A California federal judge Tuesday tossed a former wardrobe assistant's remaining employment discrimination claims against singer Lizzo's touring company, finding the plaintiff may have witnessed some "inappropriate and unprofessional" conduct, but it was not sufficiently severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment.
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

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Lizzo's Touring Co. Beats Designer's Bias, Retaliation Suit

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge Tuesday tossed a former wardrobe assistant's remaining employment discrimination claims against singer Lizzo's touring company, finding the plaintiff may have witnessed some "inappropriate and unprofessional" conduct, but it was not sufficiently severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment.

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Analysis

Image Search Technology Raises New Copyright Questions

By Ivan Moreno

Technology that can uncover decade-old online images is testing the practical limits of copyright’s discovery rule, as courts weigh reasonable diligence against the reality that sophisticated search tools still miss infringement and defendants may no longer possess records proving authorization.

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Music Publishers Fight To Keep $3B Anthropic IP Case Alive

By Hailey Konnath

Major music publishers on Monday urged a California federal court not to throw out their $3 billion suit accusing Anthropic PBC of "brazen" mass copyright infringement of sheet music and songbooks, arguing that Anthropic's "thin challenges" to their claims mischaracterize the law and disregard their "extensive" allegations.

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Copyright Chief Says Cook Ruling Bolsters Firing Challenge

By Ivan Moreno

The U.S. Copyright Office's Shira Perlmutter has asked the D.C. Circuit to reverse a federal judge's refusal to block her firing by the Trump administration, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision protecting Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook undercuts the lower court's reason for denying her preliminary relief.

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Wahlberg-Backed Gym Gets Final OK Of $10.5M Investor Deal

By Mike Curley

A Texas federal judge has given final approval to a $10.5 million settlement resolving investors' claims that a fitness franchise associated with the actor Mark Wahlberg misled them about its growth potential after going public.

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Judge Backs Carlton Fields' Bid To Seek Miss America Fees

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida federal magistrate judge on Tuesday recommended allowing Carlton Fields PA to intervene in a $500 million dispute over the ownership of the Miss America competition, one day after the company's CEO filed a new suit against its former counsel.

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Jason Isbell Says Suno Exploits Identities Like 'The Borg'

By Rae Ann Varona

Grammy winner Jason Isbell and several other musicians have lodged a proposed class action in Massachusetts federal court against Suno Inc., accusing the AI music generator company of extracting and exploiting musicians' identifying attributes much like a collective of identity-erasing cybernetic aliens from the Star Trek franchise.

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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Judge Trims Gospel Singer's Claims In Contract Fight

By Elliot Weld

A Georgia federal judge has trimmed claims brought by a gospel musician who sued his business manager and record label, claiming that his copyright interests were stolen and he was deprived of royalties.

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Netflix, Ramey Spar Over Patent Suit Atty Fees

By Elliot Weld

Netflix and prolific patent attorney Bill Ramey have each made arguments for how much Ramey and his firm should be assessed in attorney fees in a patent infringement suit after a California federal court found it was meritless, with Netflix advocating for $3 million from Ramey's firm and his former client, while Ramey requested a finding of no fees or at least lower fees.

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Samsung Mini LED TVs Lack Actual Mini LED Tech, Rival Says

By Gina Kim

Samsung is falsely touting some of its televisions as incorporating advanced Mini LED technology that provides higher quality picture, despite that it simply "recycled" its preexisting low-end standard LED TV and relabeled them as a "supreme" Mini LED, alleges a Lanham Act suit filed Monday in California federal court.

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PRIVACY & CONSUMER PROTECTION

Calif. Privacy Agency Keeps Regulatory Heat On Data Brokers

By Allison Grande

A Virginia-based data broker has become the latest enforcement target of the California Privacy Protection Agency, which announced Tuesday that the company would pay a $36,400 fine and commit to honoring requests made through a new consumer data deletion tool to resolve claims that it failed to timely register as a data broker.

