Purdue's $125M McKinsey Deal Gets OK Ahead Of Ch. 11 Exit

By Alex Wittenberg

Purdue Pharma LP on Thursday secured a New York bankruptcy judge's approval of a $125 million agreement with McKinsey & Co. that settles claims tied to the consulting firm's work advising Purdue on the sale and marketing of opioids, clearing the way for the pharmaceutical company to exit Chapter 11 and put its $7.4 billion bankruptcy plan into effect.

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Wash. Justices Split Asbestos Claims Against Insulation Biz

By Emily Field

The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday said the estate of an oil refinery maintenance worker cannot bring certain construction-related claims against an insulation company over his asbestos exposure, yet it can still bring claims over the company's role as a seller of asbestos-containing products.

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Monsanto Keeps Trial Win In Roundup Cancer Case

By Y. Peter Kang

A California state appeals court has affirmed a defense verdict for Monsanto in a Roundup cancer lawsuit, saying the trial court did not allow improper regulatory evidence concerning the herbicide.

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J&J Says Ill. Ruling Backs Beasley Allen's DQ From Talc Suits

By George Woolston

Johnson & Johnson told a New Jersey federal court that a recent ruling in Illinois backs the Beasley Allen Law Firm's disqualification from multidistrict litigation over its talcum powder.

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Brief

Judge Gives $27M Settlement Final Nod In DuPont PFAS Case

By Jonathan Capriel

A New York federal judge has granted final approval to a $27 million deal between DuPont and the Hoosick Falls residents who claimed the company's chemicals contaminated their drinking water for years, damaging their property values and leaving toxic levels of "forever chemicals" in their blood.

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GM Keyless-Theft Suit Trimmed, Core Claims Survive

By Jonathan Capriel

A proposed class of drivers who claim General Motors hid a design flaw that allows thieves to easily access their vehicles saw their claims trimmed by a Texas federal judge, but he allowed most drivers to proceed with their core unjust enrichment claims.

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XAI's Suit Is 'Jurisdictional Bullying,' Musk Child's Mom Says

By Mike Curley

The mother of one of Elon Musk's children is urging a Texas federal court to throw out a suit from his artificial intelligence company alleging she breached its terms of service by suing it in New York, saying the case is "jurisdictional bullying" and trying to weaponize a forum selection clause to preempt her own case.

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New Mexico AG Calls Meta Threat To Leave State 'PR Stunt'

By Craig Clough

New Mexico's attorney general responded Thursday to Meta Platforms' threat to pull social media products from the state if an upcoming bench trial over potential mandates to increase child safety goes poorly for the company, calling it a "PR stunt" that is "showing the world how little it cares about child safety."

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Ga. Panel Scraps Sanctions Over Special Master's Unpaid Bill

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia appellate panel threw out Thursday a contempt order entered against plaintiffs suing a host of chemical companies for toxic tort claims after they failed to pay a special master's legal fees, ruling that a trial court wrongly disregarded their protests that they couldn't afford his services.

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Boeing Set To Face 2nd Ill. Jury Over Ethiopian Air Crash

By Lauraann Wood

Boeing is set to face another round of Illinois jurors as the aerospace giant and the family of an Ethiopian Air crash victim head for what could be the second wrongful death trial kicking off next week in consolidated litigation stemming from the tragedy.

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Jury Begins Mulling If Doctors Are Liable For Fatal Overdose

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A Philadelphia jury on Thursday began deliberations in a lawsuit accusing two doctors of enabling a 26-year-old man with chronic back pain to become hooked on opioid painkillers and fatally overdose.

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Kratom Seller Sanctioned For Deleting Blog During Suit

By Mike Curley

A California federal judge has sanctioned Ashlynn Marketing Group Inc. in a suit alleging it hid kratom's dangerous and addictive effects, finding that it deliberately deleted a blog containing statements about kratom after the suit was filed.

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DC Fights Federal Challenge To Assault Weapons Laws

By Jared Foretek

The District of Columbia government is urging a federal judge there to dismiss the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit targeting its assault weapons laws, claiming in a new response brief that the Trump administration is misusing a federal police misconduct law that was never intended to challenge criminal statutes.

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Kroger's Health Plan Tobacco Fee Shirks ERISA, Suit Says

By Grace Elletson

Supermarket giant Kroger violated federal benefits law by requiring workers to pay an extra fee through their health plan if they used tobacco while failing to give them a fair opportunity to avoid the charge, according to a proposed class action filed in Ohio federal court.

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Ga. Power Says Ford, Union Carbide Must Stay In Cancer Suit

By Chart Riggall

Georgia Power urged a state appellate court Thursday to reverse a trial court's order letting Ford and Union Carbide out of a construction worker's cancer claims, arguing that under the state's 2025 tort reform law, their dismissal would unjustly leave the utility company to face the suit alone.

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Mosaic's Radioactive Road Case Not Moot, Enviro Group Says

By Carolina Bolado

The Center for Biological Diversity told the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday that there are still remedies to pursue if the appeals court revives its challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approval of a road that contains radioactive phosphogypsum that has already been completed.

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Wash. Tribes Beat Big Oil's Bid To Dismiss Climate Suits

By Ben Adlin

A Washington state judge refused on Wednesday to dismiss two Native American tribes' lawsuits accusing ExxonMobil, Chevron and other major oil companies of concealing climate change risks related to fossil fuels, rejecting the companies' arguments that federal law blocks the tribes' claims.

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Why Product-Based Public Nuisance Claims May Be Waning

The Maryland Supreme Court's recent decision in Express Scripts v. Anne Arundel County is the latest in a national trend of rulings rejecting product-based public nuisance claims — but other forms of government litigation against companies that allegedly increase the cost of public services are likely to continue, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

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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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