NEW YORK — Leaving for the trial court the question of whether a mortgage servicer acted in a fiduciary capacity in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act dispute centered on residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on March 26 partly reversed and remanded a ruling against pension fund trustees, concluding that the mortgages underlying three of the six such securities at issue “are plan assets under” the applicable regulation.

AUSTIN, Texas — A trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of an insurer on claims alleging that the insurer violated the Texas Insurance Code by denying the insured’s theft claim in bad faith because the insurer met its burden of showing that a reasonable coverage dispute existed; however, the trial court improperly granted the insurer’s motion on the insured’s breach of contract claim because the value of the insured’s stolen items was not an essential element of the breach of contract claim, the Third District Texas Court of Appeals said March 26.

SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico state court jury found Meta Platforms Inc. liable in a suit alleging that it violated state consumer protection laws, assessing $5,000 in penalties per violation, totaling $375 million for Meta’s alleged “refusal to implement design features that would protect children from sexual exploitation and mental health harm.”

LOS ANGELES — A California state court jury on March 25 returned a verdict ordering Meta Platforms Inc. and YouTube LLC to pay $6 million in damages, comprising $3 million in compensatory damages and $2.1 million in punitive damages against Meta and $900,000 against YouTube, in a suit alleging that the social media platforms “breached their duty” to the plaintiff by failing to warn of “the risks associated with using the platforms” that led to “addiction.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man who won $1.25 million in a Missouri state court jury trial against Monsanto Co. for injuries related to exposure to the herbicide Roundup on March 25 filed a merits brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in response to Monsanto’s challenge of the verdict as violating the preemption provision in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), contending that the jury concluded that Roundup was “unlawful to sell under Missouri common law that tracks FIFRA’s misbranding standards.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 25 about whether workers who locally deliver goods without crossing state borders are characterized as “transportation workers” who are “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” and therefore exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in