RI Judge Wants To Know Who's Behind $11B Health Grant Cuts

By Yeji Jesse Lee

A Rhode Island federal judge on Thursday pressed the Trump administration for details about the decision-makers behind the cancellation of billions in grants supporting state public health programs.

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AFL-CIO, Unions Can Pursue Some DOGE Access Claims

By Beverly Banks

The AFL-CIO, unions and advocacy groups may pursue allegations that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency lacks the power to access data from the U.S. Department of Labor and other federal agencies, a D.C. federal judge ruled while tossing some claims under federal administrative and privacy law.

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3rd Circ. Questions Walmart's Duty To Disclose Opioid Probe

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The Third Circuit on Thursday questioned the extent to which Walmart knew of the government's interest in prosecuting it for opioid sales, as it considered a bid by investors to revive class claims alleging the retail chain failed to disclose it was under investigation.

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Arkansas Bans PBMs From Owning Pharmacies

By Patrick Hoff

Pharmacy benefit managers operating in Arkansas will soon be prohibited from owning pharmacies in the state after Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill that lawmakers say is meant to minimize conflicts of interest and safeguard patients.

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Solicitor General's Office Now Features Two Top Lieutenants

By Jeff Overley

Mere days after the U.S. Solicitor General's Office got a new leader, it also got a new leadership structure featuring two BigLaw alums in the traditional second-in-command post, according to a hearing list the U.S. Supreme Court released Thursday.

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DC Circ. Has No Sympathy For Novartis Over Generic Entresto

By Dani Kass

A D.C. Circuit panel went in circles Thursday with attorneys from Novartis, MSN Pharmaceuticals and the federal government, trying to work out how a study over dosing levels in the blockbuster drug Entresto should impact whether a generic version can be approved.

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Ex-Harvard Morgue Manager Takes Plea Over Stolen Remains

By Brian Dowling

Harvard Medical School's former morgue manager plans to plead guilty to one criminal count in a case alleging he stole and sold human remains from cadavers in his care to a network of "oddities" buyers across the country.

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9th Circ. Revives Defect Suit Against CR Bard Over Clot Filter

By Gina Kim

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday revived a patient's allegations that C.R. Bard's blood clot-preventing IVC filter was defective, ruling that a lower court was wrong to throw out the suit as untimely since there are factual disputes as to when the patient noticed the filter had malfunctioned.

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9th Circ. Tosses Objections To $10.4M CVS Wage Settlement

By Emily Brill

A pharmacist's objections to a $10.4 million settlement of a wage and hour class action affecting 24,000 CVS employees hold no weight, a Ninth Circuit panel found, ruling Thursday that a California federal judge adequately considered the merits of each objection before tossing them.

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Tenet Asks Court To Enforce Dead Arbitrator's $546K Award

By Parker Quinlan

Tenet Healthcare Corp. has asked a Washington, D.C., federal judge to require the Service Employees International Union to follow an arbitrator's final order to pay $546,000 after making derogatory statements, despite the arbitrator dying before ruling on the union's post-judgment reconsideration motion.

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NC Hospital Operator Can't Escape AG's Merger Suit Yet

By Ryan Harroff

A North Carolina Business Court judge rejected HCA Healthcare's bid for a partial win in state Attorney General Jeff Jackson's compliance suit reviewing the company's 2019 purchase of another hospital system, ruling that the purchase agreement's language is too ambiguous to decide the matter without further discovery.

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Ga. Healthcare Providers Slap BCBS With Antitrust Suit

By Madeline Lyskawa

Georgia-based healthcare providers that opted out of a landmark $2.8 billion antitrust settlement have slapped Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its affiliates with a complaint in Georgia federal court, accusing them of conspiring with one another to carve the country into exclusive service areas in violation of antitrust laws.

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Akerman Sues To Block Malpractice Claim, Secure $750K Fees

By Jake Maher

Akerman LLP sued the healthcare services company Rennova Health Inc. and three medical laboratories in Florida state court this week, alleging that they owe the firm about $750,000 in unpaid fees and are now threatening to sue the firm for malpractice even though they have already released any claims.

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Ozempic Caused Blindness, NC Woman Claims

By Emily Field

A North Carolina woman said in New Jersey federal court Wednesday that her use of the diabetes drug Ozempic resulted in the permanent loss of her vision, alleging that manufacturer Novo Nordisk A/S should have known the drug could cause blindness.

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Planned Parenthood Patients Sue Lab Co. Over Data Breach

By Rachel Riley

A Washington state-based diagnostic testing services provider for Planned Parenthood has been hit with a pair of proposed class actions in Seattle federal court over an October data breach that reportedly impacted as many as 1.6 million people.

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Brief

Patient Drops Suit Over Scalpel Blade Left In Him For 5 Years

By Ryan Harroff

A New York man who accused his surgeon of leaving a scalpel blade in his shoulder after a 2018 operation and then covering up the mistake for years has come to an agreement with that doctor and the surgery center he worked in to dismiss their dispute from Connecticut federal court.

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Petersen Health Gets Initial OK To Take Votes On Ch. 11 Plan

By Alex Wittenberg

A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Thursday provisionally approved skilled nursing facility operator Petersen Health Care's bid to send its Chapter 11 liquidation plan out to creditors for voting, months after the company sold off most of its assets.

