The 'Not-Postings' Of A Delaware Chancery Court Judge

By Leslie A. Pappas

Close observers of Delaware's Court of Chancery have recently gotten a new window into the First State's preeminent court of equity: Delaware Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster, one of seven judges on the court's bench, has recently rejoined LinkedIn.

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High Court Calls For 2nd Circ. Redo In BofA Preemption Fight

By Jon Hill

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a Second Circuit decision that freed Bank of America NA from class action litigation brought over a New York escrow interest law, ruling that the circuit court wasn't "nuanced" enough in finding the law preempted for national banks.

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9th Circ. Reopens Mandatory Security Check Wage Fight

By Gina Kim

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday largely revived a proposed wage class action by a subcontractor who sought to be paid for undergoing mandatory security checks and vehicle inspections at a solar project site, following the California Supreme Court's ruling that found the time to be compensable as "hours worked."

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Morgan Stanley Helped Musk's Stealth Twitter Buys, Suit Says​​​​​​​

By Hailey Konnath

Elon Musk and his wealth manager tapped Morgan Stanley to help the Tesla CEO quietly acquire billions of dollars in Twitter securities without tipping off the market before he announced plans to take over the social media company, according to an amended complaint filed in New York federal court.

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Chancery Sweeps Away Most Challenges To Broker's Control

By Jeff Montgomery

Independent insurance distributor BRP Group Inc. has defeated most stockholder challenges to founder preapproval requirements for company actions, according to a Delaware Court of Chancery ruling upholding a consent and defense agreement established after the company was sued.

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Solar Tech Co. Faces Investor Suit Over Slow '23 Growth

By Sydney Price

Energy technology company Enphase Energy Inc. has been hit with a proposed shareholder class action alleging the company and its executives failed to disclose slow growth trends, including a decrease in battery shipments, resulting in share price declines when the information was revealed to investors.

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Veradigm Execs Sued Over Company's Nasdaq Delisting

By Katryna Perera

Current and former members of healthcare technology company Veradigm Inc.'s top brass were sued in Illinois federal court by shareholders alleging that the company suffered stock drops following a string of financial reporting blunders starting in 2021, which caused it to overstate roughly $40 million in revenue before facing a delisting notice from Nasdaq.

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Chauffeur Co. Agrees To Pay $2.5M In Wage Settlement

By Abby Wargo

A chauffeur company agreed to give $2.5 million to settle over 600 drivers' claims that it failed to pay them hourly or for overtime or maintain records as required by federal and state labor law, according to a bid to approve the deal filed in Arizona federal court.

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Court Urged To Bring Fla. College Retirement Fee Suit To Trial

By David Minsky

Workers for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University have urged a Florida federal court to reject the college's bid for an early win in the proposed class action lawsuit over retirement account investments, saying key factual disputes that still remain over whether recordkeeping fees should be hashed out at trial.

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Brief

Ford Settles Union Worker's Retirement Credit Suit

By Kellie Mejdrich

Ford Motor Co. and a union retirement plan have agreed to settle an employee's proposed class action claiming the company improperly calculated retirement benefits owed to workers who were injured on the job, according to a filing Thursday in Michigan federal court.

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Voice Software Co. Gets Bank Customer Privacy Suit Trimmed

By Katryna Perera

A California federal judge has trimmed a consolidated action against Nuance Communications over its voice-detection software that was used by JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, saying that the class members failed to show how Nuance supposedly used the software to assess the truth or falsity of a person's statements by analyzing their vocal characteristics. 

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Target's Surveillance System Violates BIPA, Shoppers Say

By Gina Kim

Target faces a proposed class action in Illinois federal court filed Thursday accusing it of gathering shoppers' biometric data through surveillance systems and other sophisticated technology in its campaign to prevent organized retail theft, while failing to advise it is doing so or obtaining their permission.

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NYU Law Review Beats Bias Claims Over Diversity Efforts

By Matt Perez

A New York federal court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from a self-described straight white male, first-year law student at New York University claiming the NYU Law Review is discriminatory.

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Madonna Fan Didn't Cherish Late Show With Nudity, Suit Says

By Craig Clough

Madonna and four concert venues were hit with a class action in California state court Wednesday by a fan who says he purchased a $500 ticket to see the pop singer in an "uncomfortably hot" arena that featured a lip-syncing star who took the stage very late with "pornographic" topless dancers.

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La-Z-Boy Hit With Suit Over Misleading Furniture Pricing

By Isaac Monterose

Furniture manufacturer La-Z-Boy Inc. was accused on Thursday in California federal court of falsely advertising the prices of home furnishings sold by its subsidiary. 

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Kraft-Owned Paper Mill Inks $18M Deal In Emissions Suit

By Mike Curley

Property owners who sued the operators of a paper mill co-owned by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft have asked a South Carolina federal court to approve an $18 million settlement to end nuisance and personal injury claims over the mill's emissions.

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Travelers Loses Dismissal Bid In BIPA Coverage Dispute

By Jennifer Mandato

A New York federal judge declined to trim a software company's lawsuit seeking coverage from a Travelers unit for underlying claims that the company violated the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act, finding the company's declaratory relief and bad faith claims were not duplicative of a breach of contract claim.

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Honduran Workers Say Carnival Overworked, Underpaid Them

By Alyssa Aquino

Two Honduran seasonal workers have filed suit in a Virginia federal court, saying they were forced to work 80 hours a week assembling and disassembling rides for a traveling carnival for only a little more than $400 a week.

