Florida

  • April 26, 2024

    RJR Gets $12M Judgment Tossed In Tobacco Death Suit

    A Florida appeals panel on Friday threw out a $12 million judgment against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in a wrongful death suit by the wife of a smoker, saying the evidence didn't support the jury's finding in the wife's favor on her conspiracy to fraudulently conceal claim.

  • April 26, 2024

    Insurer Can't Avoid Coverage Suit Against Escrow Agent

    First American Title Insurance Co. must continue to be a party in Wesco Insurance Co.'s declaratory action seeking to avoid covering claims that Wesco's insureds improperly diverted escrow funds in real estate transactions to third parties with no valid claims to the funds, a Florida federal court ruled.

  • April 26, 2024

    Tampa Bay Rays Owner Settles Suit With Minority Owners

    Tampa Bay Rays majority owner Stuart Sternberg has agreed to settle a lawsuit by the Major League Baseball team's minority owners accusing him of trying to squeeze them out of profits.

  • April 25, 2024

    Lockheed Martin Sued By Widow Over 'Toxic Stew' At Facility

    The widow of a former Lockheed Martin Corp. employee sued the aerospace defense company on Wednesday in Florida federal court, alleging her husband died because of Lockheed's "reckless mismanagement" of dangerous chemicals at a weapons manufacturing facility.

  • April 25, 2024

    Outlets Ask Fla. Court To Toss Trump's $1.5B Truth Social Suit

    Several news outlets that were sued by Donald Trump's social media company over reports that it lost $73 million following a merger have urged a Florida state court to dismiss the lawsuit, saying defamation wasn't sufficiently alleged and the articles were substantially true.

  • April 25, 2024

    The Gateway Pundit Parent Co. Hits Ch. 11 In Florida

    The parent company of far-right media outlet The Gateway Pundit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid legal liabilities stemming from the company's coverage of the 2020 presidential election, including false claims that two Georgia election workers engaged in ballot fraud.

  • April 25, 2024

    3 Accused Of $36M COVID Test Fraud Scheme In Fla. Case

    Three owners of laboratories spanning the U.S. were indicted by a grand jury in Florida on federal charges that they conspired to defraud the U.S. government by more than $36 million in a scheme that involved submitting false COVID-19 testing claims to healthcare benefit programs.

  • April 25, 2024

    Chancery Seeks More Info About Bond In Truth Social Case

    A Delaware vice chancellor said Thursday she needs more information from the sponsor of the blank-check company that took Donald Trump's Truth Social public about a bond it requested during litigation with some of the company's stockholders.

  • April 25, 2024

    Fla. High Court Says PIP Law Doesn't Mandate 100% Payment

    The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Allstate Insurance Co. is not required to pay 100% of a chiropractic provider's charges under a personal injury protection policy, saying to enact such a requirement would misread both Florida's PIP law and Allstate's policy.

  • April 25, 2024

    Former Fuel Co. GC, CEO Must Pay $750K In SEC Fraud Suit

    The former general counsel and CEO of an Arizona fuel company accused of conspiring to defraud investors out of $30 million have reached consent orders with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and agreed to pay nearly $750,000 in fines, disgorgement and restitution.

  • April 25, 2024

    EEOC Pregnant Worker Rule Draws Suit From Red State AGs

    A group of 17 Republican state attorneys general hit the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with a lawsuit Thursday over the agency's recently finalized Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations, saying the EEOC's stance that the PWFA encompasses abortion-related workplace accommodations is unconstitutional. 

  • April 25, 2024

    Fla. Sues ACC, Saying Media Contracts Are Public Records

    Florida's attorney general sued the Atlantic Coast Conference on Thursday, claiming the collegiate athletic conference wrongfully withheld media rights contracts from public review that are at the center of Florida State University's fight to leave the ACC.

  • April 25, 2024

    Celebrity Cruises' Morgues Are 'Run To Fail,' Family Claims

    The family of a man who died aboard a Celebrity Cruises ship and whose body decomposed after being stored in an ill-equipped cooler is urging a Florida federal judge to reject the cruise line's bid for an exit from its suit, arguing the company's "run-to-fail" maintenance programs for its shipboard morgues made it inevitable a morgue would break while storing a body.

  • April 24, 2024

    Pepsi Can't Use Workers' Comp Immunity In Fla. Shooting Suit

    Florida's Third District Court of Appeal on Wednesday ruled that a Pepsi subsidiary can't utilize a workers' compensation immunity defense in a lawsuit brought by a former employee who was shot by a co-worker, saying the company took inconsistent positions on his claim for benefits.

