Mom Hit By Tesla-Driving Toddler Can't Undo Trial Loss

By Y. Peter Kang

A California state appellate panel affirmed a midtrial win for Tesla in a suit brought by a mother who was struck by a Tesla driven by her toddler, saying she used the wrong legal standard to characterize her claim that certain features were defectively designed.

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Analysis

A Look At Four States' Tort Reform Legislation Fights

By Y. Peter Kang

There are currently four states debating whether to install business-friendly tort reform legislation or medical malpractice guardrails. The issues include a potentially brutal showdown in California over auto collision litigation and efforts in Florida to expand wrongful death liability for healthcare providers.

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DC Circ. Urged To Pause DOT Immigrant Truck Driver Rule

By Linda Chiem

Local governments, legal advocates, Teamsters California and others have urged the D.C. Circuit to suspend the U.S. Department of Transportation's new final rule containing sweeping restrictions on nondomiciled commercial driver's licenses for immigrants, saying nearly 200,000 drivers would be culled from the workforce and trigger a supply chain and critical services crisis. 

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Roundup

ERISA Recap: 6 Developments To Remember From Feb.

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Second Circuit refused to boot a former Luxottica worker's proposed class claims into solo arbitration, a Texas federal judge declined to snuff out a tobacco fee suit against 7-Eleven and a healthcare company inked a $43 million deal to wrap a case over how it handled 401(k) plan forfeitures. Here's a look back at six noteworthy moves in Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases from last month.

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Hyundai Faces $9.8M Sanction For Car Destruction

By Ganesh Setty

A Pennsylvania court has awarded two car dealerships nearly $9.8 million as a sanction against Hyundai Motor America after finding Hyundai "consciously" crushed cars they acquired before alleging, without evidence, that they intentionally damaged them to exploit Hyundai's vehicle repurchases.

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Calif. Privacy Agency Dings Ford Over Opt-Out 'Friction'

By Allison Grande

Ford Motor Co. has agreed to pay a fine of just over $375,000 and provide consumers with "easy methods" to stop the sharing and sale of their personal data in order to resolve the California privacy regulator's claims that the company added "unnecessary friction" to this opt-out process, the agency said Thursday. 

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DOD Official Says 30,000 Small Drone Order Coming Soon

By Madeline Lyskawa

A U.S. Department of Defense official told lawmakers Thursday that the Pentagon plans to order 30,000 small one-way attack drones for $150 million over the next few days, amid concerns that the U.S. is lagging behind with regard to its drone capabilities. 

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SpaceX Taps Citigroup For Planned IPO, Plus More Rumors

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

SpaceX has added Citigroup to its lineup of banks leading its planned blockbuster initial public offering, Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz are co-leading an investment in defense company Andural Industries that could value it at $60 billion, and Indian payments platform PhonePe is preparing plans for an initial public offering that would value it at $10.5 billion.

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Fla. Court Allows Chubb's Salvage Claim On Stolen Planes

By Mark Payne

Chubb European Group SE can move forward with a counterclaim against an aircraft leasing company that alleges the insurer can claim 23 Boeing and Airbus aircraft stolen by Russia at the start of the Ukraine war as salvaged, a Florida state court ruled.

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Boeing Doesn't Owe Fees For Hauling Bias Suit To Fed. Court

By Grace Elletson

Boeing won't have to pay attorney fees for a worker who got a discrimination case over bonuses sent back to Washington state court after the company yanked it into a federal venue, as a judge ruled Thursday that the aerospace giant's removal of the case wasn't egregious.

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Delta Evades OT Class Action Over Shift Swap Policy

By Kelcey Caulder

Delta Air Lines defeated Thursday a proposed class action in Georgia federal court that alleged the airline unlawfully withheld increased pay for overtime hours that resulted from workers swapping shifts with each other. 

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O'Reilly To Pay $5.6M To Settle Wash. Pregnancy Bias Suit

By Benjamin Morse

O'Reilly Auto Parts will pay $5.6 million to resolve claims that it failed to provide reasonable workplace accommodations to pregnant and postpartum workers and retaliated against them, the Washington Attorney General's Office announced. 

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Grubhub's $24.8M Deal To End Driver Fight Nears Initial OK

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge told counsel during a hearing Thursday that Grubhub Inc.'s revised $24.75 million settlement to resolve claims it misclassified drivers as independent contractors is "getting closer," but she held off on preliminarily approving the deal and told counsel they must "clean up" aspects of the class notice.

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GM Sued Over 'Catastrophic' Failures That Can Cause Fires

By Jonathan Capriel

Newer-model Buick and Chevrolet vehicles equipped with a 1.2-liter turbocharged engine can suffer "catastrophic internal failures," causing loss of power and even fires, according to a proposed class action filed in Delaware federal court accusing General Motors LLC of concealing the problem.

