Ship Managers Indicted Over Baltimore Bridge Disaster

By Linda Chiem

Federal prosecutors accused the management company and a supervisor of the container ship that slammed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024 of recklessly operating the ship, forging inspection documents and misleading safety investigators, according to a Maryland federal grand jury's criminal indictment unsealed Tuesday.

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GAO Denies Protest Over $803M TSA Security Task Order

By Ganesh Setty

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has rejected an incumbent contractor's protest over the U.S. Transportation Security Administration's selection of an $803 million proposal to provide security screening at San Francisco International Airport, finding no issue with its price analysis.

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NJ Justices Revive Expert Testimony In Vehicular Death Case

By Elizabeth Daley

The New Jersey Supreme Court held Tuesday that a man accused of killing a 94-year-old woman in a crash may present expert testimony challenging whether her death was caused by his alleged recklessness, finding in a reversal that a pretrial evidentiary hearing wasn't needed.

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Alaska Airlines Strikes Deal In Military Pilots' Leave Suit

By Grace Elletson

Alaska Airlines has agreed to settle a pilot's class action claiming the company didn't let employees on military leave accrue the same amount of sick and vacation time benefits civilian employees collected on other types of leave, according to a Washington federal court filing.

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Ex-FCA Exec Must Answer GM Discovery In UAW Bribery Suit

By Melanie Dorsey

Former Fiat Chrysler labor executive Alphons Iacobelli, who was convicted for his role in a union bribery scheme, must answer hundreds of deposition questions in General Motors' sprawling civil suit, a Michigan appellate panel ruled.

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7th Circ. Judges Question NLRB's Union Reinstatement Bid

By Lauraann Wood

Seventh Circuit judges weighing the National Labor Relations Board's bid for an injunction requiring a truck seller to recognize a union it has twice rebuked seemed skeptical Tuesday that the company's employees face irreparable harm without it.

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White & Case Seeks Contempt In Modivcare Ch. 11 Fee Spat

By Clara Geoghegan

White & Case said Modivcare Inc. should be held in contempt for not moving $1.6 million to a Texas bankruptcy court escrow, intensifying a fight over fees the law firm racked up representing unsecured creditors in the reorganized healthcare services group's Chapter 11.

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Royal Caribbean Says Judge Misread Arb. Law In Voyeur Suit

By Mike Curley

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. is urging a Florida federal court to reject a magistrate judge's report recommending that a proposed class action over a former crew member's hidden camera voyeurism not go to arbitration, saying the magistrate judge misread maritime law.

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Bus Idling Settlement Includes $5.6M Penalty, Engine Monitors

By Carolyn Muyskens

Private bus operator Academy Express has agreed to pay $5.6 million and install tracking technology on its buses to settle allegations of unnecessary idling, according to a Massachusetts federal court filing.

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NYC China Police Station Case Is Overblown, Jury Hears

By Stewart Bishop

Counsel for a Chinese American man accused of running a secret police station in New York City for China's government told a Brooklyn federal jury Tuesday that his client is being railroaded for helping out his community.

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Insurer Says No Coverage Above $1M For Injured Biker Row

By Danielle Ferguson

The insurer for an auto repossession company and one of its drivers told a Georgia federal court that it does not owe more than its $1 million limit in a case involving the driver hitting a child on a bike, saying the settlement demand from the child's family did not obligate the insurer to resolve the dispute.

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Feds Tell 9th Circ. They Have Last Word On Pipeline Restart

By Tom Lotshaw

A federal pipeline regulator told the Ninth Circuit on Monday it reasonably asserted jurisdiction over an oil pipeline system near Santa Barbara, California, and approved a Texas company's restart plan, saying challenges brought by California and environmental groups are unfounded.

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Legal Risks Rise As Construction-Site Drone Use Soars

Construction companies using drones face mounting legal risks as Federal Aviation Administration compliance requirements tighten, remote identification capabilities expand and proposed rules move toward organizational accountability, making it crucial to update contracts, schedules, safety protocols and data-governance practices now to avoid future liability, say attorneys at Cozen.

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Assessing Material Adverse Event Clauses Amid Iran Conflict

As deals signed before the current Middle East conflict come under pressure, determinations over material adverse effect clauses are arising in real time, and whether an MAE has been wrongfully invoked may be as consequential as whether it was validly established in the first place, say Amran Nawaz and Ralph Stobwasser at Secretariat.

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Md. Justices' State Climate Tort Ban May Shape National Path

The Maryland Supreme Court’s recent ruling that federal law preempted state-level deceptive marketing tort claims brought by several municipalities could offer the U.S. Supreme Court a road map to use in the pending Suncor Energy v. Boulder County case to exclude states from the business of regulating global emissions, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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Mass. Draft Regs Signal Nationwide Scrutiny Of Junk Fees

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's new draft regulations for assisted living facilities is only her latest move in the war on junk fees — and part of a national reordering of consumer protection enforcement in which states are aggressively and creatively asserting authority, says Steve Provazza at Arnall Golden.

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4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

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How They Won It

Attys For Tufts Profs Didn't Blink In A Tenure Standoff

By Julie Manganis

When Jennifer Henricks and Kevin Peters first learned what was happening to tenured professors at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston a few years ago, they knew that what was at stake involved more than just a dispute over the terms of a contract.

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Palestinian Ex-Associate Slaps DLA Piper With Bias Claim

By Lynn LaRowe

DLA Piper has been hit with a federal civil rights lawsuit in Illinois from a former summer associate alleging discrimination, a hostile work environment and retaliation based on her identity as a Palestinian, Gazan, Arab and Muslim woman.

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Fired Immigration Judge Says Trump Can't Skirt Bias Laws

By Grace Elletson

A former immigration judge urged a D.C. federal court not to throw out her bias suit challenging her firing, arguing the U.S. Department of Justice was pushing the "breathtaking proposition" that the president was empowered to commit unlawful discrimination.

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Law Student Can't Get School To Nix Kirk Comment Discipline

By Mike Curley

A Texas federal judge on Tuesday said the court cannot force Texas Tech University's leaders to rescind a reprimand against a law student who allegedly celebrated following the death of Charlie Kirk, as the university has sovereign immunity.

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Michigan Dems Noncommittal On Trump's Judicial Pick

By Courtney Bublé

Michigan's two Democratic senators played it coy on Tuesday when asked if they would support the district court nominee for their state that the president announced the night before.

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PayPal Settles Gov't DEI Probe With Small Biz Program

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it has reached a settlement with PayPal Inc. to end an investigation into what the department said was a discriminatory investment program for Black- and minority-owned businesses.

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