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DALLAS — A Texas jury awarded a man $9,451,000 in compensatory and exemplary damages after finding a hotel he had been staying in liable for injuries he suffered falling into an empty fountain that was level with surrounding ground but concealed by darkness and a lack of illumination.
NEW YORK — A trial court erred when it instructed a jury to consider a pro rata method of allocation for apportioning damages and retention amounts when deciding whether an insured’s notice to an excess insurer of a claim for environmental remediation costs was timely, a New York appellate court said in reversing a portion of a trial court’s judgment in a longstanding environmental contamination coverage dispute.
OAKLAND, Calif. — A names, images and likenesses (NIL) class settlement between student-athletes and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and four conferences that provides $2,576,000,000 in damages and changes to NCAA rules that enable schools to share athletic revenues with Division I student-athletes and eliminate scholarship limits was granted final approval by a federal judge in California on June 6.
SAN FRANCISCO — Saying it is taking the same approach as two sister circuits, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals quoted Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp. in holding “that releases and waivers under” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “must ‘withstand special scrutiny designed to prevent potential employer or fiduciary abuse’”; it accordingly reversed and remanded summary judgment against the two named plaintiffs in a long-running class action concerning severance benefits.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court majority on June 6 concluded that the Social Security Administration (SSA) must again provide access to agency records to a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) SSA team, staying a preliminary injunction issued in April by a federal judge in Maryland.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court majority on June 6 treated a stay application as a petition for a writ of certiorari and granted it in an appeal challenging two trial court discovery orders in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case regarding U.S. DOGE Service’s (DOGE or USDS) authority.
MINNEAPOLIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a district court properly awarded summary judgment to a knee replacement system manufacturer after finding that testimony by a woman’s retained expert on her design defect claim was properly excluded.
MINNEAPOLIS — Finding that a former county employee had established that her objection to her employer’s COVID-19 vaccination-or-test policy was based on sincerely held religious beliefs and that she plausibly alleged constructive discharge in being faced with giving up certain benefits, a panel of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 5 reversed the dismissal of her lawsuit by a Minnesota federal court.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp. lacked standing to appeal a procedural issue in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings where the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) held that a petitioner failed to show the invalidity of Dolby’s patent, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled June 5, saying Dolby was unable to establish an injury in fact.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Having been advised by counsel that the parties had settled a claim of religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act stemming from a former employee’s refusal to become vaccinated against COVID-19 as mandated by the employer, a South Carolina federal magistrate judge on June 5 dismissed the case without prejudice.
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a tortious interference and defamation dispute between a masonic lodge and its conference regarding the suspension of the lodge’s charter and the conference’s alleged defamatory social media posts about the lodge, finding that the lower court correctly dismissed the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction.