'I Want Names': YouTube Attys' MDL Redactions Face Scrutiny

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal magistrate judge ordered YouTube on Thursday to provide him with unredacted versions of documents it produced in sprawling multidistrict litigation over claims social media is addictive, and demanded that YouTube identify counsel who made its relevance-redaction determinations, saying. "I want names and I want teams."

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Admin Of $600M Norfolk Southern Derailment Deal Removed

By Matthew Santoni

The company administrating the payouts to plaintiffs in Norfolk Southern's $600 million settlement stemming from the fiery derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, has been replaced, because it purportedly made miscalculations that overpaid some claimants.

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Analysis

Air India Crash — Boeing 787 Dreamliner: What Do We Know?

By Linda Chiem

The Boeing Co. is bracing for renewed scrutiny after Thursday's deadly crash of an Air India flight with 242 people onboard as another line of its jets — this time, its 787-8 Dreamliner — is involved in an overseas aviation disaster just as the company was eyeing a fresh chapter following its 737 Max crisis.

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Weinstein Sex Abuse Trial Ends After Mixed, Partial Verdict

By Pete Brush

Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse retrial ended Thursday with a Manhattan jury failing to reach a verdict on a count alleging the movie mogul raped an actress, one day after he was convicted of forcing sex on a production assistant and cleared on a third charge.

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Calif. Insurance Chief Probes State Farm's Wildfire Coverage

By Lauren Berg

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced Thursday that he is launching an investigation into State Farm's handling of thousands of claims from the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires, as complaints continue to grow.

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Fla. Court Nixes Roundup Cancer Suit's Punitive Damages Bid

By Mike Curley

A Florida state appeals court has refused to let a plaintiff pursue punitive damages against Monsanto Co. in his suit alleging that glyphosate in the company's Roundup weedkiller caused his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, finding he didn't present sufficient evidence to support the damages.

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Fla. Jury Awards $2M To Welder Pinned Under Tow Truck Bed

By David Minsky

A Florida state court jury awarded $2 million in damages to a welder who sustained serious injuries when he was pinned under the bed of a tow truck during an incident while working as an independent contractor at a metal fabrication shop in 2022.

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Roundup Plaintiffs' Rip Of Expert Was Off Base, Jury Hears

By Cara Salvatore

A Missouri jury weighing a Roundup cancer case heard expert testimony Thursday that plaintiffs offered a "remarkable mischaracterization" of a defense expert witness on cancer causation when they said in openings that he was "discredited."

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WWE Accuser's Firm Blames PACER For Late Response

By Brian Steele

Counsel for the law firm representing a former World Wrestling Entertainment staffer on sex trafficking and abuse claims has objected to a motion for default in a related defamation suit, said he couldn't appear in the case earlier in part because of difficulty accessing the federal judiciary's electronic docket system, but he said he would have asked for more time to respond anyway.

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Kate Beckinsale Sues Over 'Dangerous' 'Canary Black' Set

By Hailey Konnath

Kate Beckinsale has sued the producers of action-thriller film "Canary Black" over allegedly "unsafe and dangerous conditions" during filming that left her with "severe and debilitating injuries," according to an amended complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

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Ex-NFL Player Ordered To Pay Dancer $78K In Assault Case

By Ryan Harroff

A Colorado federal judge has ordered former Los Angeles Raiders cornerback Damon Arnette Jr. to pay $78,634.50 to a dancer who said he assaulted her after a party at which she was hired to perform, an award entered as part of a default judgment against the player after he evaded service.

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Justices Grant Compensation Leeway To Late-Filing Vets

By Jared Foretek

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Barring Act's six-year statute of limitations for certain military-related claims does not apply to combat-related special compensation, a win for a proposed class of roughly 9,000 veterans who say they deserve additional pay despite filing late.

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Detroit Can't Block Sidewalk Hazard Suit, Mich. Justices Say

By Danielle Ferguson

Detroit cannot claim immunity in a lawsuit over a man's injuries from tripping on a metal post embedded in a sidewalk, the Michigan Supreme Court said Wednesday, ruling that the protrusion constitutes a dangerous defect under state law.

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Arbitration Order Reversed In Fla. Medical Office Battery Case

By David Minsky

A Florida state appellate court reversed an order for a doctor's lawsuit alleging she was battered by a fellow shareholder of their medical practice to be resolved out of court, allowing the case to be tried before a jury.

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Construction Co. Beats Gas Pipeline Explosion Injury Suit

By Catherine Marfin

A Texas appeals court said Wednesday that a construction company could escape a negligence suit from a worker injured in a 2018 pipeline explosion, ruling that the man hadn't shown his injuries were a foreseeable result of construction activities.

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Econo Lodge Hit With Trafficking Suit In Ga. Federal Court

By Kelcey Caulder

Econo Lodge has been sued in Georgia federal court by an unnamed plaintiff who alleges she was repeatedly trafficked for sex as a minor at one of the chain's hotels in College Park, Georgia, from 2014 through the end of 2016.

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Black Family Says Casino Let Customer, Staffer Hurl Slurs

By Zach Dupont

A Black family on Wednesday accused a Colorado casino of discrimination for allegedly allowing a fellow casino customer and a bartender to shout racial slurs at them after an argument broke out over the family not being served drinks.

