NFL Paid $1.3B In Concussions Settlement So Far, 4% Atty Fees

By Jonathan Capriel

The National Football League has paid more than $1.3 billion to settle claims from former professional athletes who suffered neurological damage due to concussions sustained while playing, with 4% of that earmarked for their attorneys, according to a report by the court appointed special master and claim administrator for the multidistrict litigation.

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Boehringer Trial Over Zantac's Cancer Link Ends In Mistrial

By Dorothy Atkins

A California state judge declared a mistrial Thursday, ending a monthslong trial over product liability claims by a bladder cancer survivor who alleges Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. failed to disclose cancer risks associated with the company's Zantac heartburn medication, according to the plaintiff's counsel.

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Social Media MDL Judge Rips State Attys Defying Orders

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery in multidistrict litigation over social media platforms' allegedly addictive designs on Thursday ordered states to provide the names and state bar numbers of agency counsel who have refused to comply with discovery orders, threatening sanctions and asking, "What happened to the rule of law?"

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Snap Moves To Toss New Mexico's Child 'Sextortion' Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

Snap Inc. has moved to toss New Mexico's lawsuit accusing it of enabling child sexual exploitation on its instant messaging app, Snapchat, telling a New Mexico state court that the state's attorney general lodged a "sensationalist" lawsuit rife with patently false allegations.

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Data Co. Gets Remand Of Suits Over Judicial Privacy

By Carla Baranauckas

A federal judge sent 39 lawsuits alleging violations of a New Jersey judicial privacy law back to state courts, finding the district lacks subject matter jurisdiction.

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Howmet Accuses Wash. DOL Of Muscling Into Worker's Suit

By Rachel Riley

Howmet Aerospace slammed the Washington state labor department on Thursday for "interjecting" into a dispute with a former smelter employee who claims he developed cancer from asbestos exposure, urging the state's highest court not to relax the standard for workers to sue over job-related illnesses.

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Ill. Justices Overturn Jussie Smollett's Conviction

By Cara Salvatore

Illinois' high court ruled Thursday that prosecutors violated Jussie Smollett's constitutional rights by trying the actor after earlier dismissing his charges for falsely reporting a hate crime, saying the "fundamentally unfair" conviction must be voided.

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Texas Doctor Gets 190 Years For Poisoning IV Bags

By Y. Peter Kang

A Texas anesthesiologist was sentenced to 190 years in federal prison after being found guilty of injecting a potent cocktail of drugs into IV bags at a Baylor Scott & White surgical center, resulting in one death and several serious medical emergencies, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

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Health Exec Who Fled Gets 3 Years For $8M Medicare Scheme

By Danielle Ferguson

A home healthcare executive who led a scheme to defraud Medicare of nearly $8 million through fraudulent billing practices and who fled the country after his indictment has been sentenced to more than three years in prison, according to a judgment filed in Michigan federal court Wednesday.

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Rebel Wilson Unlikely To Duck 'The Deb' Defamation Suit

By Rachel Scharf

A Los Angeles judge suggested Thursday that he'll likely keep alive a defamation suit accusing actress Rebel Wilson of spreading baseless lies about producers of the musical film "The Deb," saying it seems the matter is a "private business dispute" not protected by California's anti-SLAPP statute.

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Ill. High Court Won't Shield Sun-Times In Trump Tax Case

By Grace Dixon

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Chicago Sun-Times can't use an anti-SLAPP law to duck a defamation suit over the paper's coverage of an investigation into a $1 million property tax reduction granted to Trump Tower during the president-elect's first term.

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DOD Needs To Do More To Fix Military Housing, OIG Says

By Isaac Monterose

The U.S. Department of Defense failed to properly identify and fix health, safety and environmental hazards in military housing, according to a Thursday report from the DOD's Office of Inspector General.

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No New Trial In Suit Over Fatal Nissan Truck Fire In Texas

By Mike Curley

A Texas appeals court on Thursday vacated an order for a new trial in a suit against Nissan North America Inc. over a fatal truck fire, saying the trial court abused its discretion when it found that juror misconduct and other cumulative errors prejudiced the plaintiff.

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Settlement Doesn't Void Injury Coverage Ruling, Judge Says

By Hope Patti

A Colorado federal court refused to set aside its September ruling that an oil and gas production company isn't owed coverage by an electrical drilling company for a worker's underlying injury lawsuit, saying the parties' settlement negotiations don't justify vacating a valid court order.

