Northrop To Pay $75M In Midtrial LA Contamination Deal

By Bonnie Eslinger

Residents of a Los Angeles suburb who sued Northrop Grumman over alleged environmental contamination have asked a California federal judge to preliminarily approve a $75 million class deal struck midtrial with the aerospace company that also proposes their attorneys receive up to 40% of the fund — and possibly more.

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BigLaw Could Tap PE Money For Advantage In Talent Wars

By Ryan Boysen

BigLaw firms may soon partner with private equity to gain an edge in the talent wars, potentially reshaping the U.S. legal industry despite fears that the shift could corrode firms' cultures.

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John Oliver Dodges Defamation Suit Over Medicaid Segment

By Y. Peter Kang

A physician highlighted in a "Last Week Tonight" segment on Medicaid who sued host John Oliver for defamation lost his case Tuesday, after a New York federal judge found the challenged statements were protected speech.

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Feds Say Lejeune Plaintiffs Seek Billion-Dollar 'Windfall'

By Emily Field

The federal government has told a North Carolina federal court that Camp Lejeune litigants are trying to rewrite the 2022 federal law that allowed them to recover damages from their exposure to toxic water on the base to give them a "windfall" of billions of dollars.

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Talc Tester Says J&J Never Pressured Him To Hide Asbestos

By Craig Clough

A geologist on Tuesday told a California jury considering bellwether claims that Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused their deadly ovarian cancer that he tested the products for years and the company never asked him to lie about any results, even after he discovered asbestos in a World War II-era bottle.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Arias Sanguinetti's Mike Arias

By Joyce Hanson

When she was team captain with a track and field scholarship at the University of Southern California in the 1990s, Nicole Haynes was in good health and rarely had to see a doctor. So when she got a bad stomachache and her friends encouraged her to visit the USC health center, Haynes said she didn't have the right words to explain why her experience with Dr. George Tyndall had felt so invasive and wrong.

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10th Circ. Backs Toyota's Win In RAV4 Defect Suit

By Benjamin Morse

The Tenth Circuit affirmed Toyota Motor Corp.'s trial win in a Colorado product liability suit over a RAV4 crash that left a passenger with a severe brain injury, saying the passenger could not challenge the jury's verdict because he failed to make the required trial and posttrial motions.

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Brief

Nev. Law Firm Says Cox Gave Away Longtime Phone Number

By Nadia Dreid

A Nevada personal injury firm claims that Cox took its well-known, single-digit phone number away and gave it to Comcast without saying anything, which has cost it business and harmed its reputation.

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Boeing Says Wash. Law Bars Punitives In Door-Plug Suit

By Linda Chiem

The Boeing Co. has told a federal judge that Washington state law bars punitive damages in a lawsuit from a mother and her teenage son who were seated next to the door plug that blew off the 737 Max 9 jet midflight in January 2024.

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3rd Circ. Asks NJ To Define 'Unreasonable' Gunmaker Conduct

By George Woolston

The Third Circuit on Tuesday appeared skeptical of the state of New Jersey's position that The National Shooting Sports Foundation still lacked standing as it tries to renew its challenge of a Garden State law allowing it to sue gunmakers for endangering public safety, questioning what exactly is impermissible under broad statutory language like "unreasonable" conduct.

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Mich. Judge Cuts Fees After $4M Police Assault Verdict

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge has awarded more than $632,000 in attorney fees to a man who won a $4 million excessive force verdict against a Detroit-area police officer, while sharply reducing the hourly rates sought by his attorneys and rejecting a township's attempt to recover its own fees.

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9th Circ. Revives Duty To Defend Claims In Wash. Crash Suit

By Ben Adlin

A Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday partially revived a Washington couple's claims accusing Integon Preferred Insurance Co. of flouting its duty to defend them from a lawsuit over a 2017 pedestrian collision, reversing a lower court's ruling that the policyholders failed to promptly notify the insurer of the suit.

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Publix Says Snack Co.'s Insurers Owe Slip-Fall Coverage

By Carolina Bolado

Publix has urged a Florida federal judge to find that insurers for salty snack food maker Snyder's-Lance Inc. should have covered the supermarket chain's defense in a $3 million slip-and-fall case under an agreement to indemnify the retailer for injuries involving the snack maker's agents.

