Ill. Jury Awards $49.5M To Ethiopian Air Victim's Family

By Lauraann Wood

Illinois federal jurors awarded $49.5 million Wednesday to the family of a global health worker who died alongside 156 others when a Boeing jet carrying Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 crashed within minutes of takeoff.

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Fla. Law Makes Lyft Immune To Passenger's Assault Suit

By Y. Peter Kang

A Florida state appeals court ruled Wednesday that a state law shielding Lyft and other ride-hailing companies from liability bars a suit over a driver's alleged assault of a passenger, noting that the law's immunity provision is "very broad."

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First Brands Can Sell Molding Co. For $80M In Ch. 11

By Alex Wittenberg

First Brands secured a Texas bankruptcy judge's sign-off Wednesday on the $80 million sale of Toledo Molding & Die, a deal that is expected to preserve 600 jobs and help the troubled auto parts group pay down its debt.

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Spirit Employees File WARN Act Suit In Ch. 11

By Emily Lever

Laid-off employees of Spirit Airlines have filed a putative class action against the debtor, demanding two months' pay and benefits following Spirit's abrupt shutdown and the loss of their jobs.

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Business Exec Says NBA Cut Him Out Of Airline Partnership

By Tom Lotshaw

A California businessman claims the NBA should have to cough up millions of dollars in damages for cutting him out of a lucrative sponsorship deal it struck with Emirates airline.

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Toyota Foundation Accused Of 'Ugly Injustice' In IP Theft Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

A Toyota mobility systems foundation stole trade secrets from a small Zimbabwean social enterprise by inducing the enterprise to share its proprietary mobility solutions through a joint venture agreement before excluding the enterprise from a "Smart Village" program they collaborated on, the enterprise has alleged in California federal court.

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Tesla Shareholders Appeal Suit Dismissal Tied To Texas Move

By Sydney Price

Tesla shareholders, whose breach of fiduciary duty suit against Elon Musk and the automaker's directors was dismissed last month following the company's move to Texas, appealed the dismissal to the Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday.

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Event Company Says NFL's Lions Can't Block TM Suit

By Susan Smiley

A Michigan events management company on Wednesday pushed back on the Detroit Lions' request for a Michigan federal judge to toss their trademark infringement suit, arguing the NFL team did nothing to disprove U.S. Events' claim that the Lions used their protected "Motor City Muscle" slogan to promote their team jerseys without their permission.

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Split 6th Circ. Affirms $1 Damages In Touch Screen Tech Case

By Elliot Weld

A split panel of the Sixth Circuit has upheld a $1 damages award that a Michigan federal judge gave to electronics manufacturer Oldnar Corp., with two judges saying they agreed that Oldnar had not proved higher damages with reasonable certainty.

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Brief

Colo. Jury Awards $1.3M To I-70 Project Subcontractor

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado state jury declined to award $32.5 million to the lead contractor of the reconstruction project of a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 70 in Denver, finding instead that the contractor breached a subcontract and owes its subcontractor $1.3 million in damages.

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EV Station Builder Accused Of Masking Wages As Per Diem

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia construction contractor specializing in EV charging stations used a misleading per diem system to avoid paying its laborers overtime, a former employee alleged in a proposed collective action.

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Thompson Hine Hires Nelson Mullins, Ex-NHTSA Atty In DC

By Jack Rodgers

Thompson Hine LLP has hired a former Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP lawyer, who the firm said helped lead one of the largest and most complex consumer product recalls in U.S. history while working at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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How Cos. Can Navigate Iran Sanctions Risks In China

For multinational financial institutions and other companies caught between the U.S. and China’s competing compliance regimes as they relate to Iranian oil, finding a path forward will require careful, jurisdiction-specific analysis, say attorneys at Perkins Coie and Ashurst.

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Series

The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

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Murdaugh Murder Conviction Overturned By SC High Court

By Parker Quinlan

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a double murder conviction and ordered a new trial for disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, finding the jury in his first trial was biased by a clerk of court who allegedly sought a guilty verdict in a ploy to juice sales of her book about the trial.

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Texas Atty Must Pay $5M For Groping Opposing Counsel

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas state appellate court on Wednesday refused to disturb a $5 million jury verdict against a San Antonio lawyer for grabbing the buttocks of opposing counsel at the courthouse where they were arguing a family law proceeding in 2019.

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DOJ Goes After DC Bar, Courts For Discipline Of Ex-DOJ Atty

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday sued the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, D.C. Court of Appeals and the District of Columbia, claiming that they were "punishing" a former Trump administration DOJ official and trying to "control the executive branch."

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DOJ Fraud Division Set To Shake Up White-Collar Enforcement

By Phillip Bantz

President Donald Trump's administration created the U.S. Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division with a narrow focus on combating government program fraud, but a move to retain federal prosecutors focused on other types of fraud could signal a wider scope with potential ripple effects across white-collar enforcement.

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Arbitrators See Global Stakes In Trump BigLaw EO Fight

By Caroline Simson

Ahead of a D.C. Circuit hearing on Thursday in the Trump administration's effort to revive executive orders imposed against four BigLaw firms, an official at the College of Commercial Arbitrators told Law360 this week there are several things arbitrators are going to be watching for.

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Apple Targets Hagens Berman 'Gamesmanship' In ICloud Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Apple has lashed out at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for trying to withdraw a named plaintiff from an iCloud antitrust case in California federal court without discovery into any directions she received to preserve now-deleted emails, raising concerns that the withdrawal is meant to "paper over lost evidence."

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Michigan Federal Judge Gets Probation For Drunken Driving

By Susan Smiley

Michigan federal Judge Thomas L. Ludington was sentenced by a state judge on Wednesday to six months' probation and fined $1,175 after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge last month in Emmet County.

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6th Circ. Says Kentucky Judicial Hopefuls May Tout Ideology

By Emily Sawicki

Kentucky judicial hopefuls are cleared to discuss their political leanings on the campaign trail, according to a precedential ruling by the Sixth Circuit, which permanently enjoined the state's Judicial Conduct Commission from pursuing an enforcement action against two candidates who described themselves as "conservatives" and "Republicans" amid the 2022 election season.

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Judge Says LegalForce Must Pay $93K After Losing TM Suit

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge on Wednesday ordered LegalForce RAPC Worldwide PC to pay nearly $93,000 in fees and costs to the company that operates LawFirms.com, finding the case to be exceptional because LegalForce alleged facts it knew were false and took steps to obscure other facts that showed its case was meritless.

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CORRECTED: Senate Advances 13 US Attorneys In En Bloc Vote

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 46-45, along party lines, to advance the nomination of 13 U.S. attorneys on Monday as part of a larger nominations package. Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the status of the nominees in the Senate.

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