Okla. Law Curbing Anti-Oil Pension Fund Investments Blocked

By Patrick Hoff

Oklahoma can't enforce a law prohibiting the state pension system from investing in companies that limit oil and gas industry assets, a state judge ruled, finding the retiree leading the suit is likely to succeed on arguments that the statute is vague and violates the state constitution.

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Red States, Electric Co-Ops Challenge EPA Power Plant Rules

By Madeline Lyskawa

Twenty-seven Republican-led states and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association called on the D.C. Circuit Thursday to unravel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new source performance standards for greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric generating units.

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NYC Wins Remand Of Climate Deception Suit Against Exxon

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

A New York federal judge on Wednesday returned to state court the Big Apple's lawsuit alleging Exxon, BP, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute violated a city consumer protection law by systematically deceiving the public about the climate change impacts of their operations.

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EPA Beats Youths' Constitutional Climate Suit, For Now

By Gina Kim

A California federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a group of children accusing the federal government of allowing unsafe levels of climate pollution in the air, noting it's unclear how a declaratory order from the court would redress their harms, but gave them one final chance to amend their allegations.

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EPA Defends Factory Farm Water Pollution Regs At 9th Circ.

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday urged the Ninth Circuit to toss green groups' lawsuit seeking to revive their petition for new, stronger Clean Water Act regulations for large animal feeding facilities.

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CARB Chief Slams Truckers' Bid To Void 'Clean Fleets' Rule

By Linda Chiem

A California regulation requiring commercial truck and bus operators to transition to zero-emission vehicle fleets over the next decade doesn't flout federal law and hasn't even been enforced yet, a state official said Wednesday in a court filing seeking to nullify a legal challenge from a trucking group.

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Del. Supreme Court Rejects Mid-Case Appeals In Oil Harm Suit

By Jeff Montgomery

Observing a mid-case appeal would "further complicate and delay an already complex litigation," Delaware's Supreme Court has refused to review claims dismissed or retained in an ongoing, potential landmark suit seeking state-level damages for fossil-fuel company emissions tied to climate change.

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Biden Seeks To Elevate Interior Dept. Official To No. 2 Post

By Madeline Lyskawa

The White House announced Thursday that President Joe Biden intends to nominate Fish and Wildlife Assistant Secretary Shannon A. Estenoz as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

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GOP Sens. Call Biden's Bluff On US Steel-Nippon

By Al Barbarino

Three Republican senators urged President Joe Biden on Thursday to block Nippon Steel's planned $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, calling his prior comments opposing the deal "worthless" while claiming he has the authority to terminate the deal immediately under laws that address "a national emergency." 

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3M, Dupont Want Conn. AG's PFAS Suit To Stay In Fed. Court

By Aaron Keller

Stressing their work for the military, 3M Co. and several entities tied to what was once E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. have opposed a motion by the Connecticut Attorney General's Office to send a PFAS forever chemicals environmental pollution case back to state court.

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11th Circ. Rejects Monsanto's Roundup Suit Redo Request

By Madeline Lyskawa

The full Eleventh Circuit has rejected Monsanto's renewed request for review of a panel's ruling that a Georgia doctor can allege the company failed to warn about cancer risks associated with the use of Roundup weedkiller despite federal pesticide labeling requirements.

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Gov't Says It's Already Yielded Camp Lejeune Muster Rolls

By Emily Field

The federal government on Wednesday told the North Carolina federal court overseeing litigation over water contamination at the Camp Lejeune base that it has already produced muster rolls and that the court should deny the service members' request to produce more records.

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11th Circ. Urged To Reconsider Ruling In Cancer Cluster Case

By Carolina Bolado

A group of Florida families asked the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday to reconsider its decision affirming a jury verdict that found defense contractor Pratt & Whitney was not liable for a cancer cluster near the company's former rocket testing site, arguing that the panel affirmed a legally deficient verdict form.

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4th Circ. Chides Insurer For Bid To Escape $5.8M Payout

By Travis Bland

A Fourth Circuit judge scolded an insurance company in its attempt to get out of a $5.8 million verdict through an exclusion in a general contractor's policy that it tried to trigger for mold cleanup, leaving little doubt Thursday that the panel will uphold the award.

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6th Circ. Judge Doubts GM Drivers Can Revive Emissions Suit

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Sixth Circuit judge suggested Thursday that drivers are second-guessing a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stamp of approval with their claims that General Motors marketed its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra vehicles as more eco-friendly than they really were.

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GE Dropped From Louisiana Factory Contamination Suit

By Grace Dixon

A Louisiana federal judge has dropped General Electric from property owners' suit alleging widespread contamination caused by a now-closed manufacturing facility, finding an earlier merger by a subsidiary did not make the company a liable successor.

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Analysis

FTC's Exxon-Pioneer Nod Sets New Tone For Oil & Gas M&A

By Al Barbarino

The close of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s $60 billion purchase of Pioneer Natural Resources shows that even the largest oil and gas deals can overcome heavy regulatory and political scrutiny, but an agreement Exxon struck with the Federal Trade Commission puts other energy companies pursuing deals on notice about their public communications.

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Davis Polk, Simpson Thacher Drive EV Maker's $441M IPO

By Tom Zanki

Chinese electrical vehicle maker Zeekr on Thursday priced an upsized $441 million initial public offering, represented by Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and underwriters' counsel Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, marking the largest U.S. IPO by a China-based company since 2021.

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Nossaman Scores New Land Use Partner For Seattle Office

By Isaac Monterose

Nossaman LLP announced it has hired an attorney with experience advising and defending clients in environmental matters as a partner for its environment and land use team in the firm's Seattle office.