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9th Circ. Revives Removal Relief Bid Over Due Process Issue

By Rae Ann Varona

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday revived a Mexican citizen's bid for deportation relief based on his fear a police officer in Mexico would kill him, saying the Board of Immigration Appeals wrongly concluded an alleged due process violation did not prejudice him.

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8 Tech Tips For Stress-Free Remote Depositions

Court reporter Kelly D’Amico shares practical strategies for attorneys to conduct remote depositions with ease and troubleshoot any issues that arise, as it seems deposition-by-Zoom is here to stay after the pandemic.

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3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

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How They Won It

How A Purple Jacket Led To A Murder Exoneration And $13M

By Julie Manganis

To win compensation under a Massachusetts state law, lawyers for Michael J. Sullivan, who spent 26 years in prison, were required to prove he was innocent of the 1986 crime for which he was convicted. A couple of lucky breaks helped.

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Interview

High Court Bar's Future: Sullivan & Cromwell's Morgan Ratner

By Jeff Overley

Morgan L. Ratner has emerged as a leader of the U.S. Supreme Court bar's next generation, and she attributes her ascent to brilliant mentors, a laid-back argument style, an aversion to overconfidence and a firm commitment to clear principles in every case — even if that means reluctantly telling the chief justice, as she once did, that a hypothetical cat stuck in a tree shouldn't be saved.

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Trump Sentencing Halted To Weigh President-Elect's Immunity

By Frank G. Runyeon

The New York state judge who oversaw Donald Trump's hush money trial officially canceled his Nov. 26 sentencing date Friday to weigh the impact of his new status as president-elect, pushing briefing into December.

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen cash-strapped Thurrock Borough Council bring a £40 million ($50 million) negligence claim against 23 other local authorities over its solar investments from a not-for-profit local government body, AstraZeneca sue a fire safety company following a blaze at its Cambridge headquarters last year, and a director who was convicted in 2016 for corporate manslaughter face action by Manolete Partners. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Bonus Spotlight

Top Firms Big And Small Join In On Milbank Bonuses

By Aebra Coe

The latest law firms to follow Milbank LLP on 2024 associate bonuses late Thursday and into Friday run the gamut from global giant to boutique, according to firm memos shared with Law360 Pulse and media reports.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Andrea Keckley

Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP, King & Spalding LLP, Holland & Knight LLP and Barnes & Thornburg LLP lead this week's list of Law360 legal lions for beating a Pennsylvania state court lawsuit brought against Bayer AG unit Monsanto by a woman who said she got cancer by using the weed killer Roundup.

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Squire Patton Lawyer Dies In Laos Amid Poisoning Reports

By Ashish Sareen

A junior lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs LLP has died in Laos, the law firm confirmed Friday, amid reports in the media that she was the victim of a suspected mass poisoning incident.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Google's chief legal officer has blasted a U.S. Department of Justice proposal to force it to sell its Chrome browser, saying a sale would "break" a range of Google products and be a threat to U.S. tech leadership in the world. And in a close but surprising outcome, California voters have turned down a minimum wage hike for workers.

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Gaetz, Greene Face Atty Fees Bid For $550,000 In Calif. Suit

By Madison Arnold

Progressive groups including the NAACP are seeking more than $550,000 in attorney fees and costs from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Rep. Matt Gaetz after escaping their lawsuit alleging that the organizations conspired to pressure city officials in California to cancel the politicians' rallies.

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Analysis

Bondi Vowed Trump Payback. Ex-Colleagues Aren't Worried.

By Phillip Bantz, Chris Villani and Carolina Bolado

U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi is an outspoken ally of President-elect Donald Trump and vowed during the campaign that his "prosecutors will be prosecuted," but people who've worked with her say she's well qualified to serve as the nation's top cop and downplayed concerns that she would politicize the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Brief

Navajo Co. Dismisses Case Alleging Paralegal Took Docs

By Thy Vo

A natural resources company owned by the Navajo Nation has dismissed a lawsuit against a paralegal it accused of failing to turn in her computer for removal of its privileged documents, after the paralegal said she had already arranged to surrender her device before the lawsuit was even filed.

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Senior Dem Asks Schumer For Votes On Circuit Court Picks

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday pushed back against a deal Democrats and Republicans cut earlier this week that obligates Democrats to forgo votes on four appellate picks.

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