Travis Scott Denied Early Win Ahead Of 1st Astroworld Trial

By Catherine Marfin

Rapper Travis Scott and a host of entities behind the 2021 Astroworld festival have been denied pretrial wins in litigation stemming from the fatal crowd crush, less than two weeks before the first case in the sprawling multidistrict litigation is set to go before a Houston jury.

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Houston Surgeon OKs Order For Docs In Wrongful Death Suit

By Catherine Marfin

A transplant surgeon at Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center in Houston and the families of three patients who died while on the hospital's liver transplant waiting list told a judge Thursday that they had agreed to a temporary restraining order preventing the doctor from deleting or altering any documents related to the families' wrongful death claims.

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5th Circ. Axes Class Claims Over Anadarko's $900M Write-Off

By Jessica Corso

The Fifth Circuit on Thursday decertified a class of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. shareholders who claim they lost money on the company's bad oilfield bet, ruling a lower court judge didn't allow the company to respond to an expert report that tied a stock price drop to a $900 million write-off disclosure.

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Biden Admin's Gas Venting Curbs Are Illegal, ND Says

By Peter McGuire

A North Dakota-led alliance of states has accused the Biden administration of pushing through limits on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector illegally disguised as a rule to reduce industry waste, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

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Texas County's Electioneering Rules Face Questions In Court

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas federal judge pushed a top Fort Worth-area county official on whether new restrictions on signage outside an election site were put in place to stop voter intimidation, pressing county officials on how the policy complies with the First Amendment.

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Mr. Cooper's $3.6M Convenience Fee Settlement Gets Final OK

By Ali Sullivan

A D.C. federal judge on Thursday gave the final nod to a nearly $3.6 million settlement to resolve class action claims that Mr. Cooper unlawfully charged processing fees to borrowers who made mortgage payments over the phone.

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Attys, Insurance Agent Found Guilty Of Tax-Avoidance Scheme

By Hayley Fowler

Two St. Louis tax attorneys and a North Carolina insurance agent on Thursday were found guilty on all counts of conspiring to defraud the federal government and aiding in the filing of false tax returns for their role in a tax avoidance scheme that prosecutors claim cost the Internal Revenue Service more than $4 million.

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Valero Seeks $75M In Tax Refunds For Fuel Mixtures

By Anna Scott Farrell

Energy company Valero asked a Texas federal court for $75 million in excise tax refunds, claiming the Internal Revenue Service failed to recognize that its production of specific fuels such as butane blends and biomass derivatives qualified for the alternative fuel mixture credit.

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Texas Doc Can't Avoid Woman's Suit Over Son's Brain Injury

By Mike Curley

A Texas appeals court on Thursday declined to throw out a woman's suit alleging an anesthesiologist wrongly administered an epidural during delivery and caused her son to suffer a brain injury, finding the judge did not find the woman's expert report deficient despite giving her a month to amend it.

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Tesla Says Investors May Want To Influence Shareholder Vote

By Hailey Konnath

Tesla on Thursday questioned the motives of investors who want billions of dollars in company stock put into a trust, saying that their push to hasten the court's decision in their suit over Elon Musk's compensation plan raises concerns that they want to "elicit commentary" ahead of a shareholder meeting.

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SEC Says Texas Crypto Mining Co. Execs Ran $5.6M Fraud

By Emilie Ruscoe

A crypto asset mining and hosting company and two of its principals face U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims they defrauded about 64 investors with an unregistered securities offering that raised $5.6 million, spending investor funds lavishly on themselves while neglecting to set up, or in some cases even buy, the mining equipment they had said they would get.

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Real Estate Exec Can't Escape Shareholder's Self-Dealing Suit

By Katryna Perera

A California federal judge ruled that a derivative shareholder suit accusing the president of a real estate management and investment firm of misusing nearly $35 million of company revenue now passes the so-called Zuckerberg test since the plaintiff sufficiently pled that demand on the company's board members would be futile.

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McDermott Judge U-Turns, Says Some Investors Deserve Cert.

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Texas federal magistrate judge reversed his recommendation that investors be denied class certification in litigation over McDermott International's $6 billion merger with Chicago Bridge & Iron, saying a former CB&I shareholder class "should be certified now" and a putative McDermott stock purchaser class be created for subsequent consideration.

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PHX Minerals Stockholders Sue In Del. To Change Bylaws

By Isaac Monterose

A proposed class of PHX Minerals Inc. stockholders has sued the natural gas and oil mineral company and its board in Delaware state court, arguing that the company's bylaws must be changed to bring them into compliance with the Delaware General Corporation Law.

