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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Steakhouse Chain Servers Get Initial OK For $7M Wage Deal

By Benjamin Morse

A steakhouse chain will pay $7 million to end servers' claims that its tip-pool practices left them underpaid, a Colorado federal judge said Thursday, granting the deal preliminary approval.

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NC Jet Co. Nets 4th Circ. Remand On Pilot Back Pay Issue

By Abigail Harrison

A Fourth Circuit panel narrowly agreed Thursday with a North Carolina private jet operator's petition challenging a conclusion that a former pilot was fired in retaliation for reporting safety issues and grounding planes, remanding a sole issue centered on the pilot's efforts to mitigate damages.

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Verizon Slaps Landowner With Counterclaims Over Tower Lease

By Nadia Dreid

Verizon is fighting back after a North Carolina federal judge declared that the lease for land a cell tower was constructed on is invalid, laying down a set of counterclaims accusing the landowner of using it to build up the site before canceling the lease.

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Tenant Says NC Landlord Imposed 3 Rent Hikes In 5 Months

By Nate Beck

A renter in California claimed in a proposed class action that her new landlord, North Carolina-based Bell Partners, sought to raise her rent nearly 25% in a five-month period after taking over management of an apartment complex late last year.

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Broker Says RE Biz Partner Stole Over $1M In Funds

By Isaac Monterose

A North Carolina real estate broker has alleged in a lawsuit designated by the state's business court on Wednesday that his real estate development partner stole more than $1 million from companies they own together.

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5 States Join Bid To Block $6.2B Nexstar-Tegna Merger

By Rae Ann Varona

Five states on Thursday joined a coalition of others who sued to challenge Nexstar Media Group Inc.'s then-proposed $6.2 billion merger with Tegna Inc., alleging in an amended antitrust complaint that the currently frozen deal will eliminate consumers' choices for local news and diminish diversity in news coverage.

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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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4th Circ. Says Officer Not Immune In Teen's Shooting

By Parker Quinlan

The Fourth Circuit has affirmed a lower court ruling that a South Carolina police officer does not have qualified immunity from a civil lawsuit alleging he illegally shot and killed a teenager who was later found to be armed while patrolling a neighborhood that was under a COVID-19 pandemic-related curfew order.

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Juror Dishonesty Doesn't Warrant New Trial, 4th Circ. Says

By Parker Quinlan

The Fourth Circuit on Thursday ruled that a West Virginia man convicted of distributing fentanyl is not entitled to a new trial after it was discovered a juror in his case lied about being the subject of a massive federal corruption investigation nearly a decade before trial.

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Maryland Judges Ask 4th Circ. To Rebuke Habeas Order Suit

By Tom Lotshaw

Maryland federal judges urged the Fourth Circuit to decisively affirm a decision scrapping the Trump administration's challenge of a standing order that briefly blocks the removal of noncitizens who file habeas petitions, saying the unprecedented lawsuit deserves a precedential rebuke.

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Brief

BofA Denied Quick 4th Circ. Appeal In 401(k) Forfeiture Suit

By Hayley Fowler

A North Carolina federal judge has turned down Bank of America Corp.'s request for a quick appeal of his order denying the bank's request for an early exit from a proposed class action alleging forfeitures were misspent from workers' 401(k) plans.

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Brief

CACI Says High Court Case Will Affect Abu Ghraib Verdict

By Ganesh Setty

CACI Premier Technology Inc. has urged the Fourth Circuit to delay adjudicating its rehearing bid after a panel upheld a $42 million jury award over CACI's conspiracy to torture Iraq War detainees, pointing to a forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

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Brief

Antenna Location Near Bermuda Sinks Ala. FM Station Bid

By Nadia Dreid

Selma, Alabama, will not be getting a new low-power FM station after the Federal Communications Commission said an error on the paperwork listed antenna coordinates that nearly reached all the way to Bermuda.

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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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