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Meta Says Section 230 Frees It From Doctor's Scam Suit

By Mike Curley

Meta Platforms Inc. is urging a California federal court to throw out an Australian doctor's suit alleging that its advertising tools resulted in his name and likeness being used to promote scams, saying evidence now shows that none of its tools introduced his name or likeness.

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Meta AI Glasses Privacy Suit Expands To Add Bystander Class

By Lauren Berg

Dozens of consumers are joining forces to sue Meta Platforms over allegations that the tech giant surreptitiously stores private videos captured by its "smart" glasses to train its artificial intelligence models, adding claims on behalf of bystanders who never agreed to be recorded, let alone used for training.

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COMPETITION

Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Bryan Koenig

Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery pressured state attorneys general challenging their merger to settle, the Federal Trade Commission successfully challenged a construction adhesives tie-up, state officials waded in against the NextEra-Dominion transaction, and Union Pacific Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp. defended their combination under review by federal regulators.

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Meta Beats UK Co. Suit Over Instagram Shopping For Now

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A California federal judge has ruled in favor of Meta in an antitrust suit from a British company alleging Meta stole its plan for Instagram shopping, saying the injuries that were alleged happened years before the complaint was filed.

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EMPLOYMENT

Orgs Say 401(k) Forfeiture Suit Ignores Fed. Regulations

By Grace Elletson

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an employer benefit advocacy group urged the Second Circuit to back the dismissal of a suit claiming a marketing company illegally used forfeited 401(k) funds to pay for plan contributions, stating the practice has been allowed by decades-old federal regulations.

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Parler Ouster Talk Was 'Reaction' To Bad CEO, Jury Told

By Cara Salvatore

Billionaire Rebekah Mercer testified Tuesday that her team's strategizing about getting rid of Parler's then-CEO was simply "reacting" to his poor performance, even before the Jan. 6 insurrection sent the social media app "to hell in a handbasket."

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SECURITIES & WHITE COLLAR

Meme Coin Platform Pump.fun Must Face Users' RICO Claims

By Katryna Perera

A New York federal judge has allowed racketeering claims to proceed against the operator of meme coin launchpad Pump.fun and its co-founders, while dismissing securities and unjust enrichment claims against the launchpad's related blockchain projects.

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Podcaster's Proxy Betting Claims Rile FanDuel, Regulators

By Alex Lawson

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission and FanDuel are looking into a recent admission by popular podcast host Bill Simmons that he allowed a proxy to log into his FanDuel account and place bets on his behalf.

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Fox Investor Sues Over Morgan Stanley Role In $22B Deal

By Jarek Rutz

A Fox Corp. stockholder has sued the media company and its board in the Delaware Chancery Court, seeking to block a shareholder vote tied to Fox's planned $22 billion acquisition of Roku Inc. until investors receive more information about alleged conflicts involving financial adviser Morgan Stanley.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS

FCC Tells Justices To Keep Campaign Ad Pricing 'Status Quo'

By Katie Buehler

The Federal Communications Commission has joined a call for the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a Fourth Circuit order blocking it from extending discounted television and radio advertising rates to committees that buy spots in coordination with political candidates, urging the justices to maintain the "status quo," despite allegedly inconsistent characterizations of the norm. 

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Satellite Permitting, Robocall Bills Sail Through Subcommittee

By Nadia Dreid

The SAT Streamlining Act was one of half a dozen bills that breezed through a House energy and commerce subcommittee Tuesday afternoon, with lawmakers managing to get all six bills sent along to the full committee in under an hour.

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Brief

FCC Pulls Montana Radio License Over Unpaid Fees

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday it was revoking a Montana radio station's license for unpaid regulatory fees going back several years.

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REAL ESTATE

Brief

Barnes & Thornburg Says Ex-NBA Star Owes $1M Legal Fees

By Jonathan Capriel

Former NBA player Luol Deng is being sued for more than $1 million by a Chicago-based law firm that claims he failed to pay legal fees connected to two real estate matters, according to a suit filed in Illinois state court.

