Transportation

  • August 23, 2024

    Electric Car Co. Fisker Promises Ch. 11 Plan In A Week's Time

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge Friday gave defunct electric-vehicle maker Fisker Inc. permission to enter into a deal with its lenders that will see it file a Chapter 11 plan by the end of August and seek court approval for the plan in just over a month.

  • August 23, 2024

    Illinois Car Dealers Can't Stop Direct EV Sales

    An Illinois state appeals court threw out a suit by franchise car dealerships and trade associations aiming to block two electric vehicle makers from selling directly to customers, saying Friday that neither the Illinois Vehicle Code nor the Motor Vehicle Franchise Act require carmakers to sell through a franchise dealership.

  • August 23, 2024

    The Biggest Texas Trial Rulings Of 2024: Midyear Report

    Trial courts in Texas saw a series of high-dollar verdicts for plaintiffs in suits over patent infringement and personal injuries, but appellate courts tempered some plaintiffs' successes, backing a large retail employer in a harassment suit and tossing a verdict based on a lawyer's remarks. Here's a look at some of the biggest trial decisions in Texas in the first half of 2024.

  • August 23, 2024

    Creditors Can't Dig Up Eletson's Ch. 11 Plan Negotiation Info

    Bankrupt Greek fuel shipping group Eletson doesn't have to turn over communications with a group of shareholders who are supporting its Chapter 11 plan, a New York bankruptcy judge ruled Friday, finding the common interest doctrine shielded their negotiation talks from the official committee of unsecured creditors' discovery request.

  • August 23, 2024

    SPAC Investors Ask Full 9th Circ. To Rethink Lucid Merger

    Investors have urged the full Ninth Circuit to rethink a panel's refusal to revive their proposed class action alleging that Lucid duped them into buying stock in a special purpose acquisition company ahead of the electric vehicle maker's $11.75 billion merger, arguing that the panel's holding misconstrues U.S. Supreme Court precedent, among other issues.

  • August 23, 2024

    The Biggest Enviro Policy Moves Of 2024: Midyear Report

    As the Biden administration hurtles toward the end of its term, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been hustling important final rules out its doors, including regulations for power plant greenhouse gas emissions, chemicals and automobiles.

  • August 22, 2024

    Calif. Justices OK Argentine Atty's Uber Fraud Fight

    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.

  • August 22, 2024

    9th Circ. Revives Military Bias Claims Against Alaska Airlines

    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.

  • August 22, 2024

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

    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.

  • August 22, 2024

    11th Circ. Nixes Hyundai's Appeal Of $16M Dealership Verdict

    The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday rejected Hyundai Motor America's attempt to void a $16 million verdict awarded to a Florida dealership in a contract dispute over Hyundai's efforts to launch a separate dealer network for its luxury Genesis line of vehicles.

  • August 22, 2024

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

    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.

  • August 22, 2024

    Tech Firm Says DOD Was Ad-Hoc With Chinese Military Label

    Lidar technology firm Hesai argued Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Defense has not proved Hesai has connections to the Chinese military as the firm strives to get taken off a list denoting them as such.

  • August 22, 2024

    NC Hot Rod Shop Owner Admits To Not Paying $2M In Taxes

    A North Carolina automotive business owner has pled guilty to failing to pay more than $2 million in employment taxes and not filing employment tax returns, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

  • August 22, 2024

    HVAC Co. Can't Upend $3.4M Verdict In Tire Crash Suit

    A New Jersey appeals court on Thursday upheld a $3.4 million verdict for a driver who was injured when a tire came loose from an HVAC company's truck and struck his car, saying the trial court wasn't wrong to instruct the jury that the company had the burden of showing the driver's injuries stemmed from another, later accident.

  • August 22, 2024

    Smuggling Suspect Arrested Over '22 Migrant Deaths In Texas

    A Guatemalan national was arrested Wednesday in his home country at U.S. officials' request for his alleged role in a human smuggling operation blamed for the deaths of 53 migrants who were found in a tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

  • August 22, 2024

    State Farm Can't Slash Fraud Suit, Even On The Merits

    An Illinois federal judge has stuck to her decision not to let State Farm significantly cut down a proposed class action targeting an allegedly unlawful totaled-vehicle valuation formula, even while acknowledging she should have considered the merits of State Farm's arguments.

  • August 22, 2024

    California Fires Back At Red State Attacks On Climate Torts

    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.

  • August 22, 2024

    Flyers Chided For Late Bid To Block Alaska-Hawaiian Deal

    A Hawaii federal judge refused to pause the planned $1.9 billion tie-up between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines on Wednesday, telling attorneys for the passengers and travel agents bringing a merger challenge that they appear to have "forgotten" the case was tossed.

  • August 22, 2024

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

    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.

  • August 22, 2024

    Deals Rumor Mill: Saudi Fund, Disney-Reliance, Repligen

    Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund wants to launch a new cargo airline, India’s antitrust regulators worry about power over cricket rights if the $8.5 billion merger of Walt Disney’s Indian business with Reliance Entertainment is allowed, and drug manufacturing provider Repligen is eyeing Maravai LifeSciences. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.

  • August 22, 2024

    Latham-Led Carlyle Scooping Auto Parts Distributor For $1.5B

    Advance Auto Parts said Thursday it has struck an agreement to sell Worldpac Inc., an automotive parts wholesale distribution business, to private equity firm Carlyle for $1.5 billion, as the company looks to streamline operations amid declining profits. 

