Musk Can't Yet Appeal Twitter Investors' Cert., 9th Circ. Says

By Lauren Berg

The Ninth Circuit on Friday rebuffed Elon Musk's request to immediately appeal a California federal judge's decision to certify a class of thousands of Twitter investors over claims the billionaire businessman fraudulently tweeted about the social media company's alleged bot problem to get out of his $44 billion acquisition.

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Shyamalan, Apple Cleared Of Copyright Infringement By Jury

By Craig Clough

A California federal jury on Friday delivered M. Night Shyamalan from a real-life Hollywood nightmare when it cleared the director and others of stealing an independent filmmaker's work for his Apple TV+ show "Servant."

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Justices To Clarify Article III Standing For Certified Classes

By Dorothy Atkins

The U.S. Supreme Court granted LabCorp's request on Friday to clarify federal law regarding whether district courts can certify class actions when some members of the proposed class may lack a cognizable injury in fact.

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Intuitive Doesn't Owe 'Free-Riding' Firm $140M, Expert Says

By Bonnie Eslinger

Robotic surgery pioneer Intuitive Surgical isn't a monopolist since it competes with other surgery options and a "free-riding" surgical repair company isn't due up to $140 million in profits allegedly lost due to Intuitive blocking its unauthorized part-refurbishment service, an economist testified Friday in a California antitrust trial.

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LA Prosecutors Close Marilyn Manson Probe Without Charges

By Rachel Scharf

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman announced Friday he's declining to bring criminal charges against rock star Marilyn Manson, saying domestic violence allegations fall outside the statute of limitations and the office is unable to prove various women's sexual assault claims beyond a reasonable doubt.

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9th Circ. Renews Billing Co.'s Suit Against Texas Data Firm

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit panel on Friday partly revived a Washington billing services company's lawsuit over a soured business deal with bankrupt Addison Data Services, finding a bankruptcy settlement agreement and the statute of limitations can't keep the plaintiff from pursuing its breach of fiduciary duty claims.

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SEC Gets Kraken's Major Questions Doctrine Defense Axed

By Rae Ann Varona

A California federal judge on Friday partially granted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's bid to ax some of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken's key defenses to allegations it violated securities laws by offering crypto assets without proper registration, saying the case wasn't the type to implicate the so-called major questions doctrine defense.

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Roundup

Real Estate Recap: Hughes Fire, EOs, Practices Of The Year

By Real Estate Authority Staff

Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including more law firm displacement due to the newly ignited Hughes Fire in Los Angeles County, real estate sector speculation following a storm of executive orders, and two of Law360's picks for real estate and construction practice groups of the year.

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Coding Boot Camp Seeks Coverage For Tuition Financing Row

By Hope Patti

A San Francisco-based company that runs coding boot camps said its insurers must defend and indemnify it for federal and state probes and private settlements related to its tuition financing program, telling a California federal court that coverage denials have left the company on the brink of insolvency.

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IVF Patients Want CooperSurgical Embryo Loss Suits Joined

By Brian Steele

Four product liability lawsuits targeting the maker of recalled culture media for in vitro fertilization should be consolidated and sent to the Connecticut Superior Court's complex litigation docket, the parties have agreed, but defendant CooperSurgical Inc. wants them kept out of Stamford.

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Chinese Co. Rips Micron's 'Speculative' Fear Of Sharing Code

By Hailey Konnath

Yangtze Memory Technologies on Friday urged the Federal Circuit to leave in place a district court's ruling requiring rival Micron Technology Inc. to turn over its source code in a flash memory chip patent dispute, arguing that Micron's security concerns "are entirely speculative."

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'Vanderpump Rules' Alum's Racism Suit Sent To Arbitration

By Rachel Scharf

A Los Angeles judge has ordered arbitration in "Vanderpump Rules" alum Faith Stowers' racism lawsuit against NBCUniversal Media and Bravo, saying the reality TV personality's contracts clearly required such disputes to be handled outside of court.

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CSU, Mountain West Seek To Escape Suit Over Trans Athlete

By Rae Ann Varona

The California State University system and Mountain West Conference urged a Colorado federal court to free them from a lawsuit challenging a conference policy that allowed a transgender athlete's participation, saying precedent, including from the U.S. Supreme Court, recognized that discrimination based on one's transgender status was impermissible sex discrimination.

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Klutch Calls Teen Football Star Negligence Lawsuit Extortion

By Elaine Briseño

Klutch Sports Group has asked a California federal judge to toss a negligence lawsuit filed by the family of a high school football player, arguing that the company is being dragged into what should be a custody dispute.

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Campbell's Unit Accused Of Failing To Pay For Off-Clock Work

By Emmy Freedman

A Campbell's subsidiary fails to compensate hourly paid packing employees for the several minutes they spend each day performing certain tasks before and after their shifts, a proposed collective action filed in North Carolina federal court said.

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Fifth Third, United Accused Of Using Prepaid Cards For Wages

By Irene Spezzamonte

Fifth Third Bank and a slew of other companies, including United Airlines, compensated employees through prepaid cards that required workers to pay fees to get their wages, a worker said in a proposed class action filed in California state court.

