Alsup Refuses To Vacate Hearing Into OPM Mass Firings

By Dorothy Atkins

U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Monday denied the Trump administration's request to vacate an upcoming evidentiary hearing into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's mass firings of probationary federal employees, and required OPM director Charles Ezell to appear in person or else be deposed.

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Senate Confirms Trump's Labor Secretary Pick

By Max Kutner

The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for labor secretary Monday evening, with support from more than a dozen Democrats and opposition from some members of the nominee's own party.

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All Agencies Trump Ordered To Drop DEI Must Heed Injunction

By Grace Elletson

A preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive orders axing diversity, equity and inclusion-related work applies equally to all executive agencies given directives to purge the programming, a Maryland federal judge said Monday.

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Trump Asks For Stay Of NLRB Member's Reinstatement

By Tim Ryan

The Trump administration asked the D.C. Circuit on Monday to stay a federal judge's order reinstating fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, saying the order steps on the president's authority to control the workings of the executive branch.

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Michigan Told To Take A Stance On Clinic's Gender Policies

By Carolyn Muyskens

A federal judge said Monday that Michigan can't stay mum on whether a religious medical clinic's pronoun, gender transition and faith-based hiring policies violate state law, as the clinic sues to block the law's enforcement.

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AFL-CIO, Unions Defend Fight Against DOGE Access

By Beverly Banks

The AFL-CIO and a group of unions sought to keep alive their claims that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency can't legally access data from the U.S. Department of Labor and other federal agencies, telling a D.C. federal judge they have standing to file their suit.

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Troops Renew Bid To Block Trans Military Ban Post Guidance

By Grace Elletson

Transgender service members filed a renewed bid to halt President Donald Trump's executive order barring those with gender dysphoria from serving in the military, after the U.S. Department of Defense issued new guidance the troops say effectively ends the ability for transgender people to serve.

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Judge May Pause Trump Admin's Cuts To Teacher Training

By Brian Dowling

A Massachusetts federal judge hinted Monday it would be reasonable to order the U.S. Department of Education to temporarily reinstate $250 million in teacher-training grants targeted for cuts by the Trump administration over their ties to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

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High Court Turns Down Firefighter's Religious Bias Case

By Amanda Ottaway

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a religious discrimination case from a Christian fire chief who said he was fired for his beliefs, leaving in place a Ninth Circuit decision that sided with the city that employed him as well as a long-standing legal framework that the justices had been asked to reconsider.

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Nonbinary Ex-Workers Ask To Intervene In Dropped EEOC Suit

By Grace Elletson

Two nonbinary former Lush Cosmetics workers asked a California judge to let them intervene in a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit claiming the business let a manager sexually harass them, after the agency dropped the case following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

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J. Crew Wins Confirmation Of Ex-GC's Arbitration Loss

By Lauren Berg

A New York federal judge confirmed an arbitrator's ruling Monday that found J. Crew hadn't fired its former legal chief, Maria DiLorenzo, in retaliation for her complaints about colleagues' discriminatory comments about her hearing loss.

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Ga. Health System Says 'Vague,' 'Disorganized' Bias Suit Fails

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia urologists' practice group on Monday hit back at a civil rights lawsuit from three doctors who said they were the victims of anti-Indian discrimination, arguing that their "shoot first and aim later" complaint fails to tie the company at all to their allegations.

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Ex-Package Co. Worker Wants 6th Circ. Redo In ADA Suit

By Danielle Ferguson

A former mill utility worker is urging the Sixth Circuit to rehear his suit claiming a packaging manufacturer wouldn't let him return to work because he asked for a medical accommodation, arguing an appellate panel's ruling ignored key evidence at trial, including that he could have worked in a lighter-duty role.

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Promotional Product Co. Faces Ex-Worker's Race Bias Suit

By Kelcey Caulder

A Florida-based promotional product distributor has been sued in Georgia federal court by a Black former employee who alleges that she was discriminated against by an executive, denied promotions and then fired after asking whether her first-ever negative performance review was race-related.

