Transportation

  • April 16, 2024

    Cooperation Helped Cable Co. Avoid Prosecution, Feds Say

    The U.S. Department of Justice's fraud section has indicated it won't prosecute Proterial Cable America for allegedly fraudulently misrepresenting the safety standards compliance of its motorcycle brake hose assemblies because of the company's timely self-disclosure, cooperation and remediation, among other things.

  • April 16, 2024

    Cashed Check Kills VW Emissions Deal Appeal, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday threw out an attempt to unravel an $80 million deal resolving consolidated consumer litigation alleging Volkswagen and Porsche manipulated emissions and fuel-economy tests for nearly 500,000 gas-powered vehicles, saying the objector has already cashed his portion of the settlement.

  • April 16, 2024

    DC Circ. Grills EPA On Nixing Refiners' Biofuel Exemptions

    A D.C. Circuit panel seemed open Tuesday to petroleum refiners' challenge to federal regulators' denial of their exemptions to federal renewable fuel requirements, as the judges grilled attorneys for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on how federal regulators gauge refineries' compliance costs.

  • April 16, 2024

    Freight Co. Can't Escape $15M Verdict In Deckhand Death Suit

    A St. Louis-area mother whose son, a tugboat worker, fell overboard and died, presumably by drowning under a barge, will get to keep a $15 million jury award, a Missouri appeals court ruled Monday, rejecting the company's bid to lower the award to no more than $1.2 million.

  • April 16, 2024

    Amazon Beats Suit After Injured Drivers Bury Medical Details

    Amazon can't be held liable in a personal injury lawsuit accusing an affiliate semitruck driver of rear-ending a family's vehicle, Michigan appeals court has ruled, saying it's not the court's responsibility to dig through a "huge stack of medical records" to find information favorable to the plaintiff.

  • April 16, 2024

    DOE Aims To Wrap LNG Review By Year-End, Granholm Says

    U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday said her agency hoped to complete the review of its liquefied natural gas export policy by year's end and pushed back on accusations that the current pause of export reviews is permanent.

  • April 16, 2024

    Mercedes Rusty Subframe Suit Is Too Vague, Judge Is Told

    Mercedes-Benz argued in court Tuesday that a proposed class action over a claimed subframe defect should be dismissed as an improper shotgun pleading as it directs allegations at "Mercedes" without specifying whether the German parent company or its Atlanta subsidiary are supposedly to blame.

  • April 16, 2024

    Judges Doubt Denver Transit Co.'s $112M Loss Is Protected

    A pair of Colorado appellate judges on Tuesday grilled an attorney representing a company claiming its contract with a regional transit authority protected it from $112 million in losses after state regulators changed the rules, asking how the problems that caused the losses weren't the company's own fault.

  • April 16, 2024

    Virginia Judge Tosses State Broadband Law Challenge

    The Association of American Railroads has lost its challenge to a Virginia federal law that gives broadband providers easier access to railroad property and that the group says constitutes illegal taking, after a judge knocked out all the suit's claims for various reasons.

  • April 16, 2024

    BIPA Judge Laments Blown Discovery Deadlines — Again

    An Illinois federal judge on Monday scolded Union Pacific and the truck drivers suing it over alleged biometric privacy violations for missing a sixth discovery deadline, saying the results of multiple discovery extensions he's allowed over five years of litigation have been "disappointing, to say the least."

  • April 16, 2024

    Buttigieg, State AGs To Probe Consumer Airline Complaints

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday announced a new partnership with Colorado and over a dozen other states to investigate consumer complaints about air travel, vowing to hold airlines and ticket agents accountable for excessive flight cancellations and unfair business practices.

  • April 16, 2024

    IBM Gained Most AI Patents By Far In 2023

    IBM obtained more U.S. artificial intelligence patents in 2023 than any other company, with its closest competitors falling behind by more than 300 patents, according to a Harrity Patent Analytics report announced Tuesday.

  • April 16, 2024

    3rd Circ. Cuts Claims In Geico Vehicle Value-Adjustment Suit

    A New Jersey couple can't bring class-action claims against Geico over it allegedly knocking too much off the payout value on totaled cars, since the company ultimately adjusted their personal claim settlement offer upward, a Third Circuit panel has ruled.