  • April 24, 2024

    3 Takeaways On How AI Is Forcing Publicity Rights To Evolve

    As digital replicas of someone's voice, image or likeness become easier to create with the help of artificial intelligence, this new era of deepfakes is shining a spotlight on the nation's patchwork of right-of-publicity laws and raising questions over when Congress may act to pass a national framework.  

  • April 24, 2024

    Trump Media Exec Urges GOP To Probe Stock 'Manipulation'

    Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media Technology & Group Corp., is urging key House Republicans to investigate "anomalous trading" involving shares of the company that owns former President Donald Trump's social media platform, marking Nunes' latest effort to call attention to alleged signs of manipulation, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday.

  • April 24, 2024

    Colombian Actor Says His Visa Denials Are Full Of Mistakes

    A Colombian actor with roles on Netflix and other channels and platforms has hauled U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services into Florida federal court, alleging USCIS made numerous mistakes when twice denying him an immigrant visa available to actors with extraordinary ability.

  • April 24, 2024

    FPL Asks Court To Decertify Class Over Irma Power Outages

    Florida Power & Light Co. asked an appeals court Wednesday to undo class certification in a multibillion-dollar suit over extended power outages after Hurricane Irma, arguing that a new law enacted last year requires the plaintiffs to bring their claims before the state's Public Service Commission.

  • April 24, 2024

    DEA Agent Who Sold Info To Private Detective Gets 4 Years

    A Manhattan federal judge hit a suspended U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent with a four-year prison sentence Wednesday after a jury convicted him of taking bribes from a Florida private investigator in exchange for spilling secrets about criminal investigations of narcotics dealers.

  • April 24, 2024

    11th Circ. Probes High Court Rulings' Effect On DeSantis Case

    The Eleventh Circuit wants Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state attorney he suspended to explain how two seemingly conflicting U.S. Supreme Court decisions could influence the appellate court's ability to hear that attorney's challenge to his removal.

  • April 23, 2024

    Pool Supply Co. Seeks Exit From Investors' Inflated Sales Suit

    Pool supply company Leslie's Inc. is urging the Arizona federal court to drop a suit accusing it of concealing that booming sales during the COVID-19 pandemic were due to an inventory glut, not the company's growth strategies, arguing that its statements were based on information it believed to be true about consumer purchasing behavior.

  • April 23, 2024

    Florida Loses Bid To Stay Ruling Nixing Its CWA Permit Power

    A D.C. federal judge on Tuesday declined Florida's request to pause his ruling that stripped the state's federally delegated authority over a Clean Water Act permitting program, finding that the Sunshine State had not shown it was likely to succeed in its appeal of the ruling.

  • April 23, 2024

    NY Judge Won't Allow Default Judgment On Tekashi 6ix9ine

    A New York federal judge said a Miami rapper's motion for default judgment against Tekashi 6ix9ine, aka Daniel Hernandez, in a copyright infringement lawsuit should be denied, saying the rapper hadn't fully complied with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to show Hernandez isn't in the military.

  • April 23, 2024

    Sugar Giants Accused Of Using Shadow Analyst To Fix Prices

    A putative class action filed in Illinois federal court on Monday accuses top sugar producers of colluding with each other since at least 2019 to illegally fix the price for white, refined table sugar, driving up the prices of granulated sugar since in "one of the steepest climbs ever."

  • April 23, 2024

    Biz Ownership Law Constitutional, Lawmakers Tell 11th Circ.

    The Corporate Transparency Act is a garden-variety exercise of Congress' powers to address threats to national security, foreign affairs, commerce and tax collection, five Democratic lawmakers told the Eleventh Circuit, disputing a ruling that the law is unconstitutional.

Expert Analysis

  • And Now A Word From The Panel: 55 Years Of The JPML

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    As the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation marks its 55th birthday, Alan Rothman at Sidley looks back at its history and finds that, while some features of MDL jurisprudence have changed over the decades, the most remarkable aspect of the panel's practice has been its consistency.

  • Employer Pointers From Tiger Woods' Legal Dispute With Ex

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    Ex-girlfriend Erica Herman's sexual harassment suit against Tiger Woods, which was recently sent to arbitration, highlights the need for employers to understand their rights and responsibilities around workplace relationships, nondisclosure agreements and arbitration provisions, say Stephanie Reynolds and Sean McKaveney at Fisher Phillips.

