Analysis

Tesla Verdict Could Embolden Plaintiffs With Similar Claims

By Carolina Bolado

The $329 million verdict handed down by jurors in Miami on Friday over a fatal Florida Keys crash is the first to find Tesla's autopilot defective and will likely embolden other plaintiffs with similar claims to take them to trial, personal injury attorneys told Law360.

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Tornado Cash Jury Still Out, SEC Leader Backs Privacy Tech

By Stewart Bishop

Jury deliberations in the money laundering and sanctions trial of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm continued Tuesday with no verdict, one day after a top securities regulator championed the legitimacy of privacy-protecting technologies, much like defense claims about the cryptocurrency tumbler.

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Key Opioid Theory Actually Irrelevant, Drug Cos. Tell 4th Circ.

By Jeff Overley

With federal judges in West Virginia suddenly split over the central legal theory in opioid litigation, major drug distributors are insisting the theory actually doesn't matter, telling the Fourth Circuit it can uphold their triumph in a landmark trial without even touching the hot-button issue.

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Calif. City Sanctioned Over Missing Reports In Dow, PPG Case

By Bonnie Eslinger

A San Francisco Superior Court judge found that a California city that's pursued decades-long litigation against Dow Chemical and PPG Industries over dry cleaning chemicals that allegedly contaminated city sites "committed egregious discovery violations" by destroying and concealing 1991 reports related to the chemicals leaking into the city's groundwater.

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Grocery Chain Ralphs Wins $7M Employment Bias Trial

By Cara Salvatore

A California jury cleared Kroger-owned Ralphs Grocery Co. of liability in a Muslim worker's $7 million bias suit after hearing that the worker simply refused to use the scheduling software to keep his Saturdays free for religious activities and that he had been suspended multiple times for insubordination.

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Epic Games Defeats Bid To Upend Jury Patent Verdict

By Rae Ann Varona

A Seattle federal judge Tuesday denied Utherverse Gaming LLC's bid to undo a jury finding from a verdict favoring Epic Games, rejecting Utherverse's contention that a jury leaned on insufficient evidence when rebuffing a claim in its patent for playing back recorded experiences in a virtual world.

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Fed. Circ. Panel Feeling Deja Vu In Hoverboard IP Case

By Dani Kass

A Federal Circuit panel had little support for the owner of hoverboard design patents Tuesday, as the judges said much of its noninfringement appeal relies on concerns addressed in a prior appellate decision.

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UBH Patients Score Partial Win In Mental Health Claims Fight

By Kellie Mejdrich

A California federal judge handed a partial win Tuesday to a class of participants in employee health benefit plans who sought coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatments from United Behavioral Health, holding the company's overly restrictive guidelines breached fiduciary duties under federal benefits law.

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Ghislaine Maxwell Slams Feds' Bid To Unseal Grand Jury Docs

By Lauren Berg

Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking children for late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, urged a New York federal judge Tuesday to deny the government's bid to unseal grand jury transcripts, saying release of the sealed materials could jeopardize the appeal of her 2021 conviction.

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Tesla Hit With Suit Over Autonomous Vehicle Issues

By Spencer Brewer

A Tesla Inc. investor has launched a proposed securities class action against the company in Texas federal court, claiming it overhyped its autonomous driving vehicles despite flaws that led to regulatory and legal blowback, including a recent $329 million verdict involving the Autopilot feature.

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Amazon, DC AG Seek To Delay Antitrust Trial To May 2027

By Jared Foretek

The D.C. Attorney General's Office and Amazon are seeking more time to complete fact discovery in the city's antitrust suit against the online retail giant, asking for the potential trial in the case to be moved from January 2027 to May of that year.

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Brief

DOJ, Google Get OK For 2-Week Ad Tech Remedies Trial

By Nadia Dreid

When Google faces off against the U.S. Department of Justice at trial next month to determine what remedy the tech behemoth should provide for illegally maintaining a monopoly over advertising technology services, they'll each get five or six court days to make their case.

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Ill. Appeals Court Backs Counsel Redo In Battery Case

By Parker Quinlan

An Illinois state appeals court has ruled that a man found guilty of domestic battery is entitled to a trial court hearing on a motion he personally lodged claiming his attorney was ineffective and that he was unfairly denied the hearing because of how he filed the request.

