Pilot Plane Forfeiture Over 6-Pack Is Excessive, Justices Told

By Linda Chiem

An 83-year-old bush pilot has told the U.S. Supreme Court that Alaska flouted precedent and applied a grossly disproportionate standard by saddling him with the "ills of alcohol abuse statewide" in trying to forfeit his $95,000 plane for transporting a six-pack of beer to a dry village.

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Philly Firm Says Recent Discovery Dooms Uber's RICO Suit

By James Boyle

Philadelphia personal injury firm Simon & Simon PC has asked a Pennsylvania federal judge to dismiss Uber's complaint accusing it of orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to inflate settlements, claiming it learned through discovery that the company has not been damaged by the payouts.

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XPO Fights 'Drastic' Sanctions In Fatal Crash Suit

By Corey Rothauser

XPO Logistics Freight Inc. told a North Carolina appeals court that a trial judge went too far by effectively deciding liability against the company in a wrongful death suit over a fatal 2023 tractor-trailer crash as a sanction for alleged discovery violations.

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Former Girardi Keese CFO Drops Appeal Of 5-Year Fraud Term

By Emily Sawicki

The Seventh Circuit has granted onetime Girardi Keese financial chief Christopher Kamon's request to drop the appeal he lodged fighting an Illinois federal judge's order adding five concurrent years onto the 10 he is already serving for his role helping Tom Girardi, the head of the firm, steal millions from plane crash clients who settled cases in Chicago.

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Analysis

Judge Decries 'Gamesmanship' In Nixing EPA Waiver Moves

By Keith Goldberg

A federal judge has struck an initial blow against the Trump administration and congressional Republicans' aggressive use of the Congressional Review Act to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's move to make Clean Air Act waivers for California subject to potential rescission by lawmakers.

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Teamsters Set To Shed Federal Monitors After Judge's OK

By Chris Villani

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is slated to ease decades of government oversight meant to ferret out ties to organized crime after a New York federal judge on Thursday approved a deal between the union and the Trump administration.

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DC Circ. Won't Reconsider Argentina's $391M Arbitral Fight

By Gina Kim

The D.C. Circuit on Thursday refused to reconsider its decision affirming the enforcement of a $391 million arbitral award issued against Argentina in a 17-year-old dispute over the renationalization of its state-owned airline and denied the country's petition for a rehearing. 

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Boeing Investors Say 4th Circ. Ruling Imperils Class Actions

By Katryna Perera

Boeing investors have asked the full Fourth Circuit to rehear a panel's "extreme" decision overturning class certification in a suit against the aerospace company over its alleged concealment of safety issues with its 737 Max fleet, arguing that the panel decision will create a "vague and unworkable standard" in the circuit if left intact.

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Lithia Motors Gets Trim Of 401(k) Forfeiture, Fund Suit

By Kellie Mejdrich

A California federal judge agreed to trim claims from a proposed class action against Lithia Motors alleging the car dealership company mismanaged its $1 billion employee 401(k) plan by misallocating forfeitures and offering subpar investments, while also opening discovery on some allegations in the dispute.

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PATH Transit Agency Can't Evade Worker's Medical Bill Award

By George Woolston

A New Jersey federal judge declined to alter $913,000 awarded to a Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. cable splicer for medical expenses after he was injured on the job, holding that the jury had a reasonable basis to reach its verdict and that the award was not excessive.

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3 Firms Steer Autonomous Truck Tech Co.'s $800M SPAC Deal

By Al Barbarino

Autonomous trucking technology company Plus Automation Inc. has agreed to go public through a business combination with Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp. in a deal that values PlusAI at an $800 million pre-money equity value, the companies said Thursday.

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Alaska's Izembek Road Work OK'd Despite Axed Land Swap

By Joyce Hanson

A federal judge has slapped down an environmental group's bid to preliminarily stop the state of Alaska and a Native village corporation from beginning construction on 2.8 miles of road adjacent to the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

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Cities, Groups Ask Judge To Keep $3B EPA Grant Funding Alive

By Elaine Briseño

Cities and groups challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's cancellation of nearly $3 billion in environmental climate justice grants asked a South Carolina federal judge, who ruled the termination unlawful, on Wednesday to preserve the funding while the agency appeals the decision.

