SEATTLE — A Washington federal magistrate judge on April 29 denied a motion to disqualify the U.S. law firm representing a Chinese law firm in its bid to enforce a confirmed arbitral award worth more than $765,000 in unpaid attorney fees against the Chinese firm’s former client, finding that an attorney who transitioned from the defendant’s firm to the plaintiff’s firm was not involved in the plaintiff’s case; the judge also declined to award fees incurred litigating the motion.

BALTIMORE — A household member who suffers an injury from exposure to asbestos brought home on work clothing qualifies as a bystander, and state law does not impose a duty element for a strict liability claim, the Maryland Supreme Court said in answering a certified question from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey appeals panel on April 29 reversed a trial court’s denial of an insurer’s motion to sever and stay a claim alleging violation of the New Jersey Insurance Fair Conduct Act (IFCA) after determining that staying the IFCA claim until after the insured’s claim for underinsured motorist (UIM) benefits is resolved promotes judicial efficiency and protects the interests of both parties.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Health policies in Maryland, with the exception of policies issued to small employers, must “cover expenses arising from IVF [in vitro fertilization] procedures to the same extent as expenses arising from other pregnancy-related procedures,” a divided Maryland Supreme Court ruled, affirming an appellate panel’s reinstatement of putative class claims by insureds seeking coverage for embryo thawing and agreeing that a class case can’t be mooted by reimbursing the insureds after the complaint was filed and before class certification was sought.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — No judicial review of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision to terminate the temporary protected status (TPS) for Syria and Haiti is permitted under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the U.S. solicitor general told the U.S. Supreme Court April 29 during oral arguments in two putative class cases consolidated by the high court after it treated the government’s applications to stay orders postponing the TPS terminations as petitions for writ of certiorari before judgment and granted them.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 28 affirmed a lower court ruling dismissing a putative class action suit against Meta Platforms Inc. alleging that anti-Rohingya content on Facebook incited violence against the plaintiffs and their villages in Myanmar and that Meta breached its duty of care to avoid injury to others, finding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred the plaintiffs’ claims because the content at issue was third-party content.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A Massachusetts federal judge on April 28 remanded a lawsuit filed by a 58-year-old smoker with lung cancer against three tobacco companies and two retailers to state court, finding the tobacco defendants failed to establish fraudulent joinder of one of the retailers and that the plaintiff’s misidentification of the retailer in the pleadings was an “excusable misnomer.”

NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge on April 28 sentenced Purdue Pharma LP in its criminal proceeding, ordering the OxyContin manufacturer to pay a criminal fine of $3.544 billion and an additional $2 billion in criminal forfeiture to end criminal proceedings five years after the drug maker pleaded guilty to three felony offenses relating to its role in the opioid epidemic.