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NPR Botched Chinese Worker's Visa App, Bias Suit Says

By Rae Ann Varona

A former National Public Radio brand director on Friday hauled the American public broadcaster into D.C. federal court, claiming NPR botched her application for a work visa and then refused to rehire her when she later secured the visa.

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Amazon Worker Can't Seal Military Leave Settlement

By Irene Spezzamonte

A worker who settled his suit accusing Amazon of not promoting him because of his military service can't file the deal under seal, according to a Washington federal judge's Monday ruling — which also said the agreement doesn't need to hit the docket.

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Whole Food Workers Can't Have Class Cert. In Bonus Suit

By Lauren Berg

A Washington, D.C., federal judge Monday refused to certify a class of past and present Whole Foods employees who accuse the grocery chain of gaming its employee bonus program, saying there are too many individualized questions to resolve the plaintiffs' claims on a classwide basis.

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Supreme Court Won't Review FLSA Overtime Exemption

By Irene Spezzamonte

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to consider whether an employer's line of business, rather than a worker's job duties, determines if an employee is exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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Amazon Workers Want Partial Win In COVID Screenings Suit

By Emmy Freedman

A class of Amazon employees urged a Pennsylvania federal court to partially grant them a win in their suit accusing the e-commerce giant of forcing workers to undergo unpaid COVID-19 screenings, saying the state's high court has already ruled that this time is compensable.

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Denver Strip Clubs Challenge $14M Wage Theft Fines

By Irene Spezzamonte

The city of Denver engaged in "shocking and unconstitutional government overreach" by conducting unlawful probes into a group of strip clubs' pay practices and ordering them to pay almost $14 million in fines, the entities told a Colorado federal court.

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Truckers Win Conditional Class Treatment For Wage Dispute

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge said he would give conditional class treatment to truck drivers who say Forsage Logistics Inc. and its owner illegally misclassified them as independent drivers and failed to pay them all wages they're owed.  

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Bad Bunny Sports Firm Settles Contract Dispute With MLBPA

By Elaine Briseño

The sports firm of music superstar Bad Bunny has reached a settlement that will end its dispute with the Major League Baseball Players Association, which it had accused in a Puerto Rico federal court lawsuit of killing its business with unreasonable sanctions.

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Car Parts Co., Ex-Worker Settle Tobacco Surcharge Suit

By Patrick Hoff

An Illinois-based car parts manufacturer will pay $299,000 to resolve claims that it unlawfully required tobacco users in its health plan to pay a $100 monthly fee without making clear they could avoid the charge by enrolling in a cessation program, according to federal court filings.

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FTC Wants Pause On Noncompete Appeals, Pending Decision

By Jared Foretek

The Federal Trade Commission is asking two circuit courts to pause their reviews of its ban on noncompete clauses, saying it needs time to reconsider whether it actually wants to defend the rule.

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Telecom Co. Says Ex-Manager Secretly Flouted Noncompete

By Julie Manganis

Telecommunications company Adtran Networks North America Inc. accused a former sales director for Latin America of ignoring noncompete agreements and looking the other way as another employee set up his own directly competing business.

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11th Circ. Urged To Find Qui Tam Cases Unconstitutional

By Daniel Wilson

A group of defendants accused of Medicare Advantage fraud urged the Eleventh Circuit on Monday to uphold a decision finding the False Claims Act's whistleblower provision unconstitutional, saying the statutory clause violates the Constitution in multiple ways. 

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Paxton Says Ex-Aides Want Excessive Whistleblower Atty Fees

By Catherine Marfin

The Texas attorney general's office and four of Ken Paxton's former deputies took jabs at each other over whether a court should hear more evidence in their long-running whistleblower suit, with the office alleging the aides have sought attorney fees outside the scope of the case while the ex-employees say the office "misses the point."

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Kyocera AVX Defeats Suit Over 2023 Data Breach

By Rae Ann Varona

A South Carolina federal judge has freed Kyocera AVX from a proposed class action that accused the electronic components manufacturer of failing to protect more than 39,000 employees' sensitive personal information in a 2023 cyber attack, saying former employees failed to allege a substantial risk of fraud or identity theft.

