OAKLAND, Calif. — Rejecting the defendants’ arguments regarding the impact of a nine-factor test the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals instituted concerning releases in Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases, a California federal judge on June 4 issued separate orders denying motions to decertify the class and reopen discovery and then on June 5 amended the latter order to clarify that a bench trial in the long-running case over severance benefits is scheduled to start July 9.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 5 affirmed an Illinois federal judge’s finding that an appellant biopharmaceutical company’s generic version of an injectable antibiotic treatment method infringes another company’s patents.  The panel also rejected the appellant company’s argument that the patents were invalid for lack of adequate written description (Melinta Therapeutics, LLC, et al. v. Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Nos. 25-1281, 25-1282, Fed. Cir., 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 16259).

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling dismissing a relator’s qui tam suit against hospitals and related entities alleging violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) by participating in unlawful payments to physicians for referrals to the hospitals in violation of the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), finding that when the alleged schemes in the amended complaint are “stripped of inflammatory rhetoric and conclusory labels,” the practices of the hospitals “are consistent with running a lawful healthcare business.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 4 found that a Texas federal judge improperly combined four patents related to a heating and ventilation system into a single infringement question on the verdict form and wrongly gave the jury incomplete instructions on patent eligibility; the panel vacated the jury’s infringement findings and damages award of more than $11.5 million and ordered a new trial on both issues.

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge skipped the third and mandatory step of increasing a remittitur calculation by 50% and should add $1.95 million to a proposed $3.9 million judgment in an asbestos case, a family tells a federal judge in Louisiana in a June 4 motion for reconsideration.

RICHMOND, Va. — Denying en banc rehearing in a case where it reversed and vacated certification of a mandatory class, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 4 let its ruling stand in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act case challenging the employer’s decision to include passively managed BlackRock LifePath Index target date funds (TDFs) in its defined-contribution retirement plan.

RICHMOND, Va. — An employee who settled individual wage-and-hour claims following decertification of a collective action and two classes lacks standing to appeal that decertification decision, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, dismissing the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

SEATTLE — A case that is part of a wave of putative class actions challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions would settle for an estimated $42,724,532 under a deal to which a Washington federal judge granted preliminary approval on June 4 after a hearing.