Texas Appeals Knocks $1M Hernia Mesh Fee Ask Down To $135K

By Emily Field

A Texas appeals court on Wednesday upheld an arbitration award of $135,000 in attorney's fees in a decadeslong hernia mesh litigation dispute while denying the firm's request for $1 million.

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Zantac Cases Must Remain In State Court, Conn. Judge Rules

By Aaron Keller

Two groups of patients can continue their lawsuits in Connecticut state court against GlaxoSmithKline LLC, Pfizer Inc. and Sanofi-Aventis US LLC, a judge has ruled, refusing to immediately truncate novel tort claims that seek to connect generic versions of Zantac with cancer.

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PBMs Can't Yet Duck Municipalities' Claims In Opioid MDL

By Hailey Konnath

The Ohio federal judge overseeing multidistrict opioid litigation on Thursday refused, for now, to throw out claims against pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts Inc. and OptumRX Inc., finding that the PBMs' arguments were brought too early and a more robust record is needed.

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9th Circ. Revives Suit Over App-Maker's Anti-Bullying Pledge

By Gina Kim

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday revived a lawsuit against anonymous messaging app-maker Yolo Technologies over claims it didn't enforce its commitment to reveal and ban users who harass and bully others, finding Yolo repeatedly promised to do so, but never did, "and may have never intended to."

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Calif. Atty Can't Beat Sanctions In Geragos Malpractice Suit

By James Mills

A California state appeals court on Wednesday affirmed $23,000 in sanctions for discovery violations on the part of a lawyer representing clients in a malpractice case against Hollywood litigator Mark Geragos.

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California Fires Back At Red State Attacks On Climate Torts

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

California and a contingent of blue states told the U.S. Supreme Court that their climate change torts against fossil fuel companies are on solid legal ground and that an effort by Alabama and other red states to undercut them must be rejected.

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Brief

Ga. Mineral Co., Insurer Strike Deal In Talc Coverage Suit

By Madeline Lyskawa

Phoenix Insurance Co. reached a contingent settlement with a Georgia-based mineral products company in litigation seeking to force the insurer to defend the company against an underlying suit claiming it supplied asbestos-containing talc products.

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Missouri Gov. Clashes With Secretary Of State Over Hemp Ban

By Sam Reisman

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday blasted the state's secretary of state for declining to implement an emergency rulemaking that would have banned psychoactive consumable cannabis products manufactured outside the state's regulated adult-use marijuana market.

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Consumer Rebuffs Reynolds' Bid To Nix 'Made In The USA' Case

By Alyssa Aquino

A woman challenging Reynolds Consumers Products LLC's aluminum foil's "Made in the U.S.A." labeling urged a New York federal court against freeing the company from her lawsuit, arguing that she had sufficiently shown how the label could harm consumers.

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Takata Airbag Victim's Family Sues Dealer, Victims' Trust Fund

By Carolina Bolado

The family of a woman killed by an exploding airbag made by the now-defunct Takata Corp. is suing the Honda dealership that sold the car and a trust fund formed to compensate people injured or killed by the defective airbags.

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Memorabilia Biz Sues Atlanta Braves For Maligning Reputation

By Elaine Briseño

Auctioneer Heritage Vintage Sports has accused the Atlanta Braves in a defamation lawsuit of purposely maligning its image by leaking to the press that it did not have the right to sell certain items, including memorabilia connected to Hank Aaron.

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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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