Washington

  • June 18, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Again Revives Valve Bid To Ax Patent In $4M Verdict

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday gave Valve Corp. yet another chance to try to invalidate rival SCUF's video game controller patent underlying a $4 million verdict, ruling that, after the appeals court revived the effort, the trial judge wrongly said Valve's arguments are barred by a prior challenge.

  • June 18, 2026

    Split 9th Circ. Says Feds Must Follow ESA In Water Project

    A federal regulator must comply with the Endangered Species Act as it operates a water management initiative in southern Oregon and northern California, the Ninth Circuit ruled, without adjudicating particular usage rights among irrigators, tribes and others.

  • June 18, 2026

    FTC, Amazon Must Answer Attorney-Client Privilege Questions

    The Washington federal judge handling the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust case against Amazon asked both parties to provide more information about how he should consider attorney-client privilege when reviewing documents to resolve discovery disputes in the case.

  • June 18, 2026

    Costco Seeks Coverage For Chicken Drippings Slip-And-Fall

    A Liberty Mutual unit must defend and indemnify Costco against an underlying suit filed by a California man who said he was injured when he slipped on rotisserie chicken drippings, the bulk retailer said in a suit removed to Washington federal court.

  • June 18, 2026

    DirecTV, AGs Tell 9th Circ. Not To Curb Nexstar-Tegna Block

    DirecTV and a coalition of state attorneys general urged the Ninth Circuit not to narrow a district court preliminary injunction blocking Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, arguing the only way to preserve competition while the case proceeds is a full block, not one restricted to 31 overlapping broadcast markets.

  • June 18, 2026

    Senate Panel Advances Revised College Sports Reform Bill

    The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill to codify federal protections for college sports and for athletes' earning abilities, sending it to the full Senate for a possible vote.

  • June 18, 2026

    5 Big ERISA Litigation Developments From 2026's First Half

    The U.S. Supreme Court's acceptance of a petition challenging Intel's 401(k) investment lineup and a Fourth Circuit ruling unraveling a class of Genworth Financial retirement plan participants headlined the court developments that caught benefits attorneys' attention in the first six months of 2026. Here, Law360 looks at those and other noteworthy ERISA decisions.

  • June 18, 2026

    Mother Defends Punitive Claims In Boeing Door Plug Blowout Suit

    A woman and her son suing The Boeing Co. over a door plug blowout on a 737 Max jet flight out of Oregon are urging a Washington federal court to deny Boeing's bid to throw out their punitive damages claims, saying the question is a fact-intensive one unsuitable for dismissal.

  • June 18, 2026

    Amazon Wraps Up Ex-Worker's Race Bias, Retaliation Suit

    Amazon has reached an agreement to end a suit from a former executive assistant who claimed he was fired for complaining that he'd missed out on promotions and faced unwarranted criticism because he's Black, according to a filing in Georgia federal court.

  • June 17, 2026

    GM, Drivers Spar Over Trimmed Transmission Defect Class

    General Motors LLC has asked a Michigan federal judge to shut down a lawsuit alleging it sold vehicles with defective eight-speed automatic transmissions that caused "hard shifts" or made vehicles shake or shudder on the road, while the plaintiffs moved to certify four state-based classes of drivers.

  • June 17, 2026

    Wash. Hydro Workers Sue Feds To Save Collective Bargaining

    United Power Trades Organization, which represents hundreds of hydropower dam workers employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, launched a lawsuit in Seattle federal court Tuesday seeking to preserve its collective bargaining rights after the Trump administration ended its union contract pursuant to a March 2025 executive order.

  • June 17, 2026

    DoorDash Sued For Kicking Off Seattle Drivers Without Notice

    A former DoorDash driver is accusing the delivery platform of violating a Seattle ordinance by "deactivating" driver accounts without providing proper notice or justification, claiming in a proposed class action that the company abruptly cut off his access to delivery offers despite a sterling service record.

  • June 17, 2026

    Amazon Hit With OT Suit By Ex-Assistant Manager

    Amazon Fresh misclassified salaried assistant store managers as overtime-exempt while assigning them routine store work, according to a proposed collective action filed by a former manager in Washington federal court Wednesday.

  • June 17, 2026

    $8.8M Deal In State Farm 'Diminished Value' Suit Gets 1st OK

    A Washington federal court granted preliminary approval of an $8.8 million settlement to resolve a class action claiming that State Farm failed to adequately pay for the diminished value of vehicles under its underinsured motorist coverage.

  • June 17, 2026

    Walmart Hit With $23M Verdict For Wash. Worker Retaliation

    A Washington federal jury has found Walmart on the hook for retaliating against a former store employee who claimed she was fired for standing up for colleagues who were sexually harassed by another co-worker, awarding the plaintiff $23 million in damages.

  • June 17, 2026

    Google, Apple Call CEO Depo Bids 'Harassment' At 9th Circ.

    Apple and Google urged the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday to reject consumers' request to depose their respective CEOs, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, and other executives in antitrust litigation accusing Google of shutting out rival search engines, arguing that the appeal is unwarranted and the repeated deposition demands are unjustified "harassment."

  • June 17, 2026

    Hilton Facing Class Action Over Marketing Calls

    Hilton Grand Vacations is facing a proposed class action in Washington federal court alleging it flooded customers on the National Do Not Call Registry with telemarketing calls.

