has expanded its litigation department in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a new partner from Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.

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Mass. Draft Regs Signal Nationwide Scrutiny Of Junk Fees

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's new draft regulations for assisted living facilities is only her latest move in the war on junk fees — and part of a national reordering of consumer protection enforcement in which states are aggressively and creatively asserting authority, says Steve Provazza at Arnall Golden.

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4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

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Palestinian Ex-Associate Slaps DLA Piper With Bias Claim

By Lynn LaRowe

DLA Piper has been hit with a federal civil rights lawsuit in Illinois from a former summer associate alleging discrimination, a hostile work environment and retaliation based on her identity as a Palestinian, Gazan, Arab and Muslim woman.

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Fired Immigration Judge Says Trump Can't Skirt Bias Laws

By Grace Elletson

A former immigration judge urged a D.C. federal court not to throw out her bias suit challenging her firing, arguing the U.S. Department of Justice was pushing the "breathtaking proposition" that the president was empowered to commit unlawful discrimination.

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Law Student Can't Get School To Nix Kirk Comment Discipline

By Mike Curley

A Texas federal judge on Tuesday said the court cannot force Texas Tech University's leaders to rescind a reprimand against a law student who allegedly celebrated following the death of Charlie Kirk, as the university has sovereign immunity.

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Michigan Dems Noncommittal On Trump's Judicial Pick

By Courtney Bublé

Michigan's two Democratic senators played it coy on Tuesday when asked if they would support the district court nominee for their state that the president announced the night before.

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PayPal Settles Gov't DEI Probe With Small Biz Program

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it has reached a settlement with PayPal Inc. to end an investigation into what the department said was a discriminatory investment program for Black- and minority-owned businesses.

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