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Trisura Escapes Bad Faith Claim In $25M Wrongful Death Case

By Danielle Ferguson

An Illinois federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a bad faith claim against an insurer in a coverage dispute over a $25 million default judgment in a wrongful death suit, finding the estate failed to allege that the insurer rejected a chance to settle within policy limits.

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Oil Cos. Seek Quick Appeal To Nix Suit Over Heat Wave Death

By Gina Kim

Exxon, Chevron, Shell and other oil giants say they plan to seek appellate review of a Washington judge's order refusing to dismiss a civil suit over a woman's 2021 death that alleged the defendants knew their products were intensifying extreme weather patterns but downplayed risks to maximize profit.  

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Brief

EPA Appeals Order To Determine Soot Standard Compliance

By Tom Lotshaw

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it's appealing a California federal judge's decision ordering it to designate what parts of the country are meeting or not meeting new air quality standards for fine particulate matter by early February.

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How Orbital Data Centers May Test NEPA's Reach

With environmental and scientific groups recently pushing back against the Federal Communications Commission's proposal to exempt massive data center satellite constellations from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, the question of whether NEPA even applies to projects in space turns on three closely related issues, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

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Series

Ballet Makes Me A Better Lawyer

A lifetime of learning and performing ballet taught me that success — whether in dance or practicing law — comes only through hours of thorough preparation, boundless energy and relentless effort, says Sharon Katz-Pearlman at Greenberg Traurig.

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Senior Lawyers Survey: Tell Us About Your Career

How are senior lawyers adapting to evolving career paths and emerging technologies? Share your perspective in this five-minute survey.

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Legal Sector Hiring Grows For 5th Month, But At Slower Pace

By Rachel Rippetoe

The legal sector saw 600 more jobs in August, growing for the fifth consecutive month, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

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3rd Circ. Revives Malpractice Claim Against Kirkland Atty

By Emily Sawicki

A New Jersey divorcee may once again pursue a legal malpractice claim against a Kirkland & Ellis LLP attorney who she said lost her millions by mishandling estate documents, after the Third Circuit found it could be possible to link her alleged damages to the lawyer's work.

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Quinn Emanuel DQ'd In Defamation Case Over Stock Reports

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas federal court on Friday booted Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP from representing a Hong Kong manufacturing company in its defamation lawsuit against investment research service Muddy Waters LLC after finding that the law firm had received relevant confidential information when it represented Muddy Waters in a related government probe.

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DC Panel's Rare Rebuke Over AI Errors Flags Rules Gap

By Andrea Keckley

A D.C. appellate court panel issued a rare sua sponte sanctions order on Thursday after finding nonexistent case citations in a brief filed by a McCabe Weisberg & Conway LLC attorney representing Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. in a foreclosure action, noting an apparent gap in the rules governing the court's sanctions authority.

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Motley Rice Founder Remembered As Titan Of Mass Tort Bar

By Adrian Cruz

Motley Rice LLC co-founder Joseph F. Rice, who died Thursday, was remembered by former colleagues and friends as a "transformational" attorney and "giant in the civil litigation bar" who spent decades working on some of the most high-profile mass torts and obtaining landmark asbestos, opioid and tobacco settlements.

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Sinema Can't Duck Suit Over Affair With Ex-Security Guard

By Y. Peter Kang

A North Carolina federal judge Friday denied former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's bid to escape the suit brought by the ex-wife of a former member of her security detail with whom she allegedly had an affair, saying the district court indeed has the authority to adjudicate the case.

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Roundup

Injury Law Roundup: Meta's Social Media Addiction Deal

By Y. Peter Kang

A $17.1 billion social media addiction settlement between Meta and 29 states and Johnson & Johnson's $5.5 billion ovarian cancer deal over its talc products lead Law360's Injury Law Roundup.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Morgan Verkamp LLC and Sparacino PLLC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Eleventh Circuit held that the False Claims Act's qui tam provisions do not violate the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

Attorneys and academics differ over whether the moves by Meta's in-house lawyers ahead of its $17 billion settlement over claims its content harmed children were legal missteps or defensible efforts to manage litigation risk. And the co-founders of a partner-only law firm told Law360 Pulse how their technology reduces intake, billing and other nonbillable tasks that attorneys would normally perform. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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