ATLANTA — A Georgia appellate court reversed a lower court’s judgment dismissing the Georgia insurance commissioner’s conversion and fraud suit against an affiliated company of a Georgia health maintenance organization (HMO) in liquidation regarding the company’s alleged improper receipt of $21 million in advance funds, finding that the lower court had jurisdiction under the Insurers Rehabilitation and Liquidation Act and that the commissioner had standing to sue.

ATLANTA — Following final approval of a $47.75 million class deal under which class members will have an average gross recovery of more than $252,000, a Nov. 4 judgment entered in Georgia federal court wrapped up a long-running suit over lump-sum payments from terminated “top hat” plans that had provided life annuities for NCR Corp. executives.

RICHMOND, Va. — A divided Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 3 denied a petition filed by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency to rehear a panel majority’s decision affirming a preliminary injunction preventing the agencies from firing, without providing reassignment or appeal procedures or obtaining federal district court approval, a group of workers who said they were faced with termination after working in temporary assignments related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA).

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana ordered an asbestos case dismissed on Nov. 3 after the parties notified the court that they had reached a compromise, just days after the judge said she would admit soil testing results because they were relevant to the defendants’ alternative asbestos exposure theory and it was irrelevant that some of the samples came from neighboring properties that the exposed individual never owned.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 3 affirmed in part and reversed in part and remanded a lower court’s dismissal of a sex-trafficking victim’s suit alleging in part that Meta Platforms Inc. financially benefited from sex trafficking, finding that while Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act bars a product liability design defect claim based on identity and age verification requirements, it does not bar the design defect claim based on reporting requirements.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — 3M announced Nov. 3 that it has reached an agreement to make a $7.35 billion pretax nominal commitment to be paid over nine years to settle more than 100,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-related personal injury claims in and outside the aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) multidistrict litigation (MDL) in a federal court in South Carolina.

AUSTIN, Texas — Conditionally granting mandamus relief and saying that “discovery must always be proportionate to the needs of the case,” the Texas Supreme Court ordered a trial court to vacate a ruling it concluded wrongly “compelled entry onto the relator’s homestead for inspection over her objection” in a neighborhood dispute.

HOUSTON — A trial court properly applied admittedly ambiguous rules governing transfer of older asbestos cases to the Texas multidistrict litigation, a Texas appellate court justice said in a dissent after the court denied en banc reconsideration of a ruling ordering remand of the cases.