UP, Norfolk Southern Refile $85B Merger Bid With Regulators

By Linda Chiem

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern on Thursday submitted a revised application to federal rail regulators for their proposed $85 billion mega-merger, touting the efficiencies and cost-savings of their combined coast-to-coast rail network, while also seeking to quell competition concerns.

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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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Union Pacific Reaches Deal In LA Nonprofit's Pollution Suit

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge issued a consent decree Wednesday that was negotiated between Union Pacific and Los Angeles Waterkeeper ending the nonprofit's suit alleging the railroad company is polluting several waterways, with Union Pacific agreeing to testing and inspections of the discharges from four of its facilities.

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6th Circ. Judge Skeptical Of IRS In $24M Air Excise Tax Case

By Kat Lucero

A Sixth Circuit judge expressed confusion Thursday at the IRS' defense of a $24 million air transportation excise tax on monthly management fees paid to a private aviation company after a government attorney conceded that initial ownership payments should also have been taxed.

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NC Jet Co. Nets 4th Circ. Remand On Pilot Back Pay Issue

By Abigail Harrison

A Fourth Circuit panel narrowly agreed Thursday with a North Carolina private jet operator's petition challenging a conclusion that a former pilot was fired in retaliation for reporting safety issues and grounding planes, remanding a sole issue centered on the pilot's efforts to mitigate damages.

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Delta Flyer Says She Was Injured In Fire Evacuation In Seattle

By Kelcey Caulder

A 61-year-old passenger of a Delta Air Lines flight was injured when an electrical fire forced an airplane evacuation at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, according to a suit filed Thursday in Washington state court.

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Pilot Says Age Bias, Taunts Led To Forced Exit From Frontier

By Zach Dupont

A pilot claimed that Frontier Airlines discriminated against him during training because of his age, prohibiting him from taking part in certain training programs and making jokes about his age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, according to a complaint filed in Colorado federal court.

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UAW Monitor Clears Treasurer, Faults Investment Oversight

By Lauren Berg

A watchdog overseeing United Auto Workers' kickback-scandal reforms told a Michigan federal judge Thursday that union President Shawn Fain's misconduct accusations against Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock were false and retaliatory but that there was "significant dysfunction" regarding the management of the UAW's "strike trust" investments.

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Roundup

NC Biz Court Bulletin: Corporate Raid, MV Realty Settlement

By Hayley Fowler

A major case settled in the North Carolina Business Court in April as new lawsuits emerged, including a complaint by health information technology company IQVIA Holdings Inc. accusing its former top brass of orchestrating a corporate raid and defecting to a competitor. In case you missed this story and others, here are the highlights.

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ADW Pursues $3B Takeover Of Meineke Owner, More Rumors

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Hedge fund ADW Capital is trying to scoop up Meineke owner Driven Brands in a $3 billion deal, SpaceX told investors that only Elon Musk has the power to remove himself as the leader of the space exploration giant, and technology services firm Virtusa Corp. is looking to raise $1 billion in an India initial public offering.

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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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Brief

Mass. Transit Agency Settles Suit Over Assault By Bus Driver

By Carolyn Muyskens

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has settled a decade-old lawsuit with a rider who was beaten by a bus driver with a known history of misconduct, including a previous assault on a passenger.

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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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Sunoco Pipeline Suit Belongs In Federal Court, 3rd Circ. Told

By Matthew Santoni

The inclusion of a Pennsylvania-based Energy Transfer LP subsidiary in a state agency's administrative order over a pipeline spill should not be enough to give a state court jurisdiction over local residents' lawsuit stemming from the same spill, Sunoco and Energy Transfer's lawyers told a Third Circuit panel Thursday.

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Ex-Shareholders, Reed Smith Seek End To Eletson Suit

By Rick Archer

Former shareholders of Eletson Holdings on Thursday joined with their ex-Eletson counsel at Reed Smith to ask a New York bankruptcy judge to dismiss a suit claiming they had schemed to seize control of Eletson assets in defiance of the company's Chapter 11 plan.

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State Of Insurance: Q1 Notes From Illinois

Matthew Fortin at BatesCarey discusses notable insurance developments in Illinois, including the state Supreme Court's highly anticipated Griffith Foods v. National Union Fire Insurance ruling, two bulletins from the Department of Insurance directed at public adjusters and a Seventh Circuit decision precluding a "super excess" tier of coverage.

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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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