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Defendant Dropped From Calif. Broker Commissions Case

By Isaac Monterose

A California federal judge has dismissed a multiple listing service from a proposed antitrust class action that accused the service and several real estate brokerages of engaging in a conspiracy to artificially inflate buyer broker commissions on home sales.

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NCAA V. Athletes Suits Paused As Parties Talk Final Deal

By David Steele

The consolidated cases in the class action against the NCAA over athletes' name, image and likeness compensation were stayed by a California federal judge Thursday, the next step toward finalizing the multibillion-dollar settlement the two sides reached last week.

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Ex-Sidley Atty To Lead Faegre's West Coast Class Action Team

By James Mills

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP is boosting its litigation team, announcing Wednesday it is bringing in a Sidley Austin LLP class action ace as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: May Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four notable circuit court decisions on topics from automobile insurance to securities — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including circuit-specific ascertainability requirements and how to conduct a Daubert analysis prior to class certification.

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Perspectives

Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys

As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.

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Orrick Leads List Of Top Law Firms For Women, Diversity

By Aebra Coe

Talent strategies firm Seramount released its latest list of the 45 best law firms for women and diversity this week, with the 2024 cohort of winners showing strides over previous years in representation, advancement and benefits for lawyers who are women or from other underrepresented groups.

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Houston Judge's Vast Display Reflects 25 Years On Bench

By Catherine Marfin

Along the hallways leading to U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison's Houston courtroom hang hundreds of notes, photos, thank-you cards and other correspondence, serving as a kind of interactive scrapbook of Judge Ellison's 25 years on the bench.

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Analysis

In Rarity, 1 Party's Judges Gain 100% Control Of Circuit Bench

By Jeff Overley

At the First Circuit, the judges' robes are all black, but the judges are all blue. It's a new and unusual instance of one political party's judicial picks controlling each active seat on a federal appeals court, and the Democratic dominance could prove magnetic for ideologically charged litigation.

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Orrick's $8M Deal To End Data Breach Claims Nears Prelim OK

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge indicated Friday that she'll preliminarily approve Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's $8 million deal to end putative class claims over a 2023 data breach that purportedly exposed personal information for 638,000 individuals, but said the "very broad" scope of the settlement's release "raised my eyebrows."

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Smith Gambrell Faces Slimmed Data Breach Suit

By Emily Sawicki

A California federal judge has trimmed the claims a proposed class of data breach victims brought against international law firm Smith Gambrell & Russell LLP, leaving the firm to face claims of negligence, invasion of privacy and violation of the California Unfair Competition Law.

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Analysis

Del. Chancellor Questions 'Rush' To Amend Corporation Law

By Jeff Montgomery

Weeks before the Delaware State Bar Association sent state lawmakers a draft bill explicitly allowing corporations to broadly cede some governance rights to chosen stockholders, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of Delaware Chancery Court made an unprecedented, direct appeal to think twice.

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Trump Condemns NY Trial As Verdict Echoes In DC

By Rachel Scharf

A day after his conviction on 34 felony counts, former president Donald Trump on Friday attacked the Manhattan jury's verdict in a lengthy speech that mischaracterized multiple elements of the case as the decision reverberated through Washington, D.C.

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Trump's New York Prosecutors Called To House Hearing

By Courtney Bublé

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, demanded on Friday that Manhattan prosecutors appear for a hearing on June 13 on the prosecution of former President Donald Trump, who was convicted on Thursday of 34 felonies.

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Disbarring Giuliani Would 'Protect The Public,' DC Panel Says

By Alison Knezevich

A Washington, D.C., attorney ethics panel agreed Friday that Rudy Giuliani's role in former President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn Pennsylvania's presidential election in 2020 amounted to misconduct "of the utmost seriousness," and that disbarring him would "protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession."

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Texas Judge Opts Not To Recuse And Tosses Chamber Suit

By Emily Sawicki

A Texas federal judge has thrown out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's suit seeking to block the Federal Trade Commission from implementing a ban on noncompete clauses because a different plaintiff was first to file, adding he declined to recuse himself because no companies in his stock portfolio were parties in the case.

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Illinois Strengthens Atty Ethics Rules For Harassment, Bias

By Celeste Bott

The Illinois Supreme Court has announced that the state's professional conduct rules for attorneys have been amended to deem the act of engaging in harassment or discrimination as professional misconduct, and not just in the event a court or administrative agency finds that a lawyer violated a law prohibiting such actions.

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DOJ Looks To End A Legacy Of Bias In Sex Assault Cases

By Hannah Albarazi

The U.S. Department of Justice says that legal fallacies and misogynistic stereotypes often lead prosecutors to decline to charge alleged perpetrators of sexual violence, but new guidance from the department is pushing prosecutors to give more credence to victims and see that their claims are more thoroughly investigated.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and attorneys Eugene Volokh and Alan Morrison lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the National Rifle Association can proceed with certain claims in the gun rights group's lawsuit against a former New York state official.

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The Top In-House Hires Of May

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the last full month of spring included high-profile appointments at Southwest, Hormel and UnitedHealth. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from May.

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Off The Bench: NCAA Transfers Freed, Atty Plays Cards Right

By David Steele

In this week's Off the Bench, the NCAA agrees to more historic rule changes while experts examine its post-House settlement future, and a patent lawyer looks back at his transformation into a poker champion.

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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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