9th Circ. Doubts Trial Judge Properly Nixed $4.7B NFL Verdict

By Dorothy Atkins

A Ninth Circuit panel appeared open Monday to reversing at least portions of a lower court's ruling that scrapped a $4.7 billion class action antitrust jury verdict against the National Football League, with one judge saying the "fundamental problem" is the trial court took the verdict away from the jury.

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High Court Declines NFL Subscriber's Video Privacy Suit

By Allison Grande

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday again refused to take up the question of what type of personal information is shielded from unauthorized disclosure under federal video privacy law, in passing on an NFL digital content subscriber's challenge to the dismissal of his claims that the football league unlawfully shared video-viewing information with Meta.

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DOJ Official Calls Live Nation Deal Win-Win As AGs Press On

By Bryan Koenig

The Justice Department's midtrial settlement with Live Nation on Monday created an instant rift with more than two dozen state attorneys general who vowed to press forward instead of accepting a deal that requires online ticketing technology to be open-sourced and forces the company to divest control over at least 13 amphitheaters.

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DOJ Deal With Live Nation Throws Antitrust Trial Into Disarray

By Pete Brush

U.S. Department of Justice lawyers told a Manhattan federal judge Monday that the government is settling its claims that Live Nation engaged in unlawful monopolization by tying ticket sales to the use of its venues, throwing an ongoing trial involving dozens of states into an uncertain posture.

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DC Judge Voids Voice Of America Layoffs

By Katherine Smith

The deputy CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media's decision to fire over 500 Voice of America employees is void, a D.C. federal court has ruled, finding that she lacked the authority to serve in the agency's acting CEO role when she instituted the layoffs.

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Judge OKs Sanctions In $500M Miss America Ownership Fight

By Carolina Bolado

A Florida federal judge Monday sanctioned a businessman and his attorney for submitting fraudulent documents in a $500 million dispute over ownership of the Miss America pageant and using the documents to put the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

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Social Media Plaintiff Not Diagnosed With Addiction, Jury Told

By Craig Clough

A therapist who treated a bellwether plaintiff alleging Instagram and YouTube are harmful to children testified she never diagnosed the plaintiff with any social media addiction during five years of treatment but believed social media contributed to her mental health struggles, according to a video deposition a California jury watched Monday.

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Ye Fired Worker For Refusing Unsafe Work Orders, Jury Told

By Rae Ann Varona

A record dealer who worked on a gutted Malibu mansion for rapper Ye "didn't want to breathe carbon monoxide" while remodeling the site and was fired as a result, the former worker's counsel told a Los Angeles jury in closing arguments in a trial accusing Ye of retaliation and unpaid wages.

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Giving Up Rapper's Merch Site 'Didn't Feel Fair,' Jury Hears

By Lauraann Wood

Chance the Rapper would have received full ownership of the primary website his former manager developed to market the rapper's merchandise had he honored their oral payment arrangement when their business relationship ended, even though the artist still "effectively" controls it today, Illinois jurors heard Monday.

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Musicians Claim Google Stole Songs For AI Music Tool

By Ivan Moreno

A group of independent musicians from around the U.S. have sued Google in Chicago federal court, accusing it of copying millions of copyrighted songs and lyrics from YouTube and across the internet to build its AI music generator Lyria 3 — a product the plaintiffs say directly competes with human artists.

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Brief

SCOTUSblog Founder Goldstein To Be Sentenced In June

By Emily Sawicki

SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein, currently under home confinement in Washington, D.C., after a Maryland jury convicted him on tax evasion and mortgage fraud charges, will face sentencing in June.

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GoodVision AI To Go Public Through $180M SPAC Merger

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure solutions provider GoodVision AI Inc., advised by VCL Law LLP, unveiled plans Monday to go public by merging with Graubard Miller-advised special purpose acquisition company Calisa Acquisition Corp. in a deal valued at $180 million.

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Fed. Circ. Backs Google, Amazon Wins Over Streaming IP

By Theresa Schliep

The Federal Circuit on Monday let stand decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to invalidate claims across three streaming patents owned by WAG Acquisition LLC, which had accused Google, Amazon, Netflix and other companies of infringement in numerous cases.

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Judge Won't Toss Nokia Patent Claims Against Warner Bros.

By Elliot Weld

A Delaware federal judge has refused to dismiss Nokia's claims that Warner Bros. infringed a set of video coding patents, saying he couldn't conclude that the patents lack an inventive concept that would meet the U.S. Supreme Court's Alice test.

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Roblox Must Face Texas' Child Safety Suit, Judge Rules

By Emily Field

A Texas state judge on Friday said that Roblox can't escape claims brought by the state of Texas that it misled parents about the safety of their children using its popular online game platform.

