Texas AG Pushes For Preservation Of Jack Smith, DOJ Docs

By Catherine Marfin

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged a federal court Thursday to enter an order requiring the U.S. Department of Justice to preserve records connected to special counsel Jack Smith, accusing the agency of remaining "evasive" of Paxton's bid for records related to President-elect Donald Trump's hush money case.

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Texas Sues Dallas For Marijuana Amnesty Measure

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas Office of the Attorney General sued the city of Dallas for adopting a ballot measure barring police from arresting people for misdemeanor marijuana possession, telling a state court Thursday the measure runs afoul of state law and is unconstitutional.

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New SEC 'Dealer' Rule Tossed In Win For Hedge Funds, Crypto

By Jessica Corso & Aislinn Keely

A Texas federal judge on Thursday overturned a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule that expanded the definition of "dealer" to include proprietary trading firms, some hedge funds and crypto firms, saying the agency overstepped its authority when it adopted the rule.

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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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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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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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Suit Against Mortgage Co. Axed Despite Atty's Bad Faith Claim

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas state court judge has dismissed for good an attorney's lawsuit against the mortgage company she formerly worked for in-house, despite a dispute over whether the matter should have ended with or without prejudice.

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Phillips 66 Charged With Dumping Wastewater In LA County

By Bonnie Eslinger

A federal grand jury has indicted Phillips 66 on charges of violating the Clean Water Act by illegally discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of wastewater into the Los Angeles County sewer system without reporting the violations to authorities, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday.

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Greens Sue Army Corps Over San Jacinto River Barge Project

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas environmental group sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Texas federal court Thursday, claiming the Corps rubber-stamped a barge mooring project in the San Jacinto River that runs a serious risk of releasing dangerous contaminants and poisoning the waterway.

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DOJ Fights High Court Review Of Kickback Law, Jury's Role

By Gianna Ferrarin

The U.S. Supreme Court need not review a Fifth Circuit decision upholding the convictions of three healthcare professionals accused of taking part in a $40 million kickback scheme, the federal government has told the justices in a brief.

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Defamation Suit Against Ga. Election Chief Likely To Proceed

By Chart Riggall

A federal judge said Thursday that she was likely to allow a Texas attorney to continue with her defamation suit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over comments that suggested she presented "doctored" evidence to state senators in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

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Ex-Google Engineer Ordered To Stop Posting Pixel Secrets

By Lauren Berg

A former Google engineer must immediately cease publishing confidential company information and remove social media posts that reveal Pixel device trade secrets, a Texas federal judge ruled Wednesday, after the tech giant sought an emergency restraining order on allegations its former employee is continuing to "maliciously" leak internal files.

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Unions, ACLU Throw Weight Behind EEOC Bostock Guidance

By Patrick Hoff

The AFL-CIO, SEIU, American Civil Liberties Union, and several business groups and nonprofits have urged a Texas federal court not to scrap U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance interpreting the U.S. Supreme Court's Bostock decision, arguing the guidelines provide critical advice on preventing workplace harassment.

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Tempur Gave UK Co. 'Total Autonomy' Post-Merger, CEO Says

By Catherine Marfin

The CEO of a United Kingdom-based mattress company acquired by Tempur Sealy in 2021 told a Houston federal judge Thursday that his new parent company has provided him "total autonomy" since the acquisition.

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Swedish EV Battery Co. Files For Ch. 11 With $5B Of Debt

By Vince Sullivan

Swedish electric vehicle battery maker Northvolt AB filed a Chapter 11 case in Texas bankruptcy court Thursday, saying it wants to find a partner to enable the company's innovation to continue in the burgeoning space while it addresses a significant liquidity shortfall.

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Paxton Sanctions Bid Unwarranted, Immigration Org. Says

By Elliot Weld

A Texas immigrant rights nonprofit asked a federal judge to deny a bid by state Attorney General Ken Paxton to sanction it, saying it never resisted a civil investigation or misled the court as Paxton's office claims.

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Crypto Cos. Add New Play In Their Offense Against SEC

Consensys and Crypto.com have adopted a novel strategy of preempting U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions by moving to crypto-friendly Texas and filing declaratory lawsuits challenging the SEC's jurisdiction to regulate crypto-assets — an aggressive approach that may pay off, say attorneys at Herrick Feinstein.

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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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