  • June 17, 2026

    Wash. Panel Says UIM Payment Doesn't Block IFCA Claim

    Washington state appeals court on Tuesday said an insurer cannot shake allegations that it unreasonably initially denied an injured driver's underinsured-motorist claims despite later paying the benefits, with the court noting a lack of instructive case law under the state's Insurance Fair Conduct Act.

  • June 16, 2026

    Chevron's Climate Suit Comparison Meets Skeptical Judge

    A Washington state judge pushed back Tuesday after Chevron and other oil giants urged dismissal of a family's lawsuit over a 2021 heatwave death, saying this case differs from a host of failed climate torts because it focuses on a single fatality from a "very specific weather event."

  • June 16, 2026

    9th Circ. Rejects FCA Bid To Pause Headrest Class Trial

    The Ninth Circuit has rejected outright Fiat Chrysler's bid to pause class action proceedings over supposedly defective Jeep and Dodge headrests during the automaker's preparation of a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court as it pushes for arbitration in the case.

  • June 16, 2026

    Wash. Judge Won't Revisit Order On Ed. Dept. School Grants

    A federal judge in Seattle will not reconsider her decision declining to enforce an earlier order barring the U.S. Department of Education from ceasing school mental health grants, saying Washington and other plaintiff states have not shown that the court erred.

  • June 16, 2026

    Eli Lilly Settles Mounjaro TM Suit Against Seattle Area Clinics

    Eli Lilly has agreed to drop a lawsuit accusing two Washington clinics of ripping off its trademarks for the weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound, according to a voluntary dismissal motion filed in federal court on Monday, almost two weeks after a judge rejected a resolution proposed by the parties. 

  • June 16, 2026

    WestRock Must Face Class Claims Over Wash. Paper Mill Odor

    A group of Washington and Oregon residents can proceed with a proposed class action accusing paper mill operator WestRock Longview LLC of negligently releasing noxious gases that sickened neighbors and hurt property values, a Washington federal judge ruled Monday.

  • June 16, 2026

    Amazon Says YouTubers' DMCA Suit Rests On 'Guesswork'

    Amazon has urged a Seattle federal court to toss three YouTube creators' proposed Digital Millennium Copyright Act class action that accuses the e-commerce giant of scraping millions of copyright-protected videos to train its generative artificial intelligence model Nova Reel, saying the YouTubers' failure to link it to certain datasets makes their allegations "entirely speculative."

  • June 16, 2026

    Del. Judge Won't Touch Jury's $83M Diagnostics IP Verdict

    A Delaware federal judge on Tuesday upheld a jury's 2023 verdict finding that Guardant Health Inc. should pay TwinStrand Biosciences Inc. $83.4 million for willfully infringing diagnostic patents, refusing to overturn or enhance the award.

Expert Analysis

  • Your Next Litigation Hold Should Cover AI Chat Logs

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    The Delaware Chancery Court’s recent decision in Fortis Advisors v. Krafton to treat a CEO’s artificial intelligence chats as substantive evidence is being read as a discovery warning to litigators, but there is a second duty-to-preserve lesson that is especially pertinent to in-house counsel, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

  • Series

    Studying Foreign Languages Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Studying Italian and Japanese has shown me that learning a new language can benefit a legal career in several ways, including by demonstrating the importance of approaching problems from a fresh perspective and the value of practicing patience with colleagues and clients, says Anna King at Genworth Financial.

  • 6th Circ. Ruling Highlights Split On Labor Cost Depreciation

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    The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Schoening Investment v. Cincinnati Casualty throws into relief the fine lines of courts' varying interpretations of whether a commercial property insurer may justifiably depreciate labor costs to determine the actual cash value of damage, says Nabila Rahim at Zelle.

  • 6th Circ. Ruling Broadest So Far In Wave Of Habeas Decisions

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    The Sixth Circuit’s recent opinion in Lopez-Campos v. Raycraft provides the most developed structural reasoning among rulings in a widening circuit split over mandatory detention after undocumented entry into the U.S., and supplies immigration practitioners a template for due process arguments in favor of habeas relief, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • And Now A Word From The Panel: An MDL Realignment

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    With seven multidistrict litigation proceedings initiated so far this year, a review of venue locations suggests a shift away from the East Coast, a seeming reversal of last year's swing in that direction, says Alan Rothman at Sidley.

  • Series

    NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

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    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

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    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

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    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • A Framework For Habeas Relief After 5th Circ. Bond Ruling

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    Following the Fifth Circuit’s recent Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi decision foreclosing statutory bond for detained nonimmigrants not deemed admitted to the U.S., lawyers should adopt a framework that requests habeas relief pursuant to the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

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    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • How 'Bundling' Enforcement Is Parsing Efficiency, Access

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    Recent antitrust enforcement actions have taken a selective view of companies' bundling of products or services — challenging it when it shuts out rivals, but tolerating it when it creates efficient scale — making the real test now less about lower prices than about whether competition is being blocked, says attorney Alan Kusinitz.

  • Series

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

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    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.

  • Key Tronic Case Shows SEC Isn't Ignoring Controls Violations

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's first nonfraud enforcement action against a public company during Chairman Paul Atkins' tenure reflects the commission’s willingness to bring enforcement actions that charge books and records and internal controls violations, despite deviating from policing technical violations, say attorneys at Cooley.

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