Hershey Can't Escape 'One Chip Challenge' Death Suit

By Mike Curley

A Massachusetts federal judge has thrown out claims against Walgreens in a suit from a mother claiming her son died after eating part of an excessively spicy chip, but allowed design defect and other claims against the Hershey Co. and its affiliates that made the chip.

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11th Circ. Says Waffle House Isn't Liable For Patron's Stabbing

By Carolina Bolado

The Eleventh Circuit ruled Friday that Waffle House is not liable for injuries caused by an off-duty employee who stabbed an argumentative customer with a waffle pick, finding a reasonable jury could not conclude that the worker was acting within the scope of his employment.

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Analysis

Iran War's Trade Fallout Likely To Spread Beyond Oil, Fertilizer

By Dylan Moroses

The war in Iran has already shocked oil and gas prices worldwide and stakeholders expect further U.S. trade consequences related to the conflict including supply chain constraints, cost increases across a variety of goods, and industries and new geopolitical responses as the conflict continues.

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Brief

EPA Eyes Microplastics, Drugs For Drinking Water Watch List

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals in its drinking water contaminants list for the first time, the agency has announced in a move it says could make the proposed contaminants a consideration in regulatory action.

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Animal Rights Groups Jump Into 'Cage Free Egg' Fight

By Emilie Ruscoe

Advocacy groups focused on animal welfare can intervene in the federal government's suit against Michigan over its laws defining "cage-free" eggs, a Michigan federal judge determined.

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Club Foxy Lady Loses 9th Circ. TM Appeal Against Coffee Biz

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit panel rejected a Rhode Island strip club's bid for a default win in a suit accusing a Washington state bikini barista business of stealing its "Foxy Lady" trademark, ruling on Friday that the district court properly disposed of the case based on differences in the trademarks and distance between the customer markets.

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Law360 Announces The Members Of Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is pleased to announce the formation of its 2026 Editorial Advisory Boards.

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Legislative Update: Cannabis And Psychedelics Bill Roundup

By Sam Reisman

State lawmakers in Delaware and West Virginia advanced legislation to more tightly regulate kratom products, Missouri and Kentucky legislators considered bills to fund research into the therapeutic uses of the psychedelic ibogaine, and Idaho's Legislature came together to urge voters to reject a medical marijuana legalization proposal that could be on the ballot this November. Here are the major moves in cannabis and psychedelics legislation from the past week.

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FDA Won't Stop Nicotine Pouch Sale During Court Battle

By Jared Foretek

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has told a vape manufacturer that it won't stop the production or sale of its "Zone" nicotine pouches until the company's lawsuit accusing the agency of unlawfully sitting on its application has been resolved.

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Warhol Painting Can Be Targeted In $142M Award Feud

By Caroline Simson

A New York federal judge cleared the way for units of private equity firm CVC Capital to seek the turnover of two paintings — including an Andy Warhol — that were purchased for over $29 million as they look to enforce $142 million in Chinese arbitral awards over a soured restaurant investment.

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Welch's Maker Says Biotech Co. Copied Yogurt Snack Patent

By Gina Kim

The company behind Welch's Fruit Snacks filed a patent infringement suit against an Irish biotech company in Texas federal court Thursday, accusing it of colluding with rival health snack company Cibo Vita to steal the plaintiff's patent designs for yogurt-covered probiotic snacks to "fast track their way to sales and profit."

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19 ByHeart Infant Formula Botulism Suits Centralized In NY

By Jonathan Capriel

Nineteen proposed class actions accusing ByHeart Inc. of negligently selling contaminated baby formula that caused some infants to become seriously ill will be consolidated in the Southern District of New York, according to an order by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

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Brief

DoorDash Dropped From Allstate Road Rage Coverage Row

By Gianna Ferrarin

Allstate voluntarily dropped DoorDash from its Washington federal suit seeking a judgment that it has no duty to defend a delivery driver facing allegations he killed another man in a road rage incident, leaving Uber as the only corporate defendant in the coverage dispute.

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Eatery Shorted Tipped Staff On Wages, Suit Says

By Julie Manganis

A vegetarian restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, made servers share their tips with ineligible co-workers and regularly miscalculated what tipped-wage staff was owed, a former employee alleged in a complaint filed Friday in state court.

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E-Cig Wholesaler Says Insurer Owes $5M For Warehouse Fire

By Hope Patti

A wholesaler of electronic cigarette products is owed nearly $5 million in coverage for a warehouse fire that destroyed its inventory, it told an Illinois federal court, saying its insurer has wrongfully refused to pay anything beyond the $1.3 million it already paid for the loss.

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Analysis

AI Boom Lifts Q1 M&A Values, As Attys Eye Wider Rebound

By Al Barbarino

Artificial intelligence-driven megadeals fueled a jump in first-quarter global mergers and acquisitions value, but lagging middle-market and private equity activity weighed on deal volume, as attorneys cautiously anticipate a broader rebound.