  • April 16, 2024

    Flyers Challenge $1.9B Hawaiian-Alaska Airlines Merger

    Alaska Airlines is facing an antitrust lawsuit from flyers alleging that its proposed $1.9 billion acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines will reduce competition in the airline industry, raise prices and potentially cause layoffs.

  • April 16, 2024

    Pot Transport Co. Can't Escape Overtime Suit

    A company specializing in secure transport of marijuana products didn't show that its drivers engage in interstate commerce and therefore can't escape a driver's misclassification suit seeking unpaid overtime, a Michigan federal judge has ruled.

  • April 16, 2024

    Carparts.com Stockholder Revs Up Poison Pill Suit In Del.

    A stockholder of e-commerce auto parts supplier Carparts.com Inc. has sued for a Delaware Court of Chancery order blocking a low-threshold, shareholder rights plan takeover defense allegedly adopted by the company to corral investor unrest after three years of losses.

  • April 16, 2024

    Ex-North Korean Official Charged With Dodging US Sanctions

    A former North Korean diplomat in Thailand is facing criminal charges in Washington, D.C., federal court alleging he conspired to surreptitiously ship goods into his home country in avoidance of U.S. sanctions.

  • April 16, 2024

    Moving Co. Execs Found Guilty In $7.7M Payroll Tax Scheme

    The former president of a moving company and its head bookkeeper conspired to evade more than $7.7 million in federal payroll taxes, a New York federal jury has found.

  • April 15, 2024

    Resistance To Patent Licenses Drives More Suits, Execs Say

    Companies that generate revenue from patents are seeing less willingness to negotiate in recent years among businesses they approach about potential licenses, requiring more litigation in order to reach agreements, executives from IBM, InterDigital and others said Monday.

  • April 15, 2024

    Judge Tosses 'Boilerplate' Infringement Suit Against OnStar

    OnStar LLC has escaped an infringement suit alleging it infringed a wireless company's patent for tracking vehicles after a Michigan federal judge said the wireless company did not properly describe its patent or allege how OnStar was misusing the technology.

  • April 15, 2024

    Tesla Workers' Atty Rips Claim Of Influence Over State Agency

    Counsel representing a putative class of roughly 6,000 Black Tesla workers alleging the automaker has allowed racism to run rampant at its California factory fired back during a class certification hearing Monday, calling Tesla's suggestion that plaintiffs counsel are driving the state's civil-rights litigation "beyond preposterous."

  • April 15, 2024

    Drivers Can't Avoid Uber's 'Road Not Taken' Position

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has ruled that the luxury car drivers who accused Uber Technologies Inc. of misclassifying them as independent contractors must respond to the company's renewed post-trial win bid, rejecting the drivers' argument that it was too long and filed too late.

  • April 15, 2024

    Oil Co. Warns NC Justices Of 'Unfair' Results In Taking Case

    An oil company and two other former plaintiffs from a settled state government land-taking proposed class action have warned the North Carolina Supreme Court that if the justices affirm an intermediate appellate ruling in a similar case, they would be reinforcing "unfair, unequal, disparate and divergent" treatment of property owners.

  • April 15, 2024

    Baltimore Taps DiCello Levitt, Saltz Mongeluzzi For Key Bridge

    The city of Baltimore announced Monday it has hired DiCello Levitt and Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky PC as it plans legal action against those responsible for a container ship destroying the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month, the same day FBI agents boarded the ship as part of a criminal investigation.

  • April 15, 2024

    Boeing Says Virgin Can't Use Another Court To Avoid IP Suit

    Boeing has urged the Virginia federal judge overseeing its breach of contract and trade secrets dispute with Virgin Galactic to block Virgin from moving forward with a "copycat" lawsuit in California, saying Virgin is wrongly trying to avoid the original lawsuit.