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Determining What 'I Don't Feel Safe' Means In The Workplace

When an employee tells an employer "I don't feel safe," the phrase can have different meanings, so employment lawyers must adequately investigate to identify which meaning applies — and a cursory review and dismissal of the situation may not be a sufficient defense in case of future legal proceedings, says Karen Elliott at FordHarrison.

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Recent Cases Clarify FCA Kickback Pleading Standards

Two recently resolved cases involving pharmaceutical manufacturers may make it more difficult for False Claims Act defendants facing kickback scheme allegations to get claims dismissed for lack of evidence, say Li Yu at Bernstein Litowitz, Ellen London at London & Noar, and Gregg Shapiro at Gregg Shapiro Law.

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National Lawyers Guild Slams Trump's Perkins Coie Order

By Rachel Riley

The Seattle Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild denounced President Donald Trump's recent executive order revoking Perkins Coie LLP's security clearances, saying on Monday the decision "exemplifies his complete disregard for the rule of law and his contempt for core American democratic values."

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GOP Sens. Escalate Fight With ABA Over 'Leftist' Statements

By Courtney Bublé

A group of Senate Republicans are once again going after the American Bar Association, which they claim has become a "leftist" organization, and announced Monday they will disregard ABA ratings on judicial nominees and encouraged the Trump administration and their colleagues to do the same.

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Paul Hastings Reelects Chair, Managing Partner To 2nd Terms

By Tracey Read

Paul Hastings LLP Chair Frank Lopez and Managing Partner Sherrese Smith have been reelected to their second three-year terms, the firm said Monday.

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Judge Who Shot Wife Gets Mistrial As Jury Hangs On Murder

By Gina Kim

A California judge declared a mistrial Monday in the murder trial of Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, who shot and killed his wife in their Anaheim Hills home in 2023, after jurors said they remained at an impasse over whether he was guilty of second-degree murder.

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Analysis

SEC Leaves Meme Coin Fraud For Other Cops To Chase

By Aislinn Keely

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff's decision to say that so-called meme coins are beyond the agency's purview is a welcome change from past practices, experts say, but the devil is in the details when it comes to policing fraud and helping consumers recover when projects go bust.

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Del. Bar Panel OKs Corp. Law Bill To Curb Class Suits, Fees

By Jeff Montgomery

A key panel of the Delaware's State Bar Association overwhelmingly approved on Monday a pending bill to put new constraints on corporate stockholder lawsuits, over objections that the measure will snuff out shareholder protections from conflicted boards and corporation controllers.

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High Court Will Review Colo.'s Conversion Therapy Ban

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will review a challenge to Colorado's ban on licensed therapists providing conversion therapy to transgender minors, in a case that asks whether the state's law is a permissible regulation of professional conduct or an unconstitutional restriction of speech.

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2 Firms Sued After Cyber Thief Steals $442K From Estate

By Ryan Harroff

Law firms SutterWilliams LLC and Allender & Allender PA were hit with a negligence and malpractice suit after a cybercriminal allegedly used spoofed email accounts to trick an attorney at the latter firm into handing over $442,600 from the sale of a late Pennsylvania sheriff's deputy's house in Florida.

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Paul Hastings Adds Kirkland Atty As Global M&A Co-Chair

By Tracey Read

Paul Hastings LLP has hired a third global co-chair for its mergers and acquisitions practice who was one of the youngest M&A partners in the world to have announced well over $1 trillion in deals, the firm said Monday.

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Hagens Berman Comms With Ghosting Client Kept Privileged

By Ryan Boysen

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP doesn't have to turn over texts and emails with a client who disappeared from a putative class action against Apple and Amazon, a Washington federal judge has ruled, despite the tech giants' accusations that the firm lied about those communications.

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Clerks May Seek Political Jobs On 'Case-By-Case Basis'

By Emily Sawicki

Individual federal judges may determine whether their clerks may seek political posts while employed by the judiciary, the Judicial Conference of the United States' Committee on Codes of Conduct now recommends, months after issuing guidance advising clerks to hold off seeking such roles until their clerkships end.

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