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Feds Want Ohtani's Ex-Interpreter To Get 5 Yrs For $17M Theft

By Dorothy Atkins

Prosecutors urged a California federal judge Thursday to sentence Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter to nearly five years in prison for stealing nearly $17 million from the MLB superstar to help pay massive gambling debts, while defense counsel argued that he should serve only 18 months because of his "severe gambling addiction."

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SAP Seeks Full 9th Circ. Rehearing Of Revived Tying Suit

By Jared Foretek

German software giant SAP is asking the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its revival of data analytics company Teradata's trade secrets and tying suit against it, saying the panel wrongly applied per se antitrust treatment to a "highly innovative software market."

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Biotech Co. Defends Antitrust Counterclaims Against Rival

By Jared Foretek

Biotech company Zymo Research Corp. is defending its claims that German diagnostic competitor Qiagen GmbH's infringement suit is nothing more than an attempt to discredit a competitor, saying Zymo offered to prove it wasn't ripping off Qiagen's tech, only to have Qiagen bury "its head in the sand" and file suit.

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Ill. Judge OKs $35M More In College Aid-Fixing Settlements

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge flagged a communication he considered a potential first Friday as he swiftly approved another $35 million in financial aid-fixing settlements that allow two more schools to exit an antitrust suit claiming they conspired with other elite universities to limit their offerings.

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Taxation With Representation: Latham, Simpson Thacher

By Zak Kostro

In this week's Taxation With Representation, a Brookfield private real estate fund acquires Divvy Homes' property portfolio and platform, Kantar Group proposes the sale of Kantar Media, and an Ares Management-led group buys a majority of Form Technologies Inc.'s common equity.

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Greenberg Traurig Health Ace Joins Polsinelli In LA

By James Mills

Polsinelli PC is expanding its California team, bringing in a Greenberg Traurig LLP healthcare corporate attorney as a principal in its Los Angeles office.

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LA Wildfires' Effect On Calif. Insurer Of Last Resort

Attorneys at Willkie discuss the background of California's insurer of last resort — known as the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan — and examine the process of assessing member insurers and relevant recent property insurance market developments in light of the destruction from the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires.

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10 Key Worker-Friendly California Employment Law Updates

New employment laws in California expand employee rights, transparency and enforcement mechanisms, and failing to educate department managers on these changes could put employers at risk, says Melanie Ronen at Stradley Ronon.

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Trump's Energy Plans For Generation, Transmission And More

The executive orders and presidential memoranda issued by President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration, unwinding the Biden administration's energy policies and encouraging development of fossil fuels, may have significant impacts on the generation mix, electric transmission construction and the state regulatory environment, say attorneys at Polsinelli.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: Nov. And Dec. Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five federal court decisions and identifies practice tips from cases involving takings clause violations, breach of contract with banks, life insurance policies, employment and automobile defects.

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Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year

Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.

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Analysis

Companies Risk White House Wrath By Keeping DEI Programs

By Sarah Jarvis

For companies pushing forward with their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives amid a torrent of attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, there are myriad potential risks ahead — and murky questions about the legal parameters of Trump's anti-DEI agenda.

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Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers

By Alison Knezevich

Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.

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Mass Tort Atty Files Ch. 11 Owing $202M To Litigation Funders

By Hilary Russ

A Houston plaintiffs attorney has filed for personal Chapter 11 protection with more than $202 million of litigation funding liabilities, according to his petition in the Southern District of Texas.

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Feud Heats Up Over Estate Of Wife Killed By Ex-BigLaw Atty

By Emily Johnson

The godson of a Georgia woman killed by her husband, former Fisher Phillips partner Claud "Tex" McIver, has said her cousins shouldn't get proceeds from a settlement of an underlying wrongful death suit, calling them "strangers" to her and claiming "the redistributive windfall" they're asking for "has no place in Georgia law."

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Boston Firm Says IT Vendor Holding Computers 'Hostage'

By Julie Manganis

Boston-based law firm Melick & Porter LLP says a company it hired to manage its information technology is now holding its computer network and data "hostage" by refusing to cooperate with the transition to a new vendor unless Melick pays it $380,000.

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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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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Ridley McGreevy & Winocur PC and King & Spalding LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court revived claims from a woman on death row in Oklahoma that prosecutors unfairly sex-shamed her and relied on gender-based stereotypes to convince a jury that she had killed her estranged husband for insurance money.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new Law360 Pulse survey shows that more than 90% of in-house counsel have no regrets about their decisions to join companies. In litigation stemming from Purdue Pharma's sales of OxyContin that fueled the opioid crisis, the Sackler family would lose control of Purdue and pay $6.5 billion in the latest proposed settlement. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Axa Insurance and Admiral face a claim from a former lawyer recently exposed for personal injury fraud, the owner of Reading Football Club sue a prospective buyer and mobile network Lycamobile tackle action by Spanish network Yogio. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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