DOL Ends All Contractor Bias Probes Following Trump Order

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of Labor on Friday halted all investigations and enforcement in the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order earlier this week pulling a longstanding, core legal authority used to prevent federal contractors from discriminating against workers.

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EEOC Disability Bias Suit Tossed Following Nixed Evidence

By Patrick Hoff

A mortgage and financial services company on Friday defeated a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging it unlawfully refused to hire a woman because she took pain medication, after a Washington federal judge ruled midtrial that a key piece of evidence shouldn't have been shown to jurors.

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EEOC Harassment Guidance Can Remain, For Now

By Grace Elletson

A Tennessee federal judge derailed an effort by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general to pause U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance on workplace harassment, after finding that a recent executive order issued by President Donald Trump may have nullified the legal challenge.

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BCBS Has 'High Hurdle' For New $13M Trial, Mich. Judge Says

By Danielle Ferguson

A Michigan federal judge on Friday told Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan it had a "high hurdle" to meet for him to say a new trial is warranted, after a jury awarded almost $13 million to a worker who was fired after being denied religious accommodation from the company's COVID-19 mandatory vaccine policy.

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Ill. Justices Say Performance Bonuses Count In OT Math

By Irene Spezzamonte

Two workers will have another shot at arguing an electric company failed to pay the proper amount of overtime because state law doesn't exclude performance bonuses from overtime math, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Friday.

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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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Roundup

Employment Authority: Inside Trump's DEI Takedown

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage rounding up President Donald Trump's orders rolling back diversity programs and LGBTQ rights, how employers need to comply with New York's new prenatal leave law, and why a Starbucks' union contract has lost momentum. 

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Employment Group Of The Year: Shegerian & Associates

By Emmy Freedman

Shegerian & Associates won two jury trials for an oncologist in her gender discrimination lawsuit and secured a $14 million award for a bank manager who was fired for taking leave to care for her critically ill husband, earning the firm a place among the 2024 Law360 Employment Groups of the Year.

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Mich. Justices Pass On FCA Employee's Racial Slur Appeal

By Rae Ann Varona

The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday refused to revive a Black man's racial discrimination lawsuit that alleged his supervisor at FCA US LLC regularly called him a racial slur, although two justices, while concurring with the decision, disagreed that the man insufficiently alleged a racially hostile work environment.

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Calif. Panel Remands Ex-DA Worker's Bias Suit Over Slur

By Patrick Hoff

A California appeals panel reopened a discrimination lawsuit against the San Francisco District Attorney's Office by a Black ex-employee, saying a trial court should evaluate the city's response to a co-worker's racial slur given a state Supreme Court ruling that a single epithet can create a hostile work environment.

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Ex-Koch Managers' Ask 11th. Circ. To Undo Assault Verdict

By Kelcey Caulder

The Eleventh Circuit on Friday considered whether to reverse assault and battery verdicts against two former Koch Foods human resource managers accused of inviting an employee to their home, propositioning her and subjecting her to disciplinary action at work when she refused their advances.

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DOJ Seeks End Of SpaceX Challenge To Immigrant Bias Case

By Patrick Hoff

A Texas federal judge on Friday paused a SpaceX lawsuit challenging administrative proceedings against the aeronautics company over its refusal to hire refugees and asylees, after the U.S. Department of Justice said it was considering ways to resolve the case.

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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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10 AGs Target Major Banks Over DEI, ESG Initiatives

By Irene Spezzamonte

Major financial institutions in the United States, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, could have made business decisions to follow political agendas, attorneys general from 10 states said, urging them to tackle a series of questions about their diversity and inclusion policies.

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Brief

Thomson Reuters Settles With Ex-Worker Who Criticized BLM

By Julie Manganis

Thomson Reuters has settled a lawsuit claiming it wrongly fired a white data scientist in its Boston office for criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement on a company messaging system, according to a filing in federal court.

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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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Circle K Fails To Pay For Travel Costs, Manager Says

By Emmy Freedman

Convenience store chain Circle K requires store managers to make trips to other locations to pick up out-of-stock items but doesn't reimburse them for the costs associated with this travel, a proposed class action filed in Illinois state 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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Brief

Delivery Co. Flouted FLSA, Amazon Driver Claims

By Rachel Riley

An independent freight carrier that allegedly contracts with Amazon has been hit with a proposed class action in New York federal court claiming its delivery drivers are deprived of meal breaks, overtime pay and other wages.

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FTC Says Noncompete Ban Defense Is Its Job, Not Intervenor's

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission is urging the Fifth and Eleventh circuits not to permit an entrepreneurs group to intervene in support of the FTC's currently-blocked noncompete ban in case the commission opts to abandon its defense, arguing Congress left it up to government agencies to defend their own regulations.

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Ex-Seton Hall President Says Moving Suit Was Right Call

By Jake Maher

Seton Hall University's former president urged a New Jersey state judge on Thursday to stand by her decision to move his whistleblower suit against the school from Essex County to Hudson County in the face of a reconsideration bid from the university and an attorney at the center of the dispute.

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Trump Fires Inspectors General Without Proper Notice

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general on Friday night, some of whom he appointed, prompting questions and concerns from both sides of the aisle that the president had not followed legal protocol.

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Ill. Justices OK Workers' Injury Suits Over Dormant Diseases

By Dorothy Atkins

The Illinois Supreme Court answered the Seventh Circuit's call on Friday to clarify the state's Workers' Occupational Diseases Act in a widow's wrongful death lawsuit against Goodrich Corp., finding the statute can apply to claims for asbestos-related cancer and other diseases that manifest belatedly despite the statute's other temporal restrictions.

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10th Circ. Unsure Exec's Missed Argument Dooms Firing Suit

By Thy Vo

A Tenth Circuit judge on Friday asked U.S. Bank whether it matters if a former executive knew he had another jurisdictional argument for his wrongful termination claim but failed to pursue it, in an appeal attempting to revive the executive's second suit.

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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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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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Artfully Conceding Liability Can Offer Defendants 3 Benefits

In the rare case that a company makes the strategic decision to admit liability, it’s important to do so clearly and consistently in order to benefit from the various forms of armor that come from an honest acknowledgment, says Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies.

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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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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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