6th Circ. Affirms UnitedHealth's Escape From Preempted Suit

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Sixth Circuit on Tuesday backed a decision to toss a worker's lawsuit accusing his employer and UnitedHealth and its subsidiaries of defrauding him into reimbursing his health insurance company for $25,000, agreeing with a lower court that federal benefits law completely preempted his state law claims.

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9th Circ. Tosses Tesla Investor Suit Over Self-Driving Tech

By Katryna Perera

The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed the dismissal of a suit against Tesla Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk claiming they deceived investors about the capabilities and safety record of the company's self-driving technology, finding the investors failed to plead any actionable false statements, among other issues.

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Brief

$4.6M Garnet Health Deal Over Retirement Plan Gets Initial OK

By Kellie Mejdrich

A New York federal judge granted initial approval Tuesday to a $4.6 million class action settlement between Garnet Health Medical Center and workers who challenged their employee retirement plan's fees and investments, which comes after parties reported a deal to end the case in September.

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X, Former Workers Lay Down Swords In Arbitration Fee Fight

By Grace Elletson

X Corp. and employees laid off after Twitter's 2022 acquisition by Elon Musk told an Illinois federal judge they have ended their battle over claims that the social media company unlawfully refused to pick up the tab for arbitration fees.

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Judge Blocks Planned Parenthood Funding Cut In 22 States

By Dan McKay

A Massachusetts federal judge Tuesday stopped the Trump administration from halting Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood clinics in 22 states, ruling the funding cutoff likely violated requirements to warn the states ahead of time about the change.

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CSX Must Face Ex-Employee's FMLA Retaliation Suit

By Patrick Hoff

CSX Transportation Inc. can't escape a former employee's lawsuit alleging he was unlawfully fired for taking medical leave, with a Florida federal judge ruling that the dismissal of class claims in a similar case didn't start the clock ticking on the ex-worker's deadline to file suit.

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Vanguard Investors' Attys Seek $8.3M Fee

By Sydney Price

Attorneys representing investors that settled with Vanguard for $25 million to end claims the company improperly triggered an asset sell-off that damaged investors asked a Pennsylvania federal court on Tuesday to award them $8.3 million in fees in addition to other expenses.

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Plan Members Assert Standing In Cigna Data Breach Fight

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A group of Cigna health plan participants who claimed that the company failed to protect their data when it tracked their website activities asked a Pennsylvania federal judge not to throw out the suit, arguing that the proposed class had standing to sue over the alleged violations of state and federal privacy laws.

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Post-Gazette Publisher Tries Again To Pause Benefits Order

By Emily Brill

If the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette must restore its union-represented editorial staff's pre-2020 healthcare benefits, it will shut down, the newspaper's publisher claimed in a brief filed with the Third Circuit, requesting another shot at pausing an injunction that compelled the paper to restore the benefits.

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A Close Look At The Evolving Interval Fund Space

Interval funds — closed-end registered investment companies that make periodic repurchase offers — have recently moved to the center of the conversation about retail access to private markets, spurred along by President Donald Trump's August executive order incorporating alternative assets into 401(k) plans and target date strategies, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

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Bonus Spotlight

Sheppard Mullin To Offer Larger Bonuses To Busy Associates

By Kevin Penton

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP associates who labored past 2,000 hours in 2025 can expect to see a little extra in their upcoming bonus checks, according to an internal memo obtained by Law360.

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Hagens Berman Referred To DOJ For Alleged Misconduct

By Emma Cueto

A Pennsylvania federal judge on Tuesday recommended to the U.S. Department of Justice that it investigate powerhouse plaintiffs firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP's conduct in connection with several since-dropped product liability cases that a special master found to be filed in bad faith.

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King & Spalding Atty Dies In Mountain Climbing Accident

By Kelcey Caulder

People at King & Spalding LLP are mourning after an appellate attorney from the firm and a mountain guide fell to their deaths climbing New Zealand's tallest mountain.

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Approach The Bench: Judge Robart On Living Under Threats

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

It's been nearly nine years since U.S. District Judge James Robart blocked President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, and though the judge has had a long career — including groundbreaking patent and securities decisions — he still occasionally gets recognized as that "so-called judge."

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Twitter Investors Lose Bid To DQ Musk Counsel Spiro

By Katryna Perera

A California federal judge has denied an attempt by Twitter investors to have Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP partner Alex Spiro disqualified from serving as both lead counsel for Elon Musk and a witness in a trial over claims that Musk tried to tank Twitter's stock.

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Dentons Sees Ex-Partner's Appeal Nixed In California

By Caroline Simson

California's highest court has quietly tossed litigation filed by a former Dentons partner who was fired over a $34 million contingency fee due from a Chinese client following an arbitration matter, several months after advising the parties to prepare for oral arguments.

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The Top In-House Hires Of November

By Sue Reisinger

Elon Musk's xAI has a new but familiar general counsel, while several sports groups — including the New York Mets, PGA of America and the SEC college athletic conference — also brought on new legal leaders in November.

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SDNY Head Backs Good Deals For Quick Cooperation By Cos.

By Stewart Bishop

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton on Tuesday said he's prepared to offer "real benefits" to corporations facing criminal investigations if they quickly agree to cooperate and compensate victims, ideally in the form of comprehensive, government-wide resolutions.

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Exclusive

14 Ex-Lawmakers Tell USPTO Proposed Rules Violate The Law

By Ryan Davis

A group of 14 former members of Congress, including America Invents Act sponsor Patrick Leahy, has told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that the agency's proposal to restrict many patent challenges "violates foundational American legal principles and the AIA."

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

The FTC urged a D.C. court to block a deal involving a new heart valve treatment, and courts rejected the commission's monopolization case over Meta's past acquisitions and the agency's challenge of a medical device coatings deal. Here, Law360 looks at the major merger review developments from November.

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2 New Judges Confirmed To NC Federal Court

By Courtney Bublé

The U.S. Senate confirmed two federal judges for North Carolina on Tuesday.

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