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TAX

Strip Club Boss Wants Only Probation After $1.5M Tax Penalty

By Asha Glover

The former boss of a Connecticut strip club who pled guilty to five charges after being accused of hiding $5.7 million from the IRS told a federal court he should serve no prison time since he already coughed up more than $1.5 million in tax.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

How Does In-House Pay Compare? Take The Law360 Survey

How do in-house salaries vary across industries, roles, and organizational revenue? What compensation tools are companies using to lure top talent? Help Law360 Pulse answer these questions and more in this year's In-House Compensation Survey.

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HSF Kramer Added To $1B King & Spalding Malpractice Suit

By Jack Karp

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP and several of its partners on Tuesday were added to a $1 billion legal malpractice suit against King & Spalding LLP alleging that the firms engaged in multiple schemes to enrich a lawyer's friend at the expense of investment firm White Oak Advisors.

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Fla. Bar Tosses Complaint Over DHS GC's 'Worst' Judge Posts

By Adrian Cruz

The Florida Bar has refused to investigate the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for potential ethics violations over his recent series of social media posts attacking sitting judges, citing a potential conflict with the authority of the federal government.

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Approach The Bench: Judge Rodriguez On The Uses Of AI

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

Today, Judge Xavier Rodriguez is known as an expert in electronic discovery and a proponent of artificial intelligence, but his interest was piqued before he joined the bench of the Western District of Texas in 2003, when he was still a lawyer and the methods for sifting through electronically stored information were still primitive.

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Judges Say Social Media, Political Rhetoric Endanger Them

By Adrian Cruz

Increased access to social media and personal data via the internet, a larger number of high-profile cases, and inflammatory comments made by politicians have led to a rise in violent threats against judges and concerns about their safety, according to a recently published report.

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5th Circ. Judge Hints Court Order With AI Errors Can't Stand

By Spencer Brewer

A Fifth Circuit judge wanted to know why a panel should keep intact a court order blocking an anti-DEI Mississippi law that contained artificial intelligence hallucinations, asking whether the judges could confidently find that made-up citations did not ultimately sway the district court's decision.

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Ex-Warriors GC, DEI Exec Say Bias Complaints Led To Firings

By Lauren Berg

The Golden State Warriors' former associate general counsel and its former vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion allege they were unlawfully fired in retaliation for speaking up about enduring a workplace marked by gender and race-based discrimination.

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NY Firm, Clinics Reject FedEx's 'Staged' Crashes Claims

By Linda Chiem

A New York personal injury firm and various healthcare providers have told a Manhattan federal judge that FedEx has asserted implausible claims alleging they orchestrated an insurance fraud scheme to fabricate medical records and inflate accident claims, saying there is no such racketeering enterprise.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of August

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Anthropic, Zillow and ConocoPhillips. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from August.

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COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

AOL

Adobe Inc.

Allen & Company LLC

American Civil Liberties Union

American Express Co.

American International Group Inc.

American Water Works Company Inc.

Anthropic PBC

Apple Inc.

AvalonBay Communities Inc.

B&G Foods Inc.

BNC National Bank

Binance Holdings Ltd.

Brennan Center for Justice

CRH PLC

Caesars Entertainment Inc.

Callon Petroleum Co.

Chord Energy Corp.

Coinbase Global Inc.

Coinme

Concord Music Group Inc.

ConocoPhillips

Crinetics Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Del Monte Foods Inc.

Democracy Forward Foundation

Democratic National Committee

Dominion Energy Inc.

Electronic Privacy Information Center

ElevenLabs

Eli Lilly & Co.

EngageSmart

Epic Records

Equity Residential

EssilorLuxottica

FanDuel Inc.

FedEx Corp.

Fox Corp.

Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc.

Fun

Getty Images Holdings Inc.

