NLRB Stops Accepting Consent Orders That Parties Oppose

By Beverly Banks

The National Labor Relations Board overruled on Thursday a Trump-era precedent by ceasing the agency's acceptance of consent orders that face objections from both agency prosecutors and the charging party, finding the practice encroaches on the NLRB general counsel's powers.

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9th Circ. Won't Force Yellow Corp. Bias Suit Into Arbitration

By Patrick Hoff

The Ninth Circuit refused Thursday to kick a former Yellow Corp. employee's disability discrimination lawsuit to arbitration, ruling the agreement the worker signed was improperly lopsided in favor of his employer and had to be scrapped.

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Split 6th Circ. Reopens Coca-Cola Bottling Race Bias Case

By Bonnie Eslinger

A split Sixth Circuit panel Thursday revived a lawsuit filed against a Coca-Cola bottling company by an employee who failed a drug test, finding a genuine dispute exists over whether the man voluntarily waived his rights to sue for racial discrimination and retaliation when he signed a "last chance" agreement.

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Calif. Justices OK Argentine Atty's Uber Fraud Fight

By Dorothy Atkins

California justices gave an Argentinian lawyer a green light Thursday to pursue allegations that Uber fraudulently hid crucial information as he represented Uber before its Buenos Aires launch, clarifying that his tort fraudulent-concealment claim is not necessarily barred by the so-called economic loss doctrine if his employment contract never contemplated the alleged fraud.

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Mich. Says Justices' Minimum Wage Ruling Lacks Detail

By Carolyn Muyskens

The state of Michigan is seeking clarification from its high court on how to calculate the new minimum wage, saying there were several possible interpretations of the court's recent directive to account for inflation in the wage floor. 

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Ex-Delta Attendant Can't Revive Rape Suit, Split 1st Circ. Says

By Elliot Weld

A divided panel of the First Circuit has affirmed a summary judgment win for Delta Air Lines in a suit brought in Massachusetts by a former flight attendant who claimed the airline botched its investigation into her allegations that she was raped by a pilot.

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Fla. Court Urged To Penalize Furniture Chain In Docs Dispute

By David Minsky

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has urged a Florida federal court to levy an attorney fees penalty against a furniture chain over its failure to produce documents in an employment discrimination lawsuit, saying the company continues to skirt its obligation to produce information such as emails and financial records.

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9th Circ. Revives Military Bias Claims Against Alaska Airlines

By Bonnie Eslinger

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday revived a class action alleging Alaska Airlines illegally denied accrued vacation and sick time to pilots on military assignments, saying the case now has the benefit of a decision from the court in a similar case involving the airline.

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6th Circ. Reopens Red Cross Nurse's COVID-19 Vax Suit

By Ali Sullivan

The Sixth Circuit revived a former Red Cross nurse's claim that the nonprofit organization failed to accommodate her religious beliefs when it refused to exempt her from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, ruling that the lower court held the plaintiff to an overly strict standard when it tossed her suit.

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Au Pair Co. Tells 1st Circ. Arbitration Bid Came In Time

By Irene Spezzamonte

An au pair company told the First Circuit that forcing it to advance arbitration efforts before filing a response in a wage suit would conflict with a U.S. Supreme Court's ruling tackling the timing of arbitration requests.

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Calif. Panel Backs Arbitration Denial In Staffing Co. Wage Suit

By Emmy Freedman

A California state appeals court refused to ship to arbitration a worker's lawsuit accusing a staffing agency of unlawfully miscalculating his sick leave wages, saying the arbitration pact he signed promised that all Private Attorneys General Act claims will be litigated in court.

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Hormel, Meat Plants To Settle Wage-Fixing Claims For $13.5M

By Thy Vo

Hormel Foods Corp. and two meat processing plants have agreed to a $13.5 million settlement in a Colorado wage-fixing suit, joining a host of companies that have reached deals to end claims that they colluded to depress wages.