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Chubb Unit Must Defend Calif. Diocese In Sex Abuse Suits

By Hope Patti

A Chubb insurer has a duty to defend a Roman Catholic diocese in California against more than 200 consolidated child sex abuse suits, a federal court ruled, saying the claims trigger an umbrella policy provision requiring defense coverage of occurrences that are not covered by the primary policy.

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Brief

Religious Org., Insurer Settle Abuse Coverage Dispute

By Danielle Ferguson

A Missouri Christian ranch for at-risk boys has settled a lawsuit from its nonprofit insurer that claimed it did not owe coverage for a case alleging a former resident experienced physical and sexual abuse during his time at the organization. 

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2 'Rocket Dockets' And The Rules That Propel Them

The fastest civil trial courts in the country are currently in the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Florida, and their chief judges provide insights into the court rules that keep them ahead, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Dardarian Ho's Linda Dardarian

By Lynn LaRowe

Despite being on the other side of a disability rights case that will cost his municipality at least $150 million, Kevin McLaughlin, city attorney for Oakland, California, believes that if more lawyers were like Linda Dardarian, there would be far less lamenting about civility in the legal profession.

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Hueston Hennigan Follows Milbank's Lead In Associate Pay

By Tracey Read

The race to match Milbank LLP's attorney pay hikes is officially on, with trial firm Hueston Hennigan the latest to announce it will increase associate pay by $10,000 to $20,000 annually.

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Graham Pushes Federal Tort Path After DOJ Drops $1.8B Fund

By Courtney Bublé

The U.S. Department of Justice seemed, at least briefly, to support a Republican senator's alternative solution to the "anti-weaponization" $1.8 billion fund that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday the department is abandoning.

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Crowell Unveils DC Office In Revamped Former Metro HQ

By Alison Knezevich

Crowell & Moring LLP has a new home in the nation's capital, with the firm announcing Wednesday it has moved its D.C. office to the redeveloped former Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority headquarters.

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BigLaw Insider Trading Defendants Have Big-Name Legal Help

By Chris Villani

An insider trading case involving nonpublic information prosecutors say was stolen from some of the largest law firms in the U.S. has ensnared more than two dozen defendants, many of whom have turned to lawyers with notable clients including Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein and Luigi Mangione.

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Rocade Capital Buys LFG To Create Combined $2B Lit Funder

By Ryan Boysen

Rocade Capital LLC has acquired fellow litigation funder Law Finance Group LLC, creating a combined platform that has deployed more than $2.3 billion and specializes in $10 to $50 million deals, including post-judgment financing, portfolio deals and lending to plaintiff's firms.

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DOJ Sets New Healthcare Fraud Convictions Record

By Phillip Bantz

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that its Health Care Fraud Unit secured six jury trial convictions across the country in less than three weeks, with the cases involving more than $1.1 billion in fraud losses.

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'Read The Cases': Conn. Judge Offers AI Advice To Attys

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut federal judge told a gathering of attorneys Tuesday that his law clerks are not allowed to use generative artificial intelligence for any purpose involving legal research, his interns are barred from using it at all, and lawyers must be careful when relying on the material that the tools produce.

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Court Reporter Shortage A 'Crisis,' Calif. Supreme Court Told

By Bonnie Eslinger

Two legal nonprofits urged the California Supreme Court to issue an order entitling low-income civil litigants to electronic recording if a live court reporter is not available, saying at a hearing Wednesday that a court reporter shortage in the Golden State has created a "crisis."

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Colo. Firm Accused Of Giving Bad Immigration Filing Advice

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado personal injury law firm gave faulty legal advice to two clients regarding the filing of their immigration documents and caused them to lose their ability to lawfully work in the United States, the former clients alleged in Colorado state court.

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Analysis

The Plaintiffs Atty Now 5-0 At Supreme Court With No Dissents

By Jeff Overley

It's true that Jennifer Bennett is undefeated at the U.S. Supreme Court, but it's also an understatement. Bennett's five wins, including two recent ones, were all unanimous decisions. They showed that the plaintiffs bar can still persuade a conservative supermajority. And they turned the tide after a spree of decisions keeping workers and consumers out of court.

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