FAA Caps 737 Max Production Amid Boeing Safety Plan Fixes

By Linda Chiem

The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it will continue to limit Boeing's production of 737 Max jets as the company presses ahead with overhauling its safety culture under an FAA-mandated corrective action plan following January's midair blowout aboard an Alaska Airlines flight.

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NFL Kicker Accused Of Sexually Assaulting Flight Attendants

By Y. Peter Kang

Two flight attendants who worked on a transatlantic charter flight for the Jacksonville Jaguars have sued the team and kicker Brandon McManus in Florida state court, alleging he sexually assaulted them during the eight-hour flight to London.

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Jury Awards Electric Jet Startup $72M In Boeing IP Case

By Greg Lamm

A Washington federal jury said Thursday that The Boeing Co. should pay Zunum Aero Inc. $72 million for misappropriating the electric jet startup's trade secrets and souring a deal with a potential investor, in an award partially subject to trebling under state law.

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NY Truckers Sue To Block Congestion Pricing In Manhattan

By Linda Chiem

New York truckers have joined the fight to block congestion pricing from taking effect next month, alleging in a new Manhattan federal lawsuit Thursday that the first-of-its-kind fee for vehicles entering the Big Apple's busiest corridor unconstitutionally penalizes the trucking industry.

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DOL Says Hyundai Hired 13-Year-Old To Work Assembly Line

By Irene Spezzamonte

Car companies SMART and Hyundai and a staffing agency employed a 13-year-old to work up to 60-hour weeks in an assembly line, the U.S. Department of Labor told an Alabama federal court Thursday, saying the labor "shocks the conscience."

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BNSF Says It Owes Tribe Up To $30M For Oil Train Trespasses

By Greg Lamm

BNSF Railway Co. said Wednesday it should pay a Washington tribe either $10 million or $30 million for years of illegally running oil cars across tribal territory, after a federal judge rejected both the railroad's $7 million and the tribe's $445 million calculations. 

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Atty Who Missed Depo Amid Eclipse Trip Slams AAA's Fee Bid

By Lynn LaRowe

A lawyer sanctioned for missing a client's deposition in Florida when the attorney was viewing the solar eclipse in Arkansas has slammed the AAA organization's related fees request as "hyperinflated" and cited a popular job-hunting website to back up his argument.

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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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Ex-Air Cargo Exec Who Took $6.7M In Kickbacks Gets 4 Years

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge sentenced a German-born former air cargo executive to four years in prison Thursday for a decadelong course of corruption in which he personally took over $6.7 million in kickbacks, saying the wealthy defendant acted out of "pure greed."

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Transportation Co. Must Face Negligence Claims In Crash Suit

By Mike Curley

A Texas federal judge isn't letting Panther II Transportation Inc. escape negligence claims from a suit alleging one of its drivers hit a vehicle on the highway, finding there's sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude the company should have known the driver posed a risk without additional training.

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6th Circ. Nixes Bias Suit From Bus Driver Fired After Fight

By Grace Elletson

The Sixth Circuit refused Thursday to revive a race and disability bias suit from a Black bus driver who fought a passenger and left him on train tracks, ruling that he failed to show prejudice cost him his job rather than the violent incident.

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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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Musk Won't Appeal Deposition Order In SEC's Twitter Case

By Hailey Konnath

Elon Musk has agreed to waive his right to appeal a California federal judge's order forcing him to testify again in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's suit over his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now known as X, according to a stipulation filed Thursday.

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EU Court Rejects Appeal Over Spanish Port Tax Breaks

By David Hansen

The European Union's Court of Justice on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that corporate tax exemptions Spain extended to seaports were illegal state aid, brushing aside arguments that a more thorough economic analysis was warranted to prove the tax breaks bestowed an unfair advantage.

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Enviro Groups Launch Fresh Alaska LNG Fight In 9th Circ.

By Keith Goldberg

Environmental groups on Thursday petitioned the Ninth Circuit to overturn federal approvals for the Alaska liquefied natural gas project covering impacts on endangered and threatened species, the latest court challenge lodged against the $43 billion project.

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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

Blockbuster Summer: 10 Big Issues Justices Still Must Decide

By Katie Buehler

As the calendar flips over to June, the U.S. Supreme Court still has heaps of cases to decide on issues ranging from trademark registration rules to judicial deference and presidential immunity. Here, Law360 looks at 10 of the most important topics the court has yet to decide.

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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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