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Armstrong Teasdale Litigator Joins Dentons In St. Louis

By Adrian Cruz

A longtime Armstrong Teasdale litigator who's spent over a decade working on insurance coverage disputes has joined Dentons' St. Louis office as a partner.

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IP Considerations For Companies In Carbon Capture Sector

As companies collaborate to commercialize carbon capture technologies amid massive government investment under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a coherent intellectual property strategy is more important than ever, including proactively addressing and resolving questions about ownership of the technology, say Ashley Kennedy and James De Vellis at Foley & Lardner.

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Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes

Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.

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At-Large Suspect Charged With Murder Of Lewis Brisbois Atty

By Craig Clough

The Houston Police Department announced Thursday that it has charged a man in connection with the shooting death of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP attorney Jeffrey Limmer, although the suspect remains at large. 

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Keller Rohrback's Derek Loeser

By Joyce Hanson

Derek Loeser's path to becoming one of the country's sharpest litigators, winning major cases against large corporations including Facebook and Wells Fargo, may very well have started at his family's dinner table when he was young.

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Fla. Justices Let More Law Grads Work Before Admission

By Madison Arnold

Certain graduates of accredited law schools can work for up to 18 months in Florida under the same restrictions as students from law school practice programs after the state Supreme Court ordered a rule change Thursday.

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9th Circ. Says Judge Defied Order To Revive Opioid Case

By Elliot Weld

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday again revived a nearly 7-year-old case against a California doctor for allegedly selling opioid prescriptions and ordered that the case be reassigned, saying the presiding judge had defied the plain language of a previous order to reinstate the indictment.

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Sen. Menendez's 2nd Bribery Trial: All You Need To Know

In the wake of a 2017 mistrial on bribery charges, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez reaffirmed his dedication to public service and vowed never to stop fighting for the people of New Jersey.

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Stormy Defiant As Trump Atty Attacks Hush Money Account

By Stewart Bishop, Rachel Scharf, and Frank Runyeon

Adult film star Stormy Daniels was defiant on Thursday in the face of a grueling cross-examination by counsel for Donald Trump in the Manhattan hush money trial, who sought to discredit her account of a 2006 sexual encounter with him at a celebrity golf tournament.

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Coverage Recap: Day 10 Of Trump's NY Hush Money Trial

By Frank G. Runyeon

Law360 reporters are providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as Donald Trump goes on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Here's a recap from day 10.

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3rd Circ. Rejects Hunter Biden Gun Appeal, Trial Set For June

By Hailey Konnath

The Third Circuit on Thursday refused to consider Hunter Biden's appeal of three Delaware federal court orders declining to dismiss felony firearm charges against him, an order issued the same day the lower court again refused to toss the indictment and scheduled the trial for June.

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3rd Circ. Judge Jordan To Retire In January 2025

By Christine DeRosa

Judge Kent A. Jordan will retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit next year after serving on that bench for nearly two decades, Law360 has learned.

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Biden Taps Housing Atty, 2 More For Tax Court

By Anna Scott Farrell

President Joe Biden nominated three attorneys Thursday to serve as judges on the U.S. Tax Court, including a housing attorney who specializes in federal low-income housing tax credits, a legislative counsel for the Joint Committee on Taxation and an IRS attorney.

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Sens. Press Colleagues For Public Defender Funding

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., a former public defender, led a letter Thursday to Senate appropriators calling for the federal public defender program to receive its full funding request for the upcoming fiscal year. 

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Oil Trader Sues BakerHostetler, Alleges Fake CIA Program Con

By Craig Clough

A Swiss-based oil trading company sanctioned last year by the United Kingdom for alleged ties to Russia has sued BakerHostetler in California court, alleging a con man posing as a CIA agent tried to steal control of the company as the law firm vouched for his legitimacy.

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Watchdog Seeks Texas Judge's Recusal In Noncompete Case

By Emily Sawicki

An industry watchdog is calling on U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker to step away from the U.S. Chamber's lawsuit in Texas federal court challenging the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's new noncompete rule, citing "ample financial conflicts" including his investments in Amazon, Apple and IBM, two of which are members of the Chamber.

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Texas Court Urged To Keep Alive Judge Romance Suit

By Lynn LaRowe

In a flurry of filings, a former shareholder in an engineering company has pushed a Texas federal court to reject bids to throw out his lawsuit over an ex-bankruptcy judge's secret relationship with a former Jackson Walker LLP attorney.

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Attys Want $102M In Fees In Stock Loan Antitrust Deal

By Sydney Price

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC attorneys asked for $102 million in fees for settling claims from investors that major banks colluded to avoid modernizing the stock loan market, saying the long and complex nature of the case warrants the payout.

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Chancery Tosses Qualcomm Investor's Diversity Suit

By Leslie A. Pappas

A shareholder who sued Qualcomm Inc. for allegedly misleading the public and investors about its efforts to diversify its board has failed to show that the company didn't consider diverse candidates, Delaware's Court of Chancery said Thursday, dismissing the shareholder's case.

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Denver Firm Gets $1.4M Fee For Elijah McClain Settlement

By Rose Krebs

A Colorado appellate court Thursday partially reversed a lower court decision awarding roughly $3.1 million to a Denver firm for its work on behalf of Elijah McClain's family in connection with a $15 million federal litigation settlement, ruling that the firm is only entitled to about $1.4 million.

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Houston Firm Can't Escape Litigation Funder's $2M Loan Suit

By Catherine Marfin

A Houston-based law firm doesn't have to turn over financial documents to a litigation funder that has alleged the firm failed to pay back a more than $2 million debt, but it does have to continue litigating the underlying matter, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

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Attys Talk Stress, And Ways Forward, In NJ Wellness Push

By Jake Maher

At a panel sponsored by the New Jersey state judiciary on attorney mental health, current and former lawyers shared their experiences handling the stress of the legal profession.

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