  • August 21, 2024

    Lion Air Families Want Full 7th Circ. To Hear Boeing Case

    The last two estates pursuing claims over 2018's Lion Air crash argued Wednesday that the full Seventh Circuit should rehear their bid for jury trial damages relating to injuries the victims experienced over land because their initial panel applied the governing law in a way that was never intended.

  • August 21, 2024

    9th Circ. Upholds Toss Of Suit Over Car Insurer's Data Breach

    The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday refused to revive a proposed class action accusing auto insurance provider Noblr Reciprocal Exchange of failing to safeguard driver's license numbers exposed in a 2021 data breach, finding that the plaintiffs had failed to credibly allege that their data had actually been stolen. 

  • August 21, 2024

    Northern Trust's $2.5M Deal Approved In AutoZone 401(k) Suit

    A Tennessee federal judge on Wednesday granted preliminary approval to a $2.5 million deal to end class claims from participants in AutoZone's 401(k) employee plan who alleged Northern Trust shirked its duties as their 401(k)'s investment adviser.

  • August 21, 2024

    Alaska Air Seeks Clarification In Rogue Pilot Case

    Alaska Airlines has urged a Washington state judge to clear up his decision to partially dismiss a lawsuit alleging an off-duty crew member tried to crash a flight in October, saying the ruling doesn't clearly state the passengers suing the company can no longer pursue claims rooted in federal aviation safety regulations.

Expert Analysis

  • 4 Sectors Will Likely Bear Initial Brunt Of FTC 'Junk Fees' Rule

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    If the Federal Trade Commission adopts its comprehensive proposed rule to ban unfair or deceptive fees across the U.S. economy, many businesses — including those in the lodging, event ticketing, dining and transportation sectors — will need to reexamine the way they market and price their products and services, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data

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    Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking

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    With the 2024 election rapidly approaching, the Biden administration must race to finalize proposed agency actions within the next few weeks, or be exposed to the chance that the following Congress will overturn the rules under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Rebuttal

    Time For Congress To Let Qualified Older Pilots Keep Flying

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    While a previous Law360 guest article affirmed the current law requiring airline pilots to retire at age 65, the facts suggest that the pilots, their unions, the airlines and the flying public will all benefit if Congress allows experienced, medically qualified aviators to stay in the cockpit, say Allen Baker and Bo Ellis at Let Experienced Pilots Fly.

  • 8 Questions To Ask Before Final CISA Breach Reporting Rule

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    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s recently proposed cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure entities represent the overall approach CISA will take in its final rule, so companies should be asking key compliance questions now and preparing for a more complicated reporting regime, say Arianna Evers and Shannon Mercer at WilmerHale.

  • Justices Clarify FAA But Leave Behind Important Questions

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in Bissonnette v. LePage firmly shuts the door on any argument that the Federal Arbitration Act's Section 1 exemption is limited to transportation workers whose employers transport goods on behalf of others, but two major issues remain unresolved, say Joshua Wesneski and Crystal Weeks at Weil.

  • Series

    Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

  • Best Practices For Space Security In Our Connected World

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    NASA's recently published space security guide is another indication that cyber-resilience has become a global theme for the space and satellite sector, as well as a useful reference for companies and organizations reviewing their cybersecurity frameworks or looking to partner with the U.S. agency, says Hayley Blyth at Bird & Bird.

  • A Recipe For Growth Equity Investing In A Slow M&A Market

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    Carl Marcellino at Ropes & Gray discusses the factors bolstering appetite for growth equity fundraising in a depressed M&A market, and walks through the deal terms and other ingredients that set growth equity transactions apart from bread-and-butter venture capital investing.

  • What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.

  • Notable Q1 Updates In Insurance Class Actions

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    Mark Johnson and Mathew Drocton at BakerHostetler discuss notable insurance class action decisions from the first quarter of the year ranging from salvage vehicle titling to rate discrimination based on premium-setting software.

  • Manufacturers Should Pay Attention To 'Right-To-Repair' Laws

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    Oregon’s recently passed "right-to-repair" statute highlights that the R2R movement is not going away, and that manufacturers of all kinds need to be paying attention to the evolving list of R2R statutes in various states and consider participating in the process, says Courtney Sarnow at Culhane.

  • How Cos. Can Comply With New PFAS Superfund Rule

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    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new rule designating two per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances as "hazardous substances" under the Superfund law will likely trigger additional enforcement and litigation at sites across the country — so companies should evaluate any associated reporting obligations and liability risks, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • Ill. Justices' Ruling Answers Corporate Defamation Questions

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    The Illinois Supreme Court's recent unanimous decision in Project44 v. FourKites provides needed certainty and direction for lower courts considering defamation cases involving communications to corporate officers from third parties outside the corporation, which could result in fewer unwarranted motions to dismiss in trial courts and nonmeritorious appeals, says Phillip Zisook at Schoenberg Finkel.

  • As Arbitrator Bias Claims Rise, Disclosure Standards Evolve

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    The growth in post-award challenges based on arbitrators' alleged conflicts of interest has led to the release of new guidance and new case law on the topic — both supporting the view that professional familiarity alone does not translate to a lack of impartiality, say attorneys at Skadden.

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