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Fla. Judge Finds Leapfrog's Hospital Ratings Deceptive, Unfair

By Gianna Ferrarin

A Florida federal judge ordered hospital ratings nonprofit Leapfrog to revoke poor safety grades it issued to five hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp., finding the group's approach to evaluating the hospitals and publicizing its findings was unfair and deceptive.

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Meta Integrity Head Tells NM Jury Proactivity Is Key

By Cara Salvatore

Meta's longtime head of integrity testified Monday in New Mexico's social media mental health trial that the company is always building new safety tools and that he led a shift to make it more proactive in detecting policy violations.

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Blog Criticizing Judges Contained 'True Threats,' Jury Told

By Aaron Keller

Connecticut prosecutors on Monday urged a jury to convict a man whose discontent with the state's family court system after his divorce and custody cases more than a decade prior allegedly crossed the line into what they called "true threats" against judges in an online blog.

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Valve Gamers Seek Fees After Co. Dropped Them From Suit

By Ben Adlin

Gamers who were sued by Valve Corp. in an effort to stop hundreds of arbitration proceedings have urged a Washington federal judge to make the company cover their legal fees, arguing that as each defendant was dismissed from the lawsuit following a final arbitration award, they became a prevailing party entitled to recoup their costs.

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Meta's AI Smart Glasses Snoop On Users, Consumers Say

By Joyce Hanson

A California resident has brought a proposed class action accusing Meta and an eyewear company of misleading buyers by advertising the companies' artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses as "designed for privacy," saying personal video footage can be reviewed by human contractors overseas.

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FTC Won't Quash NewsGuard Subpoena

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission has denied a request from news rating organization NewsGuard Technologies Inc. to quash a subpoena issued as part of an investigation into an alleged advertising boycott of conservative publishers, as the group fights the document demand in court.

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Trump Media Investor's Venue Bid Rejected By Fla. High Court

By David Minsky

Florida's Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition for review brought by an investor in President Donald Trump's Truth Social platform who challenged an order denying his motion to toss or transfer the company's lawsuit against him after he claimed it was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. 

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Musk's Team Warned 'WWIII' Over Twitter Deal, Atty Testifies

By Bonnie Eslinger

After Twitter sued Elon Musk for terminating his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform, Musk's legal team said their client would launch "World War III" against the company's board if forced to go through with the transaction, a Wilson Sonsini lawyer who led the deal for Twitter told a California federal jury Monday.

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Steve Aoki, DraftKings Founder Seek Exit From NFT Fraud Suit

By David Minsky

DraftKings co-founder Matthew Kalish and electronic music artist Steve Aoki told a Florida federal court Friday that a proposed class action accusing them of promoting "worthless" nonfungible tokens without disclosing they were getting paid for it does not allege any wrongdoing, and asked the court to toss the suit.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court's docket last week featured disputes spanning alleged forged board approvals at a telecom startup, evidence-destruction claims tied to WWE's blockbuster merger with UFC and investor scrutiny of a multibillion-dollar deal between Intel and the U.S. government.

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Senate Bill Eyes Letting Colleges Pool Sports Media Rights

By Courtney Bublé

A bipartisan bill in the works would allow colleges to pool their media rights in hopes of boosting their revenue, which could then trickle down to women's and Olympic sports programs.

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FCC Set to Hear Challenge To Nat'l Security Listing For Drones

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission has asked the public what it thinks about drone maker DJI's request that the agency reconsider whether its products belong on a list of national security risks, giving anyone opposed to the petition a month to make themselves heard.

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LG Looks To Lock Down FCC Waivers For Door Access

By Christopher Cole

LG Electronics has asked the Federal Communications Commission to waive its ultra-wideband rules to allow an access device to communicate with smart door locks.

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Brief

Industry Aims To Win Over Policymakers In Copper Phaseout

By Christopher Cole

A major telecom group has launched a publicity campaign to convince consumers and policymakers it's time to make the switch from copper to all-internet-based networks.

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Fed. Circ. Punts On Ligado's $40B Spectrum Takings Claim

By Christopher Cole

Federal Circuit judges declined to rule for now on whether to dismiss network company Ligado's nearly $40 billion claim alleging the government has trampled its property rights by using airwaves Ligado bought for exclusive use.

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Pot Co. Shareholder Says Rapper Berner Gutted Business

By Mike Curley

A shareholder in Cookies Creative Consulting & Promotions Inc. is suing rapper Berner and a company the musician co-owns, claiming that he and other board members of Cookies Creative used their positions to gut it and transfer its assets to the other company.