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Brief

Pa. Welders, Attys Get Final OK On $970K Drive Time Deal

By Matthew Santoni

A Pennsylvania state court gave final approval Thursday to a $970,000 settlement, including $355,000 in attorney fees, to resolve workers' claims that Great American Welding Co. owed them pay for the time they spent shuttling between satellite parking lots and Shell's petrochemical cracker plant in southwestern Pennsylvania.

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Philadelphia Police Dept. Withheld OT, Ranking Officers Say

By Emmy Freedman

The Philadelphia Police Department failed to notify ranking officers that they were eligible to receive overtime pay for authorized emergency work, resulting in these employees losing out on thousands of hours' worth of compensation, a proposed class action filed in Pennsylvania federal court said.

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IT Staffing Co. Can't Push Unpaid OT Suit Into Arbitration

By Emmy Freedman

A California federal judge refused to send to arbitration a class action accusing a tech staffing company of underpaying recruiters by misclassifying them as overtime-exempt, saying the company's establishment of the arbitration pact two years into the litigation was misleading and unfair.

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Kroger-Albertsons Wrong On Labor Law In FTC Row: NLRB

By Bryan Koenig

The National Labor Relations Board used an amicus brief Wednesday to call out Kroger and Albertsons for their "mistaken" citation to labor law as a defense against Federal Trade Commission claims that the grocery giants' $25 billion megamerger threatens union bargaining leverage.

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Philly Contractor Gets Probation For Taking Union Money

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A Philadelphia contractor who accepted union money embezzled by John Dougherty, former business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, to renovate the labor leader's personal properties was sentenced to three years of probation Thursday.

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Nonprofit Beats Ill. Teachers Union's Election Meddling Suit

By Emily Brill

An Illinois federal judge tossed litigation claiming an education policy nonprofit meddled in a Chicago Teachers Union election, saying the sections of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act the union sued under do not authorize lawsuits by private parties.

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Fisher Phillips Brings Smith Gambrell Atty To DC Gov't Team

By Jack Rodgers

Fisher Phillips' new D.C.-based agriculture employment partner has practiced several types of law throughout his career, and told Law360 Pulse Thursday that his employment law career started unexpectedly after a managing partner at one of his first firms called out sick before an interview.

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Prince Lobel Adds Boston IP Partner From Mintz

By Leslie A. Pappas

The newest member of Prince Lobel Tye LLP's intellectual property team is a former professional soccer player who now channels his competitive energy into patent and trade secrets litigation, joining the firm after 11 years at Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC with a mandate to build up Prince Lobel's trade secrets practice.

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Preparing For The NLRB's New Union Recognition Final Rule

The National Labor Relations Board's impending new final rule on union recognition puts the employer at a particular disadvantage in a decertification election, and best practices include conducting workplace assessments to identify and proactively address employee issues, say Louis Cannon and Gerald Bradner at Baker Donelson.

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Insuring Lender's Baseball Bet Leads To Major League Dispute

In RockFence v. Lloyd's, a California federal court seeks to define who qualifies as a professional baseball player for purposes of an insurance coverage payout, providing an illuminating case study of potential legal issues arising from baseball service loans, say Marshall Gilinsky and Seán McCabe at Anderson Kill.

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Series

Playing Golf Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Golf can positively affect your personal and professional life well beyond the final putt, and it’s helped enrich my legal practice by improving my ability to build lasting relationships, study and apply the rules, face adversity with grace, and maintain my mental and physical well-being, says Adam Kelly at Venable.

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Client Wants Atty's Wife Held In Contempt In Malpractice Case

By Daniel Ducassi

A couple awarded a $1.2 million default malpractice judgment against their former lawyer have asked a Colorado state judge to hold the attorney's wife in contempt after she said in a deposition she failed to check whether she and her husband had joint bank accounts or to bring documents, as required by a subpoena. 

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Girardi Says High Court Holding Should Gut His Fraud Case

By Craig Clough

Tom Girardi has urged a California federal judge to toss the majority of the wire fraud charges he is facing ahead of closing arguments in his trial, saying a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court case demonstrates he was charged for nothing more than receiving legally required wire transfers.

