TikTok Nears Deal Ahead Of 2nd Social Media Addiction Trial

By Craig Clough

A plaintiff who alleges he became harmfully addicted to major social media platforms as a child and whose case is set to be the second bellwether trial later this month out of thousands of similar cases pending in Los Angeles court has reached a settlement in principle with TikTok, his counsel told Law360 on Wednesday.

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Bankrupt EV Co.'s Execs Reach $20M Investor Deal

By Sydney Price

Executives of bankrupt electric vehicle startup Canoo Inc. have reached a $20 million deal with the company's shareholders to end claims that they misled investors about its go-to-market strategy ahead of its merger with a special purpose acquisition company in 2021.

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Mazie Slater Beats Benicar Fees Sanctions Row Discovery Bid

By George Woolston

A New Jersey federal judge has blocked the latest bid by former Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman clients to conduct more discovery in order to fight the firm's sanctions bid in their suit over allegedly excessive attorney fees, finding they failed to show exceptional circumstances existed.

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Quinnipiac Can Demote Rugby Team As Title IX Suit Proceeds

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut federal judge has denied an emergency request by female athletes to block Quinnipiac University from downgrading their varsity rugby team to club sport status while a Title IX lawsuit plays out, saying a limited record showed the university did not retaliate and offered legitimate reasons for the decision.

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Watchdog Says DOL Needs Better Info Sharing Controls

By Kellie Mejdrich

The U.S. Department of Labor's lack of controls over information sharing between subagencies and nongovernmental entities, including law firms and legal advocacy organizations, may have unfairly advantaged those parties with privileged investigative information, an agency watchdog reported, though use of the practice has dropped off. 

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Brief

Capital One 401(k) Deal Wins Final OK, $3.2M Atty Fee Award

By Katryna Perera

A New York federal judge on Wednesday awarded class counsel Capozzi Adler PC $3.2 million in attorney fees and granted final approval to a $9.6 million settlement resolving claims Capital One improperly used forfeited employee funds paid into the company's retirement plan to reduce its own contributions instead of curtailing administrative costs.

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Brief

DOL Nears ESG Rule Rollback As White House Review Begins

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Department of Labor is gearing up to repeal a Biden-era rule allowing retirement fiduciaries to consider issues like climate change and social justice when choosing investments, sending the proposed repeal to the White House for review.

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Bojangles Can't Duck Workers' Data Breach Class Action

By Hayley Fowler

Bojangles cannot free itself from a proposed data breach class action alleging the fried chicken fast food chain left employees' personal information vulnerable to Russian hackers, a North Carolina Business Court judge ruled in largely denying the company's bid for an early exit.

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EV Battery Workers Say Ford Is Joint Employer

By MJ Koo

Battery plant workers have told a Michigan federal court that Ford Motor Co. is their joint employer and bears responsibility for unpaid wage claims at an electric vehicle battery plant, pushing back against the automaker's bid to escape the lawsuit.

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Cleaning Co. Agrees To $500K Deal Over OT, Sick Leave Claim

By MJ Koo

A Texas commercial cleaning company agreed to pay $500,000 to settle claims that it failed to pay overtime wages and provide paid sick leave to Colorado workers it employed through subcontractors, according to a motion for preliminary settlement approval filed Wednesday in Colorado federal court.

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Molson Coors Worker's Suit Over 401(k) Fund Falls Flat

By Grace Elletson

A Wisconsin federal judge shut down a worker's suit claiming beer manufacturer Molson Coors unlawfully kept a lackluster Fidelity investment fund in its $1.5 billion retirement plan, saying the worker hadn't identified a comparable fund that would have brought better returns.

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Microsoft Brass Face Investor Suit Over AI Business Hype

By Katryna Perera

A Microsoft Corp. shareholder has launched a derivative suit against the company's top brass, claiming they misled shareholders about the company's artificial intelligence business strategy and products, and caused it to violate copyright and intellectual property laws by "training its AI software on copyrighted works for which it did not possess lawful licenses."

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Resale Ticket Buyers Must Arbitrate Live Nation Claims

By Matthew Perlman

A New York federal court has sent antitrust claims from concertgoers who purchased Ticketmaster tickets on the secondary market to arbitration, after finding an arbitration clause in Live Nation's terms of service is enforceable.

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Farm Says $99M Deere Right-To-Repair Deal Is Unfair

By Mike Curley

One of the farms suing Deere & Co. in federal right to repair litigation is objecting to a $99 million settlement that received preliminary approval in May, saying the deal provides minimal relief compared to what the class could have gotten at trial, especially since more than half of it may go to class counsel.

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Microsoft Data Center Upends Neighborhood Peace, Suit Says

By Hailey Konnath

A data center operated by Microsoft Corp. in southeastern Wisconsin emits "unreasonable and excessive noise," disrupting the lives of nearby residents, according to a proposed class action filed in federal court Wednesday.

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TD Bank Can't Escape Customer's Meta Pixel Tracking Suit

By Sydney Price

TD Bank must face a proposed class action alleging it wrongfully shared customers' personal information with Meta Platforms Inc. for marketing purposes, with a New Jersey federal judge ruling the latest version of the suit plausibly alleges the bank's tracking tool caused actual harm to the plaintiff.

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Walmart Hit With Ill. Biometric Privacy Suit For Recorded Calls

By Celeste Bott

Walmart has been hit in Illinois state court with a proposed class action claiming that customers' voiceprints were recorded and captured for fraud prevention purposes when they called the retail giant's customer service line, without the required consent and disclosures under Illinois' biometric privacy law.

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LinkedIn Says Users Agreed To Browser Extension Scans

By Taylor Bowie

LinkedIn told a California federal judge that two proposed class actions alleging the website unlawfully accesses users' browser extensions are part of an "international retaliation campaign" over routine security methods that users agreed to.

