BofA $72.5M Deal With Up To 75 Epstein Victims Clears Hurdle

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge gave preliminary approval Thursday to a settlement in which Bank of America will pay $72.5 million to as many as 75 women to settle allegations that it facilitated what the court called Jeffrey Epstein's "monstrous" sex trafficking and abuse.

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Organ Donor Rigging Suit Is Med Mal, Texas Panel Says

By Y. Peter Kang

A split Texas appellate court said Thursday that an injunction request accusing a doctor of manipulating the liver transplant list at a Houston hospital can be considered a medical malpractice claim that requires an expert report, but the case can partially proceed without one since certain plaintiffs did not request damages.

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$25M Verdict Over Woman's ER Death Upheld In Ill.

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois state appellate panel has refused to unwind a jury's $25 million verdict for the family of a woman who died from blood clots that caused her heart and lungs to stop functioning in a hospital emergency room.

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Uber Fights Common Carrier Tentative Ahead Of NC Bellwether

By Bonnie Eslinger

Uber on Thursday urged a California federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation for alleged passenger sexual assaults to reverse his tentative decision that it's a "common carrier" with a duty to ensure passenger safety, a finding that could hamstring the ride-hailing giant in an upcoming North Carolina bellwether trial.

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Fla. Panel Quashes Atty Depo Order In Insurer Bad Faith Row

By Gianna Ferrarin

A Florida state appellate panel struck down an order allowing Progressive to compel testimony from a personal injury attorney on whether her client was willing to settle a coverage dispute within its policy limits, finding a lower court incorrectly determined that her client waived privileges.

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Families Accuse Pa. Chemical Co. Of Enabling Suicide

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The families of a 14-year-old and a 20-year-old who took high-purity sodium nitrite to end their lives have sued Pennsylvania-based Consolidated Chemical & Solvents LLC, accusing the chemical-maker of selling a compound that has no purpose other than facilitating suicide, in violation of Pennsylvania law.

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NJ Doctor Can't Scrub Suspension For Lax Recordkeeping

By Mike Curley

A New Jersey state appeals court on Thursday declined to wipe out a six-month suspension and $150,000 civil penalty assessed against a pain management specialist by the State Board of Medical Examiners, saying the evidence supported the board's decision.

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Removed Passenger Can't Use Air Carrier Treaty To Sue Delta

By Jonathan Capriel

A man who claims he was wrongfully ejected from a Delta Air Lines flight cannot sue the company, a Maryland appeals court has ruled, finding that while he may have suffered "embarrassment," he doesn't have a claim under the Montreal Convention.

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Tesla Faces Wrongful Death Suit Over Fiery Ga. Crash

By Chart Riggall

Tesla Inc. has been hit with a federal lawsuit from a woman who alleges that combined failures in the company's driver assistance technology, power system, and door locks caused a crash and resulting fire in south Georgia that left her son and his father dead.

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Conn. Panel Revives Coverage Dispute Over IVF Fraud Case

By Hope Patti

An insurer can't rely on intentional conduct or sexual conduct exclusions in a reproductive endocrinologist's policy to avoid covering him in an underlying suit accusing him of impregnating two in vitro fertilization patients with his own sperm, a Connecticut appeals court ruled.

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McMahon Accuser Says WWE Seeks Arbitration To 'Silence' Her

By Alex Lawson

The former World Wrestling Entertainment legal staffer suing the company and founder Vince McMahon for sexual assault and trafficking is fighting to keep the case in open court, framing the WWE's push to arbitrate the dispute as an attempt to silence her.

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Ex-IU Basketball Players Filed Sex Abuse Suit Too Late

By Mike Curley

A federal judge has dismissed with prejudice Title IX and other federal claims that a group of former Indiana University basketball players brought alleging the school knew they were being sexually abused by the team's doctor, saying they filed their lawsuit well outside the two-year statute of limitations.

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Microsoft Addicted Kids To Minecraft And Xbox Live, Suit Says

By Ben Adlin

A group of gamers and their parents sued Microsoft Corp. in Washington state court over what they described as the company's "highly addictive" gaming products, alleging the tech giant built games such as Minecraft to maximize use among children and cash in on in-game purchases.

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AG Urges NC Justices To Keep Jurisdiction Over TikTok Suit

By Matthew Santoni

North Carolina Attorney General Jeffrey Jackson urged the state's Supreme Court to make TikTok's parent company face claims that it's addictive to juvenile users, arguing the social media giant had enough contact with the Tarheel State to be subject to its courts' jurisdiction.