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Ex-Reed Smith Atty Wants Pay Data In Bias Suit Against Firm

By Jake Maher

A former Reed Smith LLP attorney suing the firm for gender discrimination has told a New Jersey state court that the firm must turn over pay data for nonequity partners stretching back years for her to make her case.

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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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DOJ Sues RealPage For Helping Fix Rental Rates

By Matthew Perlman

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit Friday accusing RealPage of helping residential landlords across the country fix rental prices through the use of its revenue management software.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Fillmore Law Firm LLP, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center and the Business Roundtable lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a Texas federal judge blocked a Federal Trade Commission ban on noncompete agreements in employment contracts.

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

By Max Austin

The past week in London has seen Google sue several Russian media outlets in response to challenges to the tech giant's response to international sanctions, easyGroup bring an intellectual property claim against delivery company Easycargo, and e-money business Nyavo challenge action by the Financial Conduct Authority.

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On Final Night Of DNC, Prosecutors Ruled The Stage

By Courtney Bublé

Vice President Kamala Harris invoked her experience as a prosecutor and an attorney general in her speech Thursday night in Chicago accepting the Democratic nomination for president.

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Messner Reeves Commercial Litigator Jumps To Gordon Rees

By Madison Arnold

A former Messner Reeves LLP partner has jumped to Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP in San Diego to bolster its services in product and general liability matters, catastrophic brain injury cases and commercial litigation.

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Ohio Judge Dinged For Public Posts About Guardianship Spat

By Emily Sawicki

The Ohio Supreme Court has publicly reprimanded a probate court judge for allowing staff to make inaccurate comments to the press about a guardianship case and for posting comments about the case on the court's Facebook page, including accusing a man of elder abuse without evidence.

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Client Says Negligence Led To NJ Firm's Ransomware Attack

By Adrian Cruz

A client of The Wacks Law Group LLC hit the New Jersey firm with a proposed class action claiming that its negligence in properly securing its data storage led to the theft of hundreds of clients' personal information in a March cyberattack.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A U.S. court in Texas has agreed with tax company Ryan LLC's general counsel that the Federal Trade Commission's ban on noncompete agreements is illegal. And women still hold fewer than 26% of law firm equity partnerships, according to Law360 Pulse's 2024 Women in Law report.

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NJ Panel Backs Dismissal Of Whistleblower Suit

By James Boyle

A former New Jersey assistant prosecutor did not provide a clear enough link between complaints he filed against his boss and an alleged retaliatory disciplinary action, a New Jersey appellate panel ruled Friday when it dismissed his whistleblower suit.

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Attys Fight Over Fee Award In Conservative Group's IRS Win

By Jared Foretek

A prominent conservative lawyer says like-minded election integrity group True the Vote owes his firm over $500,000 in attorney fees for a suit against the Internal Revenue Service that was settled years ago, telling a D.C. federal judge Friday that it's time for TTV to pay up.

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Georgia Cases To Watch In The Last Half Of 2024

By Kelcey Caulder

The prosecutions of former President Donald Trump and his election interference case codefendants, along with Atlanta rapper Young Thug's bid to have the judge overseeing his racketeering trial removed from the case, will take center stage in Georgia's courts as we enter the second half of 2024.

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ABA Guides Lawyers On Avoiding Criminal Transactions

By Emily Sawicki

Just over a year after the American Bar Association formalized long-standing due diligence rules for attorneys' interactions with clients, an ABA committee on Friday released its first ethics opinion providing guidance on interpreting the rules amendment.

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Brief

2 Veteran Public Defenders Tapped For Mass. Bench

By Julie Manganis

Two longtime public defenders have been nominated as associate justices in Massachusetts state court, Gov. Maura Healey announced Friday.

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LegalShield Used AI To Record Clients, Suit Says

By Nadia Dreid

Online legal service company LegalShield has been letting a call center software company use artificial intelligence to intercept, analyze and record its customer calls and chats, according to a lawsuit recently pulled into California federal court.

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