 //sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591700&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=34745513&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591701&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=34745513&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591702&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=34745513&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591703&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=34745513&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591704&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=34745513&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
|
|
|
| //sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=874768&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=34745513&stpe=static” border=”0″ style=”max-height:12px;” /> |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed inclined to grant insurers broad leeway to participate in bankruptcy proceedings, Dietrich Knauth reports.
The justices heard oral arguments in an appeal by Truck Insurance Exchange, which is seeking a ruling that it was eligible to object to Kaiser Gypsum’s proposal to settle asbestos litigation in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Neal Gorsuch, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh all pushed back on Kaiser Gypsum’s arguments that the insurers should not weigh in on the bankruptcy plan.
Truck’s petition was supported by the DOJ’s bankruptcy watchdog, which argued that stakeholders and potential stakeholders have a right to be heard on “any issue” that arises in a bankruptcy.
Legal experts have said the case could have implications for other mass tort bankruptcies involving large numbers of victims and settlements funded by insurance. The debate over insurers’ rights in bankruptcy has been a sticking point in several recent mass tort bankruptcy cases, including bankruptcies of the Boy Scouts of America and several Catholic dioceses.
|
|
|
|
- Stefanie Lambert, a lawyer defending the former CEO of Overstock.com against defamation claims by voting machine company Dominion, was released on bond in Washington, D.C., after her arrest in connection with Michigan criminal charges that she tampered with voting machines.
- Squire Patton Boggs has been sued in New York for allegedly refusing to pay rent for its former office in Moscow, which the firm shuttered after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. R.D. Project Development B.V., a Dutch company that subleased space to the law firm in Moscow, filed papers seeking a judgment against Squire Patton Boggs for about $138,000 plus interest to satisfy a December 2022 judgment from a Moscow arbitration court.
- Baker McKenzie has sued the IRS to force the agency to publicly disclose more information about its expanded tax compliance crackdown on large partnerships. The firm said in the FOIA lawsuit the IRS should be forced to disclose memos, policy statements and training materials concerning document requests to partnerships and other entities.
- Nicole Berner, the top lawyer for one of the largest U.S. labor unions, won U.S. Senate approval for a seat on the 4th Circuit, making her the first openly LGBTQ judge to ever serve on the Richmond, Virginia-based court.
- U.S. News & World report said that it will release its closely watched law school rankings on April 9. Rankings watchers expect that U.S. News will modify its formula to make it more difficult for people to use publicly available ABA data to forecast the results months before the official list comes out and to reduce volatility in schools’ rankings.
|
Prominent plaintiffs firm Motley Rice won a battle on Monday when a Cleveland federal judge denied an attempt by pharmacy benefits manager OptumRx to oust the firm from sweeping, multibillion-dollar litigation arising from the opioids crisis. But Alison Frankel says the ruling by U.S. District Judge Aaron Polster will give new ammunition to critics fighting a broader policy war to block state and local governments from hiring plaintiffs firms like Motley Rice to pursue private claims against corporate defendants.
|
“AI is fertile ground for fraudsters to make false and exaggerated claims.“
|
—Ismail Ramsey, the DOJ’s top prosecutor in San Francisco, in an interview with Reuters. Ramsey, who became U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California a year ago, said entrepreneurs may be tempted to mislead investors about key information, including customer reach, revenue base and product readiness to generate interest in a prospective offering.
|
|
|
|
- The 4th Circuit will convene as a full court to hear a series of major challenges to gun control laws, including a case seeking to strike down Maryland’s ban on assault weapons. The court also will hear arguments in the DOJ’s appeal of a West Virginia judge’s ruling that declared unconstitutional a law banning possession of a gun with its serial number removed. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 broadly expanded gun rights.
- London’s High Court will hear applications by Prince Harry to amend his lawsuit against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the Sun tabloid and the now-defunct News of the World, over allegations of phone hacking and other privacy breaches.
- Mark Moffett, a former Aegerion Pharmaceuticals sales representative, is slated to be sentenced after he admitted to defrauding insurers into paying for the company’s expensive cholesterol drug. Moffett, 51, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston to a single wire fraud count a year after a federal appeals court overturned his 2019 trial conviction.
|
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
|
- Several social media companies, including Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram and Google’s YouTube, were ordered by a New York state judge to face four lawsuits seeking to hold them responsible for helping enable an avowed white supremacist who killed 10 Black people in 2022 at a Buffalo, New York grocery store.
- The city of Chicago is teaming up with Everytown and Paul Weiss to sue gun maker Glock over claims it knowingly sold pistols that were easily converted into machine guns. The conversion requires the addition of an inexpensive piece that can be bought online, and Glock has done nothing to change its guns to block that modification, the lawsuit claims.
- The makers of the hit ABC comedy “Abbott Elementary” convinced a New York federal court to dismiss a lawsuit from a writer who accused them of copying her script. U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla in a decision said Christine Davis could not prove that “Abbott Elementary” was similar enough to her proposed television show “This School Year” to show that Disney’s ABC infringed her copyright.
- Ferrari was hit with a U.S. lawsuit by drivers who said the Italian luxury sports car maker has failed to fix vehicles at risk of a partial or total loss of braking capability. Recalls in 2021 and 2022 to address leaking brake fluid were only an interim measure, allowing Ferrari to keep selling thousands of cars with defective brakes, the complaint said. Ferrari in a statement did not address the lawsuit but said its “highest priority” was the safety and well-being of its drivers.
- Top-ranked U.S. tennis player Reese Brantmeier has sued the NCAA in North Carolina federal court, accusing it of restricting prize money that tennis players, gymnasts and other athletes can earn for competitive events away from their schools. The proposed class action filed by Brantmeier, a star player attending the University of North Carolina, seeks damages and a court order blocking some curbs the collegiate athletic governing body places on compensation for athletic performance.
- The owner of Elon Musk’s X headquarters in San Francisco has dismissed a lawsuit that accused the social media platform of missing monthly rent payments totaling millions of dollars. SRI Nine Market Square said in a filing it was ending the case it lodged last year that accused X of missing a combined two months of rent in 2022 and 2023. The filing did not say if there had been a settlement or give any other reason for dropping the case.
|
|
|
- K&L Gates added corporate partners Mattias Luukkonen in Orange County, California, from Reed Smith, and San Francisco-based Michael Gorback from Hanson Bridgett. (K&L Gates)
- Crowell hired IP litigation partner Edward Taelman in Brussels from Allen & Overy. (Crowell)
|
|
|
|