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Match.com Omits That Best Matches Cost Extra, Suit Says

By Rae Ann Varona

Match.com advertises the ability to connect people with their "most compatible" matches to entice them into subscribing to its online dating platform, but fails to first disclose that the feature requires an additional payment, one user has alleged in a proposed class action filed in New York federal court.

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Lululemon Targeted In New Shopper Tariff Refund Lawsuit

By Rachel Riley

Lululemon has been accused of boosting prices in response to the Trump administration's global tariffs then failing to refund customers when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the duties, becoming one of the latest household brand names to face such claims.

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Leveraging AI In MDL Discovery And Case Management

Generative and agentic artificial intelligence tools can help teams organize and digest the vast volume of documents inherent to multidistrict litigation, but workflows must be designed to maximize the tools' strengths and maintain human control of key operational and ethical factors, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

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More Cos. Will Copy SpaceX's Shareholder Proposal Opt-Out

For more than 80 years, the shareholder proposal looked like a federal right guaranteed to all public company investors, but after SpaceX opted out before its recent initial public offering, other companies are likely to follow, says Mohsen Manesh at the University of Oregon School of Law.

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DOJ China Container Indictments Signal Global Cartel Risk

The U.S. Department of Justice's recent announcement that it had indicted Chinese manufacturers for conspiring to drive up the price of shipping containers sold in the U.S. illustrates the Antitrust Division's interest in pursuing overseas cartel conduct, especially in China, signaling that multinational companies with employees abroad should strengthen antitrust compliance to avoid running afoul of U.S. national security policy, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

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Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

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Legal Sector Jobs Spike With Work 'Churning Right Along'

By Aebra Coe

The legal sector added 5,100 jobs in June, the largest increase the industry has seen in more than two years, according to preliminary, seasonally adjusted data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, the Asian Law Caucus and the Democracy Defenders Fund lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump's bid to limit birthright citizenship.

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Feds Seek Up To 21 Months For Ex-Judge On ICE Obstruction

By Elizabeth Daley

A former Wisconsin judge who was convicted of obstructing ICE officers' courthouse arrest of a man facing misdemeanor charges by pointing him to a side door should spend up to 21 months in prison, the government said in a sentencing memo, recommending she be made an example.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week 

By Sue Reisinger

Amid the changes coming for general counsel, the policies and enforcement priorities of federal regulators may fluctuate more rapidly after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week that could dramatically remake independent government agencies. And the EEOC rescinded affirmative action documents that have guided employers for decades.

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Georgia Atty Can't Revive Defamation Suit Over Ethics Case

By Emily Johnson

The Georgia Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a Georgia attorney's defamation suit against two people involved in an unsuccessful disciplinary action against her, saying her rambling appeal failed to prove that the trial court erred in dismissing her claims.

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When Does A Firm's 'Breakup' Fee-Split Contract Go Too Far?

By Rachel Rippetoe

It looked like a win for plaintiffs' firms when the Kentucky Supreme Court recently upheld a firm's 75% claim on fees from cases an attorney took with him when he launched his own practice, but the narrow ruling may leave room for lawyers to challenge similar agreements as penalties for leaving their firms.

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Judges To Tour Rust Belt To Build Trust In Courts

By James Boyle

Days after the Fourth of July celebration of America's 250th birthday, a group of current and retired judges will lead a four-day bus tour through three states to promote one of the bedrock principles of the country's independence: the rule of law.

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Analysis

Breaking Down The Vote: The High Court Term In Review

By Jack Karp

The U.S. Supreme Court's stark ideological divisions were on full display this term, particularly as it issued long-awaited rulings in the last few days of June. Here, Law360 dives into the numbers behind this court term.

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Mass Tort Titan Paul J. Napoli Dies

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

Paul J. Napoli, an influential plaintiffs attorney who worked on some of the nation's highest-profile mass tort matters in recent decades, died on Tuesday at the age of 58.

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Skadden Adds Mass Torts Litigator As Partner In Chicago

By Christine DeRosa

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP has grown its mass torts litigation offerings in Chicago with the addition of a Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP attorney, the firm said.

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'Embarrassed' Conn. Atty Details ChatGPT Briefing Errors

By Aaron Keller

With a sanctions hearing on the horizon, a Connecticut attorney has told the state's highest court he is "extremely embarrassed" by artificial intelligence errors in briefs filed in two recently decided cases, explaining he used ChatGPT to edit his research without knowing it could make "unprompted changes to the content."

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Del. Magistrate Orders JPMorgan To Advance Javice Fees

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court ruled Thursday that JPMorgan Chase & Co. must advance millions more in disputed legal fees to cover the appeal of the convicted founder of college financial aid startup Frank, concluding the bank failed to meet Delaware's demanding standard for withholding advancement by showing the billing requests reflected "clear abuse."

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Ex-DOJ Fraud Section Chief Joins Fried Frank

By Nadia Dreid

Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP has added a veteran litigator from the U.S. Department of Justice who also brings more than a decade of experience representing financial institutions in white collar, enforcement and complex litigation spaces.

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Reed Smith Adds Ex-Norton Rose Partner, RE Atty In Munich

By Nate Beck

Reed Smith LLP has bolstered its private equity practice with the hire of a former Norton Rose Fulbright group leader in Munich.

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McCarter Atty Knew 'Magic Words' For $20M Deals, Court Told

By Brian Steele

If a onetime McCarter & English LLP partner had raised a single red flag about a Long Island town's legally flimsy agreement to repay $20 million worth of a businessman's loans, the ill-fated deals never would have gone forward, a Connecticut court heard Thursday.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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