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Crypto Co. Sues 'Crusading' Gensler Over SEC's Ether Stance

By Aislinn Keely

Cryptocurrency software company Consensys Software Inc. sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday in Texas federal court over the agency's treatment of the Ethereum network's ether token as a security after the company received a so-called Wells notice that agency staff intends to recommend an enforcement action over its products.

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Judge Puts Texas Arrest Law Case On Ice During Appeal

By Britain Eakin

A Texas federal court has paused the Biden administration's lawsuit challenging Texas' controversial law allowing state officials to arrest and deport migrants crossing the border unlawfully until the state's appeal of the court's temporary block on the law concludes.

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US Says Seizure Power Erodes Landowner's Border Wall Suit

By Alyssa Aquino

The federal government told the Fifth Circuit that its eminent domain authority should defeat a landowner's claims that she owns a $6.5 million section of border wall that was allegedly built on her farm without authorization in 2008.

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DOJ Pressed On Prosecutions Of Muslim Asylum-Seekers

By Jared Foretek

The U.S. Department of Justice is facing new questions from Capitol Hill over prosecutions of Muslim asylum-seekers in the wake of a Los Angeles Times report showing that migrants from majority-Muslim countries were disproportionately imprisoned at the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.

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Patent Holder Settles Transfer Fraud Case Tied To $17M Win

By Aaron Keller

The holder of a patent on a device that prevents New York City subways from flooding on Thursday settled a case adjacent to a $17.8 million infringement feud by agreeing to accept $850,000 from an individual and two companies accused of helping siphon money away from the infringers.

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5 Employer Actions Now Risky After Justices' Title VII Ruling

Last week in Muldrow v. St. Louis, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that harm didn't have to be significant to be considered discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, making five common employer actions vulnerable to litigation, say Kellee Kruse and Briana Scholar at The Employment Law Group.

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Series

Being An Equestrian Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Beyond getting experience thinking on my feet and tackling stressful situations, the skills I've gained from horseback riding have considerable overlap with the skills used to practice law, particularly in terms of team building, continuing education, and making an effort to reset and recharge, says Kerry Irwin at Moore & Van Allen.

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Paul Weiss Partner Gertzman Remembered As Moral Leader

By Aebra Coe

Michael E. Gertzman, the former chair of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP's litigation department who died Wednesday, is being remembered "as a mentor, role model, partner and friend."

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Senators Urge ABA To Look Into Rape Questions On Bar Apps

By Cara Bayles

Several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to the American Bar Association on Friday urging it to study how state bar applications require would-be attorneys to disclose sexual violence.

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Analysis

Thomas' Long Quest To Undo A 'Grave Constitutional Error'

By Jeff Overley

A quarter-century after Justice Clarence Thomas cast a pivotal vote against jury trial rights and rapidly regretted it, his relentless campaign to undo the controversial precedent is suddenly center stage with a serious shot at succeeding, as judges and lawyers increasingly deem the decision dubious and the U.S. Supreme Court chips away at its edges.

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Analysis

How Legos, 'Working Girl' Sealed $10B Sibling Rivalry Win

By Craig Clough

A father-son attorney team used Legos and an argument borrowed from the 1988 film "Working Girl" to help a Los Angeles jury understand how their client's own brother illegally stole his multibillion-dollar real estate business, leading to a $10 billion verdict for their client and his other brothers, the attorneys told Law360.

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Coverage Recap: Day 4 Of Trump's NY Hush Money Trial

By Stewart Bishop

Law360 reporters are providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as Donald Trump goes on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election. Here's a recap from day four.

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The Week In Trump: Tabloid Testimony, High Court Drama

By Phillip Bantz

Donald Trump and his attorneys have been fighting high-stakes legal battles on several fronts as they grappled with a criminal hush money trial in Manhattan, argued at the U.S. Supreme Court for presidential immunity and tried to quash criminal election interference-related charges in Georgia.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

A report by LexisNexis' CounselLink found that average law firm partner billing rates rose 5.4% in 2023, and a federal jury in Colorado rejected a former in-house attorney's claim that Loeb & Loeb LLP and one of its ex-partners acted outrageously in filing a lawsuit accusing him of stealing a medical device company's trade secrets.

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Florida's Top Judge Tapped For 2nd Term As Chief Justice

By Madison Arnold

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz will serve a second term as the top administrative officer of the state's judicial system.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Aidala Bertuna & Kamins PC leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after New York's highest state court overturned Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction in a contentious, split opinion that found the former movie mogul's first jury proceeding was unfair.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen budget airline Ryanair file a claim against NATS PLC after the air traffic controller's system collapsed, Mastercard and Visa Europe face group claims from Christian Dior and dozens of other beauty retailers, an intellectual property clash between the publisher of The Sun and ITV, and ISC Europe sue a former director for alleged money laundering. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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