  • Why Seminole Tribe Sports Betting Ruling Is A Net Positive

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    The D.C. Circuit Court’s recent ruling that a gambling compact between Florida and the Seminole Tribe is lawful even though it allows for online sports betting expands the tribe's offerings while maintaining exclusivity and is a win for individuals who wish to legally wager on sports within Florida, says Daniel McGinn at Dean Mead.

  • Courts Can Overturn Deficient State Regulations, Too

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    While suits challenging federal regulations have become commonplace, such cases against state agencies are virtually nonexistent, but many states have provisions that allow litigants to bring suit for regulations with inadequate cost-benefit analyses, says Reeve Bull at the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management.

  • Opinion

    Harsh 11th Circ. Rebuke Should Inspire Changes At CFPB

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    The Eleventh Circuit's recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Brown decision, which found the CFPB's conduct had been egregious in a debt collection enforcement action, should encourage some reflection at the bureau regarding its level of attention to the reasonable due process concerns of regulated institutions, says Eric Mogilnicki at Covington.

  • Keep Up With Telemarketing Compliance: State Law Roundup

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    As more states enact mini-Telephone Consumer Protection Acts to seemingly fill the "autodialer" void left by the U.S. Supreme Court's Facebook v. Duguid ruling, compliance will become a difficult game of whack-a-mole — some of the laws regulate equipment, while others restrict to whom calls can be made, and more, say attorneys at Blank Rome.

  • Tales From The Trenches Of Remote Depositions

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    As practitioners continue to conduct depositions remotely in the post-pandemic world, these virtual environments are rife with opportunities for improper behavior such as witness coaching, scripted testimony and a general lack of civility — but there are methods to prevent and combat these behaviors, say Jennifer Gibbs and Bennett Moss at Zelle.

  • New Fla. Immigration Law May Have Crippling Effects

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    Florida's new immigration law, which went into effect on July 1, will be especially burdensome in industries where retaining adequate staff is already an issue, so employers must assess their staff and thoroughly examine their employee records to check that all documentation is valid to avoid crippling fines and loss of licenses, says Trent Cotney at Adams and Reese.

  • Employer Drug-Testing Policies Must Evolve With State Law

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    As multistate employers face ongoing challenges in drafting consistent marijuana testing policies due to the evolving patchwork of state laws, they should note some emerging patterns among local and state statutes to ensure compliance in different jurisdictions, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Tide May Be Turning On Texas Two-Step Bankruptcy Strategy

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    Recent developments in several high-profile bankruptcy cases suggest that the use of the Texas Two-Step to shield solvent companies from tort claims may be falling out of favor, but until the U.S. Supreme Court hears one of these cases the strategy will remain divisive and the subject of increased scrutiny, say attorneys at Rivkin Radler.

  • How Multiagency Sanctions Enforcement Alters Compliance

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    Recent indictments and guidance emphasizing scrutiny of third-party intermediaries make clear the government's increasingly interagency approach to sanctions enforcement and its view that financial institutions are the first line of defense against evasion efforts, particularly in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

  • Disney Investor Suit Shows Limit Of Del. Books, Records Law

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    While Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law remains an important shareholder tool to obtain access to corporate books and records, the Delaware Chancery Court's recent decision in Simeone v. Disney illustrates the extent that judges will allow the use of Section 220 to scrutinize disagreements about corporate speech on ESG issues, say Stephen Kraftschik and Robert Penza at Polsinelli.

  • Series

    Fla. Banking Brief: All The Notable Compliance Updates In Q2

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    Florida financial institutions must now navigate minimum interest rates for attorney trust accounts, restrictions on property sales to prohibited foreigners, and a ban on weighing environmental, social and governance factors to determine a customer's creditworthiness — changes that will add to banks' compliance pressures, says Patricia Hernandez at Avila Rodriguez.

  • Level Up Lawyers' Business Development With Gamification

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    With employee engagement at a 10-year low in the U.S., there are several gamification techniques marketing and business development teams at law firms can use to make generating new clients and matters more appealing to lawyers, says Heather McCullough at Society 54.

  • Mallory Ruling Leaves Personal Jurisdiction Deeply Unsettled

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    In Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court recently rolled back key aspects of its 2017 opinion in Daimler AG v. Bauman that limited personal jurisdiction, leaving as many questions for businesses as it answers, say John Cerreta and James Rotondo at Day Pitney.

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