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Del Monte Minority Lenders Lose 3rd Circ. Appeal Bid

By Alex Wittenberg

A New Jersey bankruptcy judge has rejected a lender group's request to certify a Del Monte Foods settlement order for appeal to the Third Circuit, finding that the order reflected a fact-intensive application of settled law and did not present the kind of pure legal question that would warrant appellate review.

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Roundup

Taxation With Representation: Cleary, Hogan Lovells, Wachtell

By Zak Kostro

In this week's Taxation With Representation, spice maker McCormick acquires Unilever's foods business, wholesale restaurant food distributor Sysco buys Jetro Restaurant Depot, and private equity giant KKR closes a fund focused on investments in North America.

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Opinion

FTC Case Risks Redefining Price Discrimination

Federal Trade Commission v. Southern Glazer puts a spotlight on the blurry line between illegal price discrimination and ordinary competition, and could potentially set a precedent that puts nearly any manufacturer at risk of Robinson-Patman Act enforcement, says Jeremy Sandford at Econic Partners.

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ABA, Ex-Judges And Many More Back BigLaw In EO Appeal

By Dorothy Atkins

Numerous bar associations, 239 former judges, 21 states, lawmakers and dozens of other amici curiae have thrown their weight behind BigLaw firms in the Trump administration's consolidated D.C. Circuit appeal seeking to revive executive orders targeting the firms, broadly arguing that the orders are an affront to foundational constitutional rights.

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Legal Sector Lost 700 Jobs In March, Ending Hiring Streak

By Tracey Read

The legal sector began to slow down in March after a year and a half straight of gains, with 700 fewer people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in February, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Progressive Org. Rolls Out $3M Anti-Trump High Court Push

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump does not have any vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court, but a progressive court advocacy organization is not waiting for a justice's departure to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign opposing a possible Trump pick.

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Brief

Justice Alito Treated For Dehydration After Federalist Event

By Courtney Buble

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito felt ill during a Federalist Society event last month and was seen by a doctor "out of an abundance of caution," the high court announced on Friday.

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6th Circ. Axes Atty For 'Inexcusable' AI 'Transgressions'

By Rae Ann Varona

An attorney committed "inexcusable transgressions" by relying on Westlaw's internal CoCounsel artificial intelligence platform for appellate filings and by failing to catch erroneous AI-generated content, the Sixth Circuit said Friday and removed the lawyer from further representing a man who pled guilty to drug trafficking charges.

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Analysis

'Political' Deals Pit DOJ Against State AGs, And Not Just Dems

By Bryan Koenig

Controversial U.S. Department of Justice settlements with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Live Nation, along with the approval of Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, are increasingly inspiring state attorneys general to strike out on their own as antitrust enforcers, often in direct challenge to a federal government that Democrats have cast as "corrupt."

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Florida Gov., AG Face Criticism For Judge Impeachment Push

By Rose Krebs

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier faced pushback this week from some in the state's legal community for calling for the impeachment of a judge for releasing a man who went on to allegedly kill his five-year-old stepdaughter, with critics blasting those calls as being politically motivated and "unethical."

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Analysis

DOJ's New Corporate Enforcement Policy May Eclipse SDNY's

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice has put to use for the first time its new corporate enforcement policy of declining prosecutions when companies self-report potential criminal violations, but experts say the new, department-wide initiative has rendered a more business-friendly approach by the Southern District of New York moot.

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Ex-DOJ Official Wants Epstein-Talk Suit Kept In District Court

By Emily Sawicki

A former U.S. Department of Justice acting deputy chief who was fired last year after a hidden-camera video of him discussing the Epstein files was posted online has told a D.C. federal judge his due process case must survive in district court because the Trump administration now controls federal oversight agencies.

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Trump Seeks 13% Boost In DOJ Funding

By Courtney Bublé

The White House budget request for fiscal 2027, released on Friday, seeks $40.8 billion in discretionary funds for the U.S. Department of Justice, a 13% increase from the current year level.

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Judge Stands By Block Of DOJ Subpoenas In Powell Probe

By Jon Hill

A Washington, D.C., federal judge on Friday rejected a U.S. Department of Justice attempt to revive subpoenas from its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the government hadn't "come close" to giving him a reason to rethink blocking them.

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Schneider Wallace Loses Bid For Bigger Piece Of $75M Fee

By Lauren Berg

A California federal magistrate judge on Friday rejected Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's bid to increase its cut of a $75.4 million fee award for representing plaintiffs in a $228.5 million Sutter Health antitrust deal, saying lead counsel Constantine Cannon LLP's allocation of $1.4 million to Schneider Wallace was fair.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

PayPal was hit with a proposed investor class action that claims the payments giant hid slowing growth for its critical branded checkout business. In the meantime, a Shopify lawyer encouraged his peers during a webinar to make sure their outside counsel have "met the moment" by leveraging artificial intelligence in smart ways. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Alliance Defending Freedom, Pearman Law Firm PC and attorney Barry Arrington lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado ban on therapy intended to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity amounts to viewpoint discrimination against a Christian therapist.

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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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