9th Circ. Backs Delta Immunity Over In-Flight Restraint

By Jonathan Capriel

Airlines are broadly immune from civil litigation when they report to law enforcement a passenger behaving suspiciously, the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday, ending litigation by a passenger who secured a $7 million verdict against Delta Air Lines after a jury found he had not behaved suspiciously and that flight staff had caused him to be injured.

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Judge Rejects $2.5M Fees For Opt-Out Attys In Chevy Case

By Mike Curley

A Michigan federal judge has rejected a motion from LG Chem and its affiliates for $2.5 million in fees for attorneys who had urged their clients to opt out of a $150 million settlement resolving allegations that Chevrolet Bolt batteries were defective, then to opt back in, saying the attorneys did nothing to materially improve or work toward the deal.

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Spirit Airlines Gets OK To Sell 27 Planes For $668M In Ch. 11

By Alex Wittenberg

Spirit Airlines on Wednesday secured a New York bankruptcy judge's approval to sell 27 airplanes to two buyers for a combined $668 million.

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9th Circ. Grounds Suit Over Wash. Airport Flight Path Pollution

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit panel said Wednesday that a provision of the Clean Air Act limiting state regulation of aircraft emissions is enough to extinguish a group of Washington residents' proposed class action against Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport's operator over alleged flight path pollution.

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Delta Anti-Moonlighting Suit Sent Back To Wash. State Court

By MJ Koo

A federal judge has sent a proposed class action accusing Delta Air Lines of barring low-wage workers from holding second jobs back to Washington state court, finding the worker who brought the suit failed to show she suffered a concrete injury that gave the federal court authority to hear the case.

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Boeing Pushes For Pretrial Win In Norwegian Air 737 Max Suit

By Hailey Konnath

The Boeing Co. has asked a Washington federal judge to hand it a win in Norwegian Air subsidiaries' suit over their purchase of 737 Max airplanes, arguing there is no evidence supporting the subsidiaries' claims that Boeing misled them as to the safety and reliability of the aircraft.

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Honeywell Aerospace Hit With Suit Over $2M DOJ Settlement

By Katryna Perera

Honeywell Aerospace is facing an investor suit alleging it failed to disclose a federal investigation that led to a $2 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and that a small set of suppliers had a "disproportionate impact" on the aerospace and defense company's revenue.

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Nepotism Allegation Can't Sustain Race Bias Suit, Judge Says

By Patrick Hoff

An automotive parts manufacturer does not have to face a Black former employee's lawsuit alleging she was fired for using her cellphone at work while a human resources manager's white daughter evaded discipline, a Michigan federal judge ruled, concluding Wednesday that the worker's nepotism accusations couldn't support race bias claims.

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Fla. Court Says Tesla Shouldn't Transfer Fatal Crash Suit

By David Minsky

A Florida state judge on Wednesday issued a report recommending denial of Tesla Inc.'s bid to transfer a fatal crash lawsuit from Broward County to Miami-Dade County, saying it's too late to move the case after nearly five years of litigation. 

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KCSR Appeals STB's BNSF Terminal Trackage Rights Ruling

By Jared Foretek

Canadian Pacific Kansas City subsidiary Kansas City Southern Railway is asking the D.C. Circuit to overturn a Surface Transportation Board ruling that set the price BNSF Railway will pay to use a nine-mile conduit for petroleum and chemical shipping in Louisiana, in an appeal filed this week.

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Fed. Grants Bind Railways To Fed. Labor Law, NMB Argues

By Emily Brill

The Eleventh Circuit should affirm a Florida federal judge's finding that a high-speed rail operator is subject to the Railway Labor Act, the National Mediation Board argued, saying the operator can't wriggle its way out of complying because it runs an intercity rather than interstate rail line.

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Brief

Commerce Finalizes Duty Rates For Certain Freight Couplers

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Department of Commerce on Wednesday finalized its determinations that imported freight rail couplers from India and the Czech Republic are being sold at unfair prices.

