Pa. Court Voids $1.75M Judgment, Affirms Insurer's Bad Faith

By Hope Patti

The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed Friday that Erie Insurance Exchange acted in bad faith when it withheld payment from its insured following arbitration over a claim for underinsured motorist benefits, but vacated a $1.75 million judgment against the insurer based on improper calculations of attorney fees and interest.

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Pennsylvania Auto Parts Co. Sued Over Loading Dock Fall

By Matthew Santoni

A Pittsburgh auto parts warehouse employee moved a loading dock plate while a delivery driver had her back turned, causing her to fall into an unseen gap and severely injure her shoulder, according to a lawsuit seeking to hold Rohrich Automotive Group and affiliates liable for the incident.

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Federal Courts To Scale Back Operations Amid Shutdown

By Ryan Boysen

The federal court system has run out of money and will scale back operations beginning Monday as a result of the ongoing government shutdown, possibly leading to case delays.

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3rd Circ. Won't Rethink IRS Collections For Preparer Fraud

By Anna Scott Farrell

The Third Circuit declined Friday to reconsider a panel decision allowing the IRS to pursue a woman's unpaid taxes more than 20 years later — well after the normal three-year deadline — because her return preparer committed fraud on her filings without her knowledge.

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3rd Circ. Says No Duty To Inform Criminal Clients Of Liability

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The Third Circuit in a precedential ruling Friday declined to apply immigration precedent concerning counsel's obligation to advise their criminal defendant clients about deportation risks associated with prosecutions to the civil setting, holding that the standard applies only in highly specific circumstances.

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Roundup

Injury Law Roundup: Uber Wins Bellwether Sex Assault Trial

By Y. Peter Kang

In our inaugural Injury Law Roundup, juries in the Golden State were busy as Uber won a closely watched sexual assault trial and Johnson & Johnson got crushed with a near $1 billion verdict in a talc case, while Boies Schiller Flexner LLP admitted to an artificial intelligence gaffe in a sex-assault-related case. Here, we put Law360 readers on notice of what's been recently trending in personal injury and medical malpractice news.

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Brief

Plaintiff Drops Claim Against Litigation Funder And CEO

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A litigation funder has been dismissed from a suit brought by a plaintiff accusing his former lawyer of conspiring to charge him inflated legal fees to cover high-interest litigation loans, according to a court filing made public Friday.

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Saul Ewing Expands In Pittsburgh With 2 Attorneys

By James Boyle

A former assistant U.S. attorney in Michigan and an attorney with more than 20 years of experience advising clients on trusts and estates matters have recently moved their practices to Saul Ewing LLP's Pittsburgh office.

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3rd Circ. Ruling Forces A Shift In Employer CFAA Probes

The Third Circuit's recent ruling in NRA Group v. Durenleau, finding that "unauthorized access" requires bypassing technical barriers rather than simply violating company policies, is forcing employers to recalibrate insider misconduct investigations and turn to contractual, trade secret and state-level claims, say attorneys at Sidley.

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Opinion

High Court, Not A Single Justice, Should Decide On Recusal

As public trust in the U.S. Supreme Court continues to decline, the court should adopt a collegial framework in which all justices decide questions of recusal together — a reform that respects both judicial independence and due process for litigants, say Michael Broyde at Emory University and Hayden Hall at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

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Comey Seeks Dismissal Of Case Brought Out Of 'Spite'

By Jared Foretek

Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey asked a Virginia federal court Monday to dismiss charges that he lied to Congress, arguing that his September indictment was ordered by President Donald Trump out of "personal spite," and fired back at claims that his lead attorney needs to be disqualified from the case.

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3rd Circ. Suspects Process 'Circumvention' In US Atty Role

By Carla Baranauckas

The Third Circuit on Monday seemed inclined to back a district court's finding that the U.S. Department of Justice's designation of President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor violated federal law, with one jurist suggesting the appointment raised "serious constitutional implications."

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High Court To Hear Case Asking If Drug Users Can Have Guns

By Elizabeth Daley

The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Monday to address "a four-way circuit conflict" over whether it is legal to prevent users of drugs — including marijuana, which the majority of states have legalized in some fashion — from possessing firearms.

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Zuckerberg Ordered To Testify At 1st Social Media Harm Trial

By Craig Clough

A Los Angeles judge on Monday ordered Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify at an upcoming bellwether trial over major social media technology companies allegedly causing harm to young users' mental health, but put off deciding whether he must testify at future bellwether trials.

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Feds Warned Again Not To Search Immigration Atty's Phone

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge on Monday again told the government it cannot look at data pulled off an immigration lawyer's phone that it seized at Logan International Airport last month, as the court weighs his request for an order to destroy the information.

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Spiro Can't Be Witness And Musk Atty, Twitter Investors Say

By Jack Karp

Elon Musk's informed written consent does not mean that Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP partner Alex Spiro can serve as both his lead counsel and witness in the trial over a class of investors' allegations that Musk tried to tank Twitter's stock, those investors told a California federal judge on Friday.

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Trump Picks State Justice, Ex-US Atty For La. Federal Bench

By Lauren Berg

President Donald Trump announced on social media Monday his intent to nominate a Louisiana Supreme Court justice and a former acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana to fill vacancies on the Bayou State's federal benches.

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Trump Gets Ohio Opening With Judge Taking Senior Status

By Rose Krebs

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson, who presided over cases involving Ohio State University sex abuse claims, has said he will soon be taking senior status — opening up a judicial seat for President Donald Trump to fill in the Buckeye State.

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Miami Atty Accused Of Defamation For False Media Campaign

By Carolina Bolado

A Miami luxury homebuilder is suing attorney Javier Lopez and his former firm Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton PA for defamation, claiming he made false statements to the press and to third parties calling the homebuilder a criminal who was under FBI investigation.

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Mass. Bar Officials Seek $1M From Disbarred Atty

By Emily Sawicki

A former Massachusetts attorney who was disbarred in 2023 and later pled guilty to embezzling funds from client accounts is now facing malpractice and conversion claims worth about $1 million.

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4th Circ. Preview: Insurance, Trans Policy, Legal Aid Access

By Abigail Harrison

The Fourth Circuit's second session of the year will have judges weigh in on multimillion-dollar insurance fights, including whether claims related to Under Armour's yearslong securities fraud scheme are "connected," and parsing whether a subcontractor's insurance policy stretches to a primary contractor.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

This past week, the Delaware Chancery Court and Supreme Court handled a crowded corporate docket, weighing blockbuster merger appeals, shareholder settlement objections, fights over control involving an NBA franchise and a high-profile appeal from Elon Musk involving a massive payday from Tesla.

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