Expert Analysis

  • Args In APA Case Amplify Justices' Focus On Agency Power

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    In arguments last week in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, the U.S. Supreme Court justices paid particular importance to the possible ripple effects of their decision, which will address when a facial challenge to long-standing federal rules under the Administrative Procedure Act first accrues and could thus unleash a flood of new lawsuits, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • A Rare Look At Judicial Interpretation Of LEG Exclusions

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    A Florida federal court’s order last month in Archer Western-De Moya v. Ace American Insurance and an earlier decision from a D.C. federal court offer insight into how courts may interpret defects exclusion clauses developed by the London Engineering Group — filling a void in case law in the area, says Jonathan Bruce at Holman Fenwick.

  • Mitigating Whistleblower Risks After High Court UBS Ruling

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    While it is always good practice for companies to periodically review whistleblower trainings, policies and procedures, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent whistleblower-friendly ruling in Murray v. UBS Securities helps demonstrate their importance in reducing litigation risk, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • What Recent Setbacks In Court Mean For Enviro Justice

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    Two courts in Louisiana last month limited the federal government's ability to require consideration of Civil Rights Act disparate impacts when evaluating state-issued permits — likely providing a framework for opposition to environmental justice initiatives in other states, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

  • Series

    ESG Around The World: Gulf Cooperation Council

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    The Gulf Cooperation Council is in the early stages of ESG policy implementation, but recent commitments by both states and corporations — including increases in sustainable finance transactions, environmental commitments, female representation on boards and human rights enforcement — show continuing progress toward broader ESG goals, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • Steps For Companies New To Sanctions Compliance

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    Businesses newly required to implement compliance programs due to the increased breadth of mandatory sanctions and export controls, including 500 additional Russia sanctions announced last Friday, should closely follow the guidance issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and other regulators, say Jennifer Schubert and Megan Church at MoloLamken.

  • 6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media

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    In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • Justices Stay The Course In Maritime Choice-Of-Law Ruling

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's narrowly drawn decision in Great Lakes Insurance v. Raiders Retreat Realty, enforcing the underlying insurance contract's choice-of-law provision, carefully distinguishes those provisions from forum selection clauses, and ensures that courts will not apply its precepts outside the maritime context, says John Coyle at the University of North Carolina.

  • A Look Ahead For The Electric Vehicle Charging Industry

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    This will likely be an eventful year for the electric vehicle market as government efforts to accelerate their adoption inevitably clash with backlash from supporters of the petroleum industry, say Rue Phillips at SkillFusion and Enid Joffe at Green Paradigm Consulting.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

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    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • Challenges Remain In Financing Energy Transition Minerals

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    COP28, the latest U.N. climate conference, reached a consensus on a just and equitable transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but more action and funding will be needed to ensure that developed countries responsibly source the minerals that will be critical for this process, say attorneys at Watson Farley.

  • Del. Segway Dismissal Suggests Execs Not Liable For Biz Risk

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    While the debate continues within the Delaware Chancery Court over whether Caremark liability applies to matters of pure business risk, the court's recent rejection of Segway’s suit against the ex-president who oversaw financial difficulties suggests the court is uninterested in undermining the deference the business judgment rule grants corporate fiduciaries, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Aviation Watch: 737 Max Blowout Raises Major Safety Issues

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    The sudden in-flight loss of a side panel on an Alaska Air 737-9 Max last month, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane's cabin, highlighted ongoing quality issues at Boeing, the jet's manufacturer — but the failure also arose from decisions made by the airline, says Alan Hoffman, a retired attorney and aviation expert.

  • Series

    Coaching High School Wrestling Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Coaching my son’s high school wrestling team has been great fun, but it’s also demonstrated how a legal career can benefit from certain experiences, such as embracing the unknown, studying the rules and engaging with new people, says Richard Davis at Maynard Nexsen.

  • Opinion

    New La. Gas Pipeline Projects Must Respect Rules And Rights

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    As pipeline developers rush to join in Louisiana's Haynesville Shale gas boom, established operators like Energy Transfer are justified in demanding that newer entrants respect safety rules, regulatory requirements and property rights when proposing routes that would cross existing pipelines, says Joshua Campbell at Campbell Law.

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