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7th Circ. Skeptical Of UP's Temporal BIPA Contractor Argument

By Lauraann Wood

A Seventh Circuit panel seemed skeptical Wednesday that a government contractor exception in Illinois' biometric privacy law should be applied through a temporal test to determine whether such a contract's mere existence is enough to excuse defendants from the statute's informed consent requirements.

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Mail Delivery Co. Strikes Deal In EEOC Sunday Work Suit

By Grace Elletson

A mail delivery contractor agreed to pay $60,000 to end a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit claiming the business demanded a Christian employee work on Sundays, even though he complained those shifts made him miss church.

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Brief

Commerce Says Chinese Co.'s Small Engines Skirting Duties

By Jack McLoone

A pair of engines produced by a Chinese company and imported to the U.S. were developed in order to evade duty orders on small engines from the country, the U.S. Department of Commerce found Wednesday.

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Judge Won't Overturn $5M American Axle Win In Patent Case

By Adam Lidgett

Neapco Holdings LLC has lost its bid to dodge paying a $5.2 million award in a patent suit from American Axle after a Delaware federal judge found that there was enough evidence to back the jury's finding and that the monetary amount wasn't excessive.

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OpenAI Looks To End SpaceXAI's Apple Deal Antitrust Case

By Matthew Perlman

OpenAI is urging a Texas federal court to end an antitrust case from Elon Musk's SpaceXAI over a deal integrating ChatGPT into Apple devices, saying the pact is not exclusive and does not block competition from rival chatbots.

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NY's Landmark Climate Change Superfund Blocked Again

By Hailey Konnath

Another New York federal judge on Wednesday agreed with the federal government that the Empire State overstepped its authority with its Climate Change Superfund Act, the second such ruling on the state's landmark attempt to collect payments from fossil fuel companies to fund climate change mitigation efforts.

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Opinion

Calif. Bill Goes Too Far In Trying To Regulate Attorney AI Use

California’s first-in-the-nation act regulating how attorneys and arbitrators use generative artificial intelligence will likely soon become law, but read broadly, the provisions may dissuade lawyers from employing AI at all, thereby depriving them of key work tools, says Joshua Wurtzel at Schlam Stone.

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Tarter Krinsky Data Breach May Have Affected Health Info

By Andrea Keckley

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP said in a letter this month that a data breach last year may have compromised protected health information the firm possessed due to its representation of an unnamed healthcare provider.

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'I'm Tired Of This': Judge Scolds Atty In Romantasy Suit

By Theresa Schliep

A New York federal judge has reprimanded counsel for a writer in a failed copyright infringement lawsuit over the "Crave" book series, insisting the plaintiff answer all questions in a deposition over attorney fees and writing that she was "tired of this" and "indeed being jerked around."

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Goldstein Not Leaving Prison Any Time Soon, 4th Circ. Rules

By Jeff Overley

The Fourth Circuit balked late Wednesday at freeing Tom Goldstein from prison as he fights felony convictions, and it rejected fast-track review of the renowned appellate advocate's trial, indicating he'll likely spend substantial time behind bars even if his appeal succeeds.

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Analysis

Newman's Roadblocks Guide Judicial Conduct Reform Bill

By Dani Kass

The Judicial Conduct and Disability Act has worked well in allowing the judicial branch to govern itself for nearly 50 years, but the ongoing suspension of Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman has exposed gaps that could be addressed with newly introduced legislation, attorneys say.

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Senate Confirms Abbott Aide To Texas Federal Bench

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-47, along party lines, on Wednesday to confirm Angela Colmenero, deputy chief of staff to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, to serve on the Southern District of Texas.

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Fed. Panel At Standstill Over ABA Law School Accreditor Role

By Emma Cueto

A key U.S. Department of Education committee deadlocked Wednesday over whether the American Bar Association council responsible for approving law schools should continue as a federally recognized accreditor, tabling the issue until Thursday after different proposals failed to win majority support.

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