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Series

Ultramarathons Make Me A Better Lawyer

Completing a 100-mile ultramarathon was tougher, more humbling and more rewarding than I ever imagined, and the experience highlighted how long-distance running has sharpened my ability to adapt to the evolving nature of antitrust law and strengthened my resolve to handle demanding, unforeseen challenges, says Dan Oakes at Axinn.

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ABA, Ex-Judges And Many More Back BigLaw In EO Appeal

By Dorothy Atkins

Numerous bar associations, 239 former judges, 21 states, lawmakers and dozens of other amici curiae have thrown their weight behind BigLaw firms in the Trump administration's consolidated D.C. Circuit appeal seeking to revive executive orders targeting the firms, broadly arguing that the orders are an affront to foundational constitutional rights.

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Legal Sector Lost 700 Jobs In March, Ending Hiring Streak

By Tracey Read

The legal sector began to slow down in March after a year and a half straight of gains, with 700 fewer people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in February, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Progressive Org. Rolls Out $3M Anti-Trump High Court Push

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump does not have any vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court, but a progressive court advocacy organization is not waiting for a justice's departure to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign opposing a possible Trump pick.

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Brief

Justice Alito Treated For Dehydration After Federalist Event

By Courtney Buble

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito felt ill during a Federalist Society event last month and was seen by a doctor "out of an abundance of caution," the high court announced on Friday.

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6th Circ. Axes Atty For 'Inexcusable' AI 'Transgressions'

By Rae Ann Varona

An attorney committed "inexcusable transgressions" by relying on Westlaw's internal CoCounsel artificial intelligence platform for appellate filings and by failing to catch erroneous AI-generated content, the Sixth Circuit said Friday and removed the lawyer from further representing a man who pled guilty to drug trafficking charges.

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Analysis

'Political' Deals Pit DOJ Against State AGs, And Not Just Dems

By Bryan Koenig

Controversial U.S. Department of Justice settlements with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Live Nation, along with the approval of Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, are increasingly inspiring state attorneys general to strike out on their own as antitrust enforcers, often in direct challenge to a federal government that Democrats have cast as "corrupt."

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Florida Gov., AG Face Criticism For Judge Impeachment Push

By Rose Krebs

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier faced pushback this week from some in the state's legal community for calling for the impeachment of a judge for releasing a man who went on to allegedly kill his five-year-old stepdaughter, with critics blasting those calls as being politically motivated and "unethical."

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Analysis

DOJ's New Corporate Enforcement Policy May Eclipse SDNY's

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice has put to use for the first time its new corporate enforcement policy of declining prosecutions when companies self-report potential criminal violations, but experts say the new, department-wide initiative has rendered a more business-friendly approach by the Southern District of New York moot.

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Ex-DOJ Official Wants Epstein-Talk Suit Kept In District Court

By Emily Sawicki

A former U.S. Department of Justice acting deputy chief who was fired last year after a hidden-camera video of him discussing the Epstein files was posted online has told a D.C. federal judge his due process case must survive in district court because the Trump administration now controls federal oversight agencies.

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Trump Seeks 13% Boost In DOJ Funding

By Courtney Bublé

The White House budget request for fiscal 2027, released on Friday, seeks $40.8 billion in discretionary funds for the U.S. Department of Justice, a 13% increase from the current year level.

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Judge Stands By Block Of DOJ Subpoenas In Powell Probe

By Jon Hill

A Washington, D.C., federal judge on Friday rejected a U.S. Department of Justice attempt to revive subpoenas from its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the government hadn't "come close" to giving him a reason to rethink blocking them.

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Schneider Wallace Loses Bid For Bigger Piece Of $75M Fee

By Lauren Berg

A California federal magistrate judge on Friday rejected Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's bid to increase its cut of a $75.4 million fee award for representing plaintiffs in a $228.5 million Sutter Health antitrust deal, saying lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP's allocation of $1.4 million to Schneider Wallace was fair.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

PayPal was hit with a proposed investor class action that claims the payments giant hid slowing growth for its critical branded checkout business. In the meantime, a Shopify lawyer encouraged his peers during a webinar to make sure their outside counsel have "met the moment" by leveraging artificial intelligence in smart ways. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Alliance Defending Freedom, Pearman Law Firm PC and attorney Barry Arrington lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado ban on therapy intended to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to viewpoint discrimination against a Christian therapist.

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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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