5th Circ. To Rehear No Surprises Act Ruling En Banc

By Catherine Marfin

The full Fifth Circuit agreed Friday to reconsider a dispute over provisions for calculating qualifying payments under the 2020 No Surprises Act.

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Plumbing Supply Co. Gets 401(k) Forfeiture Claims Cut

By Grace Elletson

A California federal judge tossed two workers' claims that a plumbing supply company illegally used abandoned funds in its retirement plan to pay down its own contributions instead of offsetting expenses for plan members, ruling they couldn't slip the new allegations into an amended complaint.

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Bass Pro Reels In Final Approval For $5M Tobacco Suit Deal

By Elaine Briseño

A Missouri federal judge has granted final approval to a $4.95 million settlement in a lawsuit that accused Bass Pro Shops of failing to tell employees who used tobacco how they could avoid incurring an extra $2,000-per-year charge for health insurance.

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NJ Panel Upholds Unemployment Benefits Claims For Strikers

By Beverly Banks

A New Jersey state appeals court on Friday supported a state employment board's conclusion that Teamsters-represented workers at a concrete manufacturing company who went on strike are eligible for unemployment benefits, finding federal labor law does not preempt the state agency's decision. 

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Texas Law Firm Beats Atty's Suit Over Stock Redemption

By Rose Krebs

A Texas state appeals court has upheld Friedman Suder & Cooke PC's win in its decade-long dispute with a former shareholder over the redemption of his shares when he was let go, affirming a trial court ruling declaring the redemption "effective and operative."

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Giant Eagle Worker Seeks Initial OK For $669K ERISA Deal

By Matthew Santoni

A proposed class of employees at Pennsylvania-based gas and grocery chain Giant Eagle asked a federal court for preliminary approval of an almost $669,000 settlement of their claims that the company overspent their retirement savings on administrative fees.

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Wash. High Court Relaxes Standard For Worker Illness Suits

By Rachel Riley

Washington's highest court has lowered the bar for employees to sue over work-related illnesses, finding that in cases of latent diseases such as mesothelioma, a worker has a valid claim if they show their employer was "virtually certain" that the malady would develop.

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Fed Circ. Weighs In On Veterans Court Review Standard

By Lauren Berg

The Federal Circuit on Friday issued a precedential opinion backing the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims' use of a questions of law analysis, rather than a standard requiring its own review of the facts in a disability evaluation case.

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Coal Miners Re-Up Bid For $15.2M Wage Deal Approval

By Emmy Freedman

Coal miners again asked a Kentucky federal judge Friday to greenlight a $15.2 million deal resolving their unpaid wage suit against several mining companies, presenting a restructured agreement that eliminates collective claims and discusses the degree of similarity among workers in a proposed, nearly 7,000-member settlement class.

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Opinion

The BigLaw Settlements Are About Risk, Not Profit

The nine Am Law 100 firms that settled with the Trump administration likely did so because of the personal risk faced by equity partners in today's billion‑dollar national practices, enabled by an ethics rule primed for modernization, says Adam Forest at Scale.

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Jenner & Block Ruling 'Meant What It Said,' Judge Tells Feds

By Lauren Berg

The order striking down the Trump administration's executive order targeting Jenner & Block LLP "meant what it said," a Washington, D.C., federal judge ruled Monday, saying the government must rescind enforcement of all parts of the president's directive.

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Brief

Schumer Pledges To Fight GOP's Limits On Court Power

By Courtney Bublé

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has vowed to challenge a provision in House Republicans' budget reconciliation package that would curtail courts' ability to issue contempt citations.

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The Top In-House Hires Of May

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires over the past month included high-profile appointments at Adobe, Takeda Pharmaceutical and Duke Energy. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from May.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Labaton Keller's Ned Weinberger

By Katryna Perera

Ned Weinberger, a partner at Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP, said he never expected that his clients' suit challenging a $23.9 billion Dell Technologies Inc. stock swap would reach a whopping $1 billion settlement, let alone result in the largest prejudgment recovery ever achieved in a fiduciary duty action in the Delaware Chancery Court.

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Retired Judges Call Wis. Judge's Prosecution 'Dangerous'

By Ryan Boysen

The Trump administration's prosecution of a Wisconsin state judge who refused to help immigration agents arrest an undocumented immigrant is an "extraordinary and direct assault on the independence of the entire judicial system," according to a bipartisan group of 138 former state and federal judges.

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Susman Godfrey Founder, 'Preeminent' Litigator, Dies

By Jack Karp

H. Lee Godfrey, one of the founders of litigation boutique Susman Godfrey LLP, died on Monday, leaving behind a legacy as a thoughtful leader who performed exceptional work as a trial attorney, firm leaders said.

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Brief

Third Round Of Fixes Sought In Botched Calif. Bar Exam

By Emily Sawicki

The California state bar's committee of bar examiners has approved two additional remedies in an effort to help applicants who failed the troubled February exam, including asking the state Supreme Court to approve a further scoring adjustment that would bring the passing rate up to about 63%.

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Brief

Jackson Walker, US Trustee Agree To Mediator In Fees Case

By Hilary Russ

Jackson Walker LLP and the federal government's bankruptcy watchdog have agreed to mediation in their fee dispute stemming from an ethics scandal in Texas, with the two sides agreeing that retired judge Joan N. Feeney should mediate.

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Report Finds Del. Court Jumbo Fees Rival Federal System

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's corporation law courts have overshadowed the entire federal court system for some class attorney fees based on multiples of usual rate benchmarks, according to two Stanford Law School researchers whose findings have already caught the attention of a top state lawmaker.

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CFTC Announces 2nd Enforcement Head In 3 Months

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday named a new head of enforcement for the second time in three months, appointing its longtime deputy director to head the division.

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