Golden State Warriors

Google LLC

Henkel Corp.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

Howard Hughes Corp.

ImageRights International Inc.

Instagram Inc.

International Money Express Inc.

Iridium Communications Inc.

Juniper Networks Inc.

KKR & Co. Inc.

Kenvue Inc.

Kimberly-Clark Corp.

Luxottica Group S.p.A.

Macquarie Group Ltd.

Merck & Co. Inc.

MetLife Inc.

Meta Platforms Inc.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

Mississippi Center for Justice

Morgan Stanley

Murphy Oil Corp.

NCR Atleos Corp.

NVIDIA Corp.

Nasdaq Inc.

National Basketball Association Inc.

National Republican Congressional Committee

Netflix Inc.

New York University

NextEra Energy Inc.

Norfolk Southern Corp.

ON Semiconductor Corp.

Paypal Holdings Inc.

Perdue Farms Inc.

Public Citizen Inc.

Qorvo Inc.

Reddit Inc.

Roku Inc.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

ServiceTitan Inc.

Simulations Plus Inc.

Skydance Media LLC

Skyworks Solutions Inc.

Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

Spotify Technology SA

Station Casinos LLC

Synaptics Inc.

Sysco Corp.

Techne Corp.

Tegna Inc.

The Brink's Co.

The DIRECTV Group Inc.

The ERISA Industry Committee

The Florida Bar

The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The Western Union Co.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Uber Technologies Inc.

Union Pacific Corp.

Vantage Group Holdings Ltd.

Verisk Analytics Inc.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Volkswagen AG

WPP PLC

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

Warner/Chappell Music Inc.

White Oak Commercial Finance LLC

Zillow Group Inc.

argenx SE

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Acocelli Law

Ahdoot & Wolfson

Ashurst Perkins

Bailey & Glasser

Barnes & Thornburg

Bass Berry

Blank Rome

Bradley Arant

Brown Rudnick

Burwick Law PLLC

Cahill Gordon

Carlton Fields

Clarkson Law Firm PC

Coblentz Patch

Conrad Metlitzky

Consovoy McCarthy

Cotchett Pitre

Cowan Liebowitz

Derek G. Howard Law Firm

Elias Law Group LLP

Enns & Archer

Gibson Dunn

Glenn Agre

Goodwin Procter

Graves Garrett

Groom Law Group

HSF Kramer

Hecker Fink

Holland & Knight

Ikhilov & Associates

Kasowitz LLP

Kaufman Dolowich

King & Spalding

Kirkland & Ellis

Kluger Kaplan

Korein Tillery

Labaton Keller

Larson LLP

Lavelle Law Firm

Lucciola Law Group

Marquis Aurbach

Mead Law

Minnella & Tramuta

Moore & Lee

Morgan Lewis

Munger Tolles

Norton Rose

Oppenheim & Zebrak

Paul Weiss

Peter Birzon & Associates

Pisanelli Bice

Quinn Connor Weaver

Quinn Emanuel

RM Law PC

Ramey LLP

Robbins Alloy

Rose Law Partners

Ruskin Moscou

Shea Larsen

Singer Weinsten

Skaggs Faucette

Steptoe LLP

Stris & Maher

Williams & Connolly

Willis Law Group

WilmerHale

Wingate Russotti

Wolf Popper

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

California Privacy Protection Agency

California Supreme Court

Competition and Markets Authority

Delaware Court of Chancery

European Commission

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Election Commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Reserve System

Federal Trade Commission

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

Food and Drug Administration

Illinois Attorney General's Office

Internal Revenue Service

Korea Fair Trade Commission

Library of Congress

Los Angeles Superior Court

Massachusetts Gaming Commission

Mississippi Attorney General's Office

New York Attorney General's Office

New York Department of Financial Services

New York Supreme Court, New York County

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Small Business Administration

State Administration for Market Regulation

Surface Transportation Board

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

U.S. Copyright Office

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of the Treasury

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

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Supreme Court