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How Plan Sponsors Can Mitigate Risk In PBM Contracts

A recent lawsuit in New York federal court alleges that JPMorgan caused exorbitant prescription costs by mishandling the pharmacy benefit manager arrangement, adding to a growing body of Employee Retirement Income Security Act fiduciary breach litigation and affirming that fiduciaries must proactively manage their healthcare plan vendors, say attorneys at Hall Benefits Law.

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Tracking The Evolution In Litigation Finance

Despite continued innovation, litigation finance remains an immature market with borrowers recieving significantly different terms as lenders learn to value cases, which firms need a strong handle on to ensure lending terms do not overwhelm collateral value, says Robert Wilkins at Lightfoot Franklin.

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Series

Volunteer Firefighting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

While practicing corporate law and firefighting may appear incongruous, the latter benefits my legal career by reminding me of the importance of humility, perspective and education, says Nicholas Passaro at Ford.

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WilmerHale, Feds Dispute Reach Of Trump Order Against Firm

By Jack Karp

WilmerHale and the U.S. Department of Justice traded salvos in the BigLaw firm's challenge to President Donald Trump's executive order targeting it, with the firm and the government offering "starkly different" versions of what's at stake in the dispute.

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Ex-Katten Partner Hits Firm With $67M Age Bias Suit

By Lauren Berg

A former Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP partner launched a $67 million discrimination lawsuit against his one-time firm in New York federal court, alleging he was pushed out of the aircraft-finance practice group, pressured to resign and then fired because of the firm CEO's "stereotyped views of lawyers in their 60s."

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Joel Katz, Music Law's Longtime Power Broker, Dies At 80

By Chart Riggall

Joel Katz, the powerful music industry lawyer who co-founded Greenberg Traurig LLP's media and entertainment practice and helped bring the firm to the Atlanta market, has died at the age of 80, Law360 confirmed Friday.

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Sunoco Accused Of Age Bias By Ex-Chief Counsel

By Gina Kim

A former chief counsel for Sunoco LP sued her ex-employer in Texas state court Wednesday, alleging she was denied promotional opportunities and later terminated due to her age, while also accusing the company of replacing attorneys older than 50 with significantly younger attorneys with less experience.

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How They Won It

How Manatt Beat A Crypto Trader's 'Code As Law' Defense

By Aislinn Keely

After a crypto user exploited a software bug to create millions of dollars' worth of new tokens from a blockchain network, a Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP team defeated his claim to the tokens — and won an award worth millions — by showing that faulty code can't stand in for rule of law.

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Justices Temporarily Block Removals Under Wartime Law

By Britain Eakin

The U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to halt removals of alleged Venezuelan gang members detained in Texas under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, pending further input from the court.

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High Court's Pause Of Removals Was 'Premature,' Alito Says

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision early Saturday morning to prohibit the Trump administration from using a 1798 wartime law to remove alleged Venezuelan gang members detained in northern Texas to an El Salvadoran prison was hasty and premature, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

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Ex-DOJ Atty Convicted In 1MDB Case Ordered Disbarred In NY

By Craig Clough

A New York appellate court ordered Wednesday that a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney be disbarred due to his felony conviction as part of a sprawling, billion-dollar fraud scandal connected to 1Malaysia Development Berhad and Fugees founder Pras Michél.

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Judge Nixes Feds' DQ Bid In Migrant Kids Legal Funding Case

By Ryan Boysen

A California federal judge has denied the Trump administration's bid to remove her from a lawsuit challenging funding cuts that prevent attorneys from representing child migrants, ruling her employment at one of the plaintiffs nearly seven years ago doesn't undermine her impartiality.

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PTAB Judge Heads To Boutique, Citing Return-To-Office Order

By Andrew Karpan

An outgoing Patent Trial and Appeal Board judge based in Austin, Texas, tells Law360 that President Donald Trump's return-to-office order was a "significant factor" in her decision to return to private practice, joining boutique patent firm Smith Baluch LLP as a partner.

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Judiciary Faces Security Risks Amid Spending Freeze

By Courtney Bublé

The federal judiciary is warning congressional appropriators that funding shortfalls could threaten courthouse security.

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Wis. Sens. Renew Bipartisan Judicial Nomination Commission

By Courtney Bublé

The Republican and Democratic senators from Wisconsin announced Friday they are renewing their bipartisan commission to recommend U.S. attorney and judicial nominees to the president.

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Up Next At High Court: Preventive HealthCare & LGBTQ Books

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in five cases this week, including disputes over the constitutionality of a task force that sets preventive healthcare coverage requirements, a school district's introduction of LGBTQ-themed storybooks and whether parties can establish standing based on harms affecting third parties. 

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Google and its chief legal officer have now lost two major antitrust cases to DOJ prosecutors after a federal judge ruled Thursday the search engine monopolized markets and servers related to display advertising. Meanwhile, a new study shows companies are disclosing their business risks, and how they are trying to mitigate those risks, amid changing tariffs and the uncertainty of the U.S.-China trade war. 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

Schlichter Bogard LLC and the University of Virginia School of Law Supreme Court Litigation Clinic lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court revived a class action from Cornell University workers who said their retirement plans were saddled with excessive fees.

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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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