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Walmart's $2.6M Fall Injury Verdict Not Excessive, Court Affirms

By Y. Peter Kang

A California appeals court has affirmed a $2.6 million award in a suit accusing Walmart of causing a customer's devastating hamstring injury in a fall, saying the verdict was not excessive given the evidence.

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Alaska Airlines Can't Nix Flight Attendant's Surgery Win

By Mike Curley

A Washington state appeals court won't disturb a jury's finding that a flight attendant was entitled to coverage of a spine surgery for an injury she sustained while working for Alaska Airlines, saying the trial court judge rightly rejected the airline's proposed jury instruction for its confusion.

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Opinion

The Legal Education Status Quo Is No Longer Tenable

As underscored by the fallout from California’s February bar exam, legal education and licensure are tethered to outdated systems, and the industry must implement several key reforms to remain relevant and responsive to 21st century legal needs, says Matthew Nehmer at The Colleges of Law.

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Law, Medical School Orgs Face Application Fee Antitrust Suits

By Gina Kim

The Law School Admission Council and the Association of American Medical Colleges have each been hit with a proposed class action in Pennsylvania and D.C. federal courts, respectively, by candidates who said the nonprofits conspired with their member schools to charge excessive application fees that have been fixed at the same price regardless of the school.

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Judge Mulls Sanctioning Hagens Berman In Thalidomide Suits

By Lauren Berg

The Pennsylvania federal judge presiding over dozens of product liability actions against manufacturers of the morning sickness drug thalidomide Tuesday ordered Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP to explain why it shouldn't be sanctioned for allegedly conducting "grossly inadequate" pre-suit inquiries, obstructing discovery and doctoring evidence.

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Analysis

A Free Exercise 'Blueprint' In Colo. Abortion Reversal Order

By Mark Payne

A Colorado federal judge's decision to allow medication abortion "reversals" on free exercise grounds could serve as a model for other lawsuits meant to legitimize a practice that is outside the standard practice of medicine.

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Law Profs Urge 11th Circ. To Toss Judge-Shopping Sanctions

By Madison Arnold

A group of seven law school professors is urging the Eleventh Circuit to toss a sanctions ruling against three attorneys for judge shopping, arguing that federal law does not forbid the practice and citing the "potentially chilling effect the order will have on counsel, especially those involved in pro bono representation."

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OptumRx Urges Panel To DQ Motley Rice In LA Opioid Suit

By Craig Clough

OptumRx told a California appellate panel Tuesday that Motley Rice should be disqualified from representing Los Angeles County in a lawsuit alleging it colluded with drugmakers to fuel the opioid crisis, saying the firm violated state law by using confidential information obtained in the case in other lawsuits it's handling against Optum.

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Feature

Meet FDA Chief Counsel Sean Keveney

By Dan McKay

The new top attorney at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, described as a "tremendous technical lawyer," rose through the ranks as a federal prosecutor before helping lead President Donald Trump's confrontation with elite universities this year.

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5th Circ. Says Texas Voter ID Law Is Legally Sound

By Spencer Brewer

A Fifth Circuit panel upheld a Texas law that requires voters to provide an identification number when voting by mail, finding the law complies with the Civil Rights Act and that the state designed it to combat mail-in ballot fraud.

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Ex-USPTO Heads, Judges Oppose Anti-Patent Thicket Bill

By Elliot Weld

A pro-innovation group composed of former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officials and former Federal Circuit judges on Tuesday asked Congress to oppose a bill introduced last month that would limit so-called patent thickets used by pharmaceutical companies to restrict the production of generic counterparts to their drugs.

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Analysis

Medicaid Cuts May Worsen Incarceration-Linked Death Risks

By Hannah Albarazi

A new public health investigation reveals an association between incarceration and elevated risk of early death, not only for people who have been behind bars but for entire communities. Experts caution that impending disinvestment in Medicaid could worsen outcomes in vulnerable populations.

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Ex-Patent Examiner Fights USPTO Exclusion At High Court

By Adam Lidgett

A former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examiner wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review his exclusion from practicing before the agency, saying the justices should look at issues relating to a suspension he received and also federal civil rights protections.

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Approach The Bench: Justice Wecht On Judicial Campaigns

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

If running for judicial office often requires walking the line of being a sitting jurist and a politician, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht is no stranger to that tightrope.

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