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Charter Flight Co. Sanctioned In 'Hot Start' Damage Suit

By Mike Curley

A Kansas federal judge sanctioned charter flight company Sky Jet M.G. Inc. on Thursday in its suit alleging an aviation repair company improperly overhauled an engine component leading to a "hot start," finding Sky Jet deliberately tried to prevent the repair company from finding out about cockpit recordings of the incident.

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8th Circ. Stubs Out Challenge To FDA Menthol Vape Denial

By Mike Curley

The Eighth Circuit on Thursday threw out a challenge from SWT Global Supply Inc. to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's denial of its application to market menthol-flavored e-cigarettes, saying the agency didn't arbitrarily or capriciously find that the company's sales plan failed to meet its standards for promoting public health.

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Insurer Says Hair Relaxer Maker Not Covered In Cancer Suits

By Elizabeth Daley

An insurer told a Georgia federal court that it had no duty to defend a hair relaxer and beauty products manufacturer in underlying litigation filed by people who alleged that chemicals in hair relaxer products the company produced caused them to develop cancer and suffer bodily injuries.

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Statistics Tools Chart A Path For AI Use In Expert Testimony

To avoid the fate of numerous expert witnesses whose testimony was recently deemed inadmissible by courts, experts relying on artificial intelligence and machine learning should learn from statistical tools’ road to judicial acceptance, say directors at Secretariat.

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GM Case Highlights New Trends In AI-Related Securities Suits

Bold company statements about artificial intelligence have resulted in a rise in AI-related securities litigation, and a recent Michigan federal court decision in In Re: General Motors Co. Securities Litigation illustrates how courts are analyzing these AI-based claims and applying traditional securities concepts to new technologies, say attorneys at Cooley.

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Attacks On Judicial Independence Tend To Manifest In 3 Ways

Attacks on judicial independence now run the gamut from gross (bald-faced interference) to systemic (structural changes) to insidious (efforts to undermine public trust), so lawyers, judges and the public must recognize the fateful moment in which we live and defend the rule of law every day, says Jim Moliterno at Washington and Lee University.

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Analysis

These Firms Are Landing The Most PTAB Work

By Theresa Schliep

Intellectual property powerhouse Fish & Richardson again secured the top spot on a list of firms appearing in the most trials over the past three years in front of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

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Mass. Judge, On Stand, Denies Helping Immigrant Evade ICE

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts judge accused of approving a plan to let a man elude immigration officers by letting him leave the court through a back door seven years ago testified Thursday that was not her intent when she granted a request to let him speak with an attorney in a courthouse lockup.

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Trump's Deployment Of National Guard Illegal, Judge Says

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge on Thursday granted California's request for a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump's order sending the National Guard into Los Angeles, calling the president's actions "illegal" and unconstitutional, but the decision was quickly paused by the Ninth Circuit.

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Google Fights MDL Plaintiffs' Sanctions Bid Over Lost Chats

By Emily Sawicki

Google is pushing back on a request for sanctions that a slew of advertisers and publishers have brought in their antitrust lawsuit over the company's advertising placement technology, saying the plaintiffs have not shown Google hid evidence amid the "mountains" of electronically stored information it provided.

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Approach The Bench: Judge Proctor On Civility, Civil Rules

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

R. David Proctor, chief judge of the Northern District of Alabama, is a leader within the federal judiciary. He's both assigned and presided over multidistrict litigation. He may write a nationwide rule governing third-party litigation funding. And he's gained internet fame for ordering two attorneys to eat lunch together.

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Avenatti Sheds 3 Years After 9th Circ. Orders Resentencing

By Gina Kim

A California federal judge on Thursday resentenced disbarred attorney Michael Avenatti to just over 11 years in federal prison for filching millions of dollars from his clients' settlement funds, reducing a 14-year sentence overturned by the Ninth Circuit and leaving Avenatti with about eight years left after time served.

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DOJ Picks Proceed Despite Worry Over Honoring Court Orders

By Courtney Bublé

Two nominations for top positions in the U.S. Department of Justice were voted out of committee on party lines on Thursday.

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Calif. Sues Trump Over 'Wildly Partisan' EV Waiver Repeal

By Dorothy Atkins

The California attorney general and 10 other states sued the Trump administration in federal court Thursday, minutes after President Donald Trump signed resolutions repealing California's Clean Air Act waiver that allowed the state to establish its own vehicle emissions standards, slamming the resolutions as unconstitutional, irrational and "wildly partisan."

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Interview

Ex-Interior Secretary Salazar On 'Coming Home' To WilmerHale

By Aebra Coe

Former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, who served as secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior during the Obama administration and most recently as ambassador to Mexico during the Biden administration, returned this month to WilmerHale's Denver office, which he founded in 2014.

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Justices Say Habeas Claims Can't Be Added After Judgment

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a prisoner may not add new claims to a habeas corpus petition once a final judgment is issued, cementing strict limits on repeat habeas filings prescribed by federal law.

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Justices Limit FTCA Defense In FBI Raid Case

By Chart Riggall

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday held that the Constitution's supremacy clause cannot shield the federal government from Federal Tort Claims Act suits, in the process reviving a Georgia woman's claim over an FBI raid aimed at a gang member but mistakenly carried out at her home.

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Analysis

Rising PTAB Filings Follow Surge In Patent Cases

By Theresa Schliep

The number of petitions filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ticked up last year, following a similar increase in federal court litigation and suggesting that activity at the board has somewhat stabilized, according to a new report.

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