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Golf Co. Approved For $35.7M Ch. 11 Sale To Nicklaus Family

By Vince Sullivan

A Delaware federal bankruptcy judge approved a $35.7 million sale of assets Monday in the Chapter 11 case of sports gear and golf course design enterprise Nicklaus Cos. LLC, agreeing to a deal that will see affiliates tied to retired golfer Jack Nicklaus acquire the business and end protracted litigation among its founders.

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Abortion Rights Group, SD Agree to End Gas Station Ads Row

By Mark Payne

An abortion rights group can no longer post advertisements at gas stations in South Dakota that promote abortion care, the South Dakota attorney general's office announced on Monday, saying that the group and the state have reached an agreement in a pair of lawsuits over the advertising campaign. 

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Military Attys In DOJ 'Erodes Democratic Norms,' Ex-JAGs Say

By Lauren Berg

Nearly a dozen former military lawyers raised the alarm about the Trump administration appointing judge advocate officers to U.S. attorneys' offices, urging a Minnesota federal judge Tuesday to bar an Army lawyer from prosecuting a case that accuses a civilian of assaulting federal immigration enforcement agents.

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DOJ Official Faces Ethics Case Over Georgetown DEI Letters

By Alison Knezevich

U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin has been hit with disciplinary charges in the nation's capital over threatening letters he sent to Georgetown University Law Center last year while he was interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

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Dems Confront Roberts At Wide-Ranging Judiciary Gathering

By Jeff Overley

The federal judiciary's top administrator voiced "serious and urgent concerns" Tuesday regarding threats of retribution against judges, a warning that coincided with a judicial gathering where Democrats discussed security fears and controversial U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

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Prosecutor Resigns, Judge Shows Slide Deck On AI Errors

By Abigail Harrison

A federal prosecutor told a North Carolina federal court Tuesday that he was separating from the office after admitting in open court to using artificial intelligence to help draft a response brief, what he called "the worst decision I've ever made in my 30-year career."

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Calif. Atty Gets Over 11 Years For Solar $1B Ponzi Scheme

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has sentenced a corporate attorney to 11 years and five months behind bars after he pled guilty to nearly two dozen charges for his role in DC Solar's $912 million Ponzi scheme, which duped major investors including Berkshire Hathaway, Progressive and SunTrust Equipment Finance & Leasing.

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Ex-Moses & Singer Partner Admits Tax Crimes, Will Pay $2.8M

By Aaron Keller

A former Moses & Singer LLP partner admitted to practice in New York and North Carolina courts has pled guilty to three counts of failing to file personal income tax returns and will pay $2.8 million in restitution, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut announced Monday.

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Judiciary Approves Supreme Court Public Defender Office

By Katie Buehler

The federal judiciary approved a new office Tuesday aimed at improving the quality of representation for indigent defendants with cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. 

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Judge Fumes As Live Nation Antitrust Trial Remains In Limbo

By Stewart Bishop

The status of Live Nation Entertainment's antitrust trial and proposed settlement over federal and state government claims of anticompetitive conduct remained up in the air Tuesday amid pushback by several states, while the Manhattan federal judge overseeing the case upbraided the parties for keeping him out of the loop about negotiations.

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DOJ Unveils Superseding Policy For Corporate Criminal Cases

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday released its first-ever, department-wide, corporate enforcement policy for criminal matters, outlining how it will decline to prosecute companies that voluntarily disclose misconduct, cooperate with investigators and remediate wrongdoing.

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DLA Piper Can't Rep Itself At Bias Trial, Fired Atty Says

By Pete Brush

DLA Piper should not be permitted to represent itself at trial in a pregnancy discrimination case brought by a senior associate who was fired in 2022, lawyers for the plaintiff told a Manhattan federal judge.

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Judge Nixed Over MAGA Op-Ed Seeks Reinstatement

By Emily Sawicki

A retired Illinois state trial court judge pursuing First Amendment claims against the state Supreme Court after his right-wing opinion column resulted in his removal from a temporary judgeship has moved for immediate reinstatement to the Cook County Circuit Court.

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Wisconsin Judges Decline To Extend Interim US Atty's Term

By Courtney Bublé

A majority of judges in the Eastern District of Wisconsin have declined to extend the tenure of interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel, according to an announcement Tuesday.

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J&J Opposes Beasley Allen Reinstatement Bid In NJ Talc Fight

By Emily Sawicki

Johnson & Johnson is urging the New Jersey Supreme Court to not take the "extraordinary step" of intervening in an appellate panel ruling that disqualified Beasley Allen from representing hundreds of women in product liability litigation against the pharmaceutical giant after the Georgia-based firm "knowingly collaborated" with a former Johnson & Johnson outside counsel.

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