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Tire Co. Can't Break Free From Ex-Worker's 401(k) Suit

By Kellie Mejdrich

An Arizona federal judge refused to dismiss a proposed class action against a tire and wheel retailer alleging mismanagement of a $1.2 billion employee 401(k) plan, holding that an ex-worker sufficiently backed up claims that an underperforming suite of target-date fund investments violated federal benefits law.

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Brief

ITC To Probe Whether ATV Imports Infringe Polaris Patents

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. International Trade Commission will open an investigation into whether imports of multiple-occupant ATVs known as side-by-sides infringe five patents held by Polaris.

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Third Spin The Charm On Chinese Truck Tire Duties, CIT Says

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Department of Commerce has, on its third try, correctly resolved the granting of separate duty rates in an "unusual case" involving a review of antidumping duties on Chinese tires, the U.S. Court of International Trade said.

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Series

Volunteering With Scouts Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Serving as an assistant scoutmaster for my son’s troop reaffirmed several skills and principles crucial to lawyering — from the importance of disconnecting to the value of morality, says Michael Warren at McManis Faulkner.

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Legal Jobs Up 19th Straight Month In 'Goldilocks' Economy

By Tracey Read

The legal sector continued its lengthy upward streak in February, with 2,600 more people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in January, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Ex-Girardi Keese Atty Pleads Guilty For Role In Client Scandal

By Dorothy Atkins

Former Girardi Keese attorney Keith Griffin pled guilty to criminal contempt in Illinois federal court on Thursday for his role in the firm's failure to pay millions ​in client settlement funds to relatives of victims killed in the crash of Lion Air Flight 610.

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Louisiana Atty Sanctioned Over AI Hallucinations In Filing

By Matt Perez

A Louisiana attorney was fined $1,000 Thursday for his use of artificial intelligence in drafting an error-riddled brief, while three co-counsel were spared penalty.

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Investors Accuse Alston & Bird Of Aiding $328M Crypto Fraud

By David Minsky

Several investors have brought a Florida federal proposed class action alleging legal malpractice against Alston & Bird LLP, accusing the law firm of drafting joint venture agreements that were used to aid a $328 million cryptocurrency scam. 

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Constantine Cannon Defends Handling Of Sutter $75M Fee

By Dorothy Atkins

Constantine Cannon LLP pushed back Thursday against Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's allegations it unfairly reduced Schneider Wallace's share of a $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million antitrust deal, arguing in California federal court that the firm "sat on the sidelines" for most of the decadelong fight and isn't entitled to a bigger cut.

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NJ Talc Suit Will Proceed Amid Beasley Allen DQ Appeal

By Emily Sawicki

The New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to stay multicounty litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder brought by hundreds of women who allege their ovarian cancer was linked to the product, while Beasley Allen appeals its removal as plaintiff's counsel over a firm partner's collaboration with the pharmaceutical giant's former outside counsel.

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Florida Bar Rescinds Claim Agency Is Investigating Halligan

By Jack Karp

The Florida Bar said Friday that it is not investigating controversial former interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, walking back a previous assertion it had made in a letter to a nonprofit that it was probing Halligan's actions.

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Courts Aren't Ignoring Justices' TPS Orders, Ex-Judges Say

By Ganesh Setty

Over 175 former federal and state judges have slammed the Trump administration's claim that lower courts "flouted" interim orders from the U.S. Supreme Court in litigation involving the administration's revocation of foreign nationals' temporary protected status, saying they weren't binding.

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Dems Again Push For Independent Immigration Courts

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats have again introduced a bill that would shift the immigration courts from the executive branch to an independent judiciary, following concerns that the Trump administration has "weaponized" the system.

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Roundup

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen British American Tobacco sued by more than 100 investors, the government bring a claim against a COVID-19 supplier of personal protective equipment, Annington Funding sue its new corporate trustees on the Financial List, and Piers Morgan hit with a defamation claim from a pro-Israel barrister he interviewed on his YouTube channel. 

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Anthropic, the developer of Claude AI, says it will take the Pentagon to court over being designated a national security risk because it wants to impose ethical guardrails on Claude's use. And the Mideast war is making in-house legal teams across the country work long hours to protect employees trapped by the violence and to keep businesses running despite broken supply chains. 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

Winston & Strawn LLP, Sullivan Papain Block McManus Coffinas & Cannavo PC, Stanford's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and attorney Olivia Gabriel lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey cannot shield its public transit system from personal injury lawsuits by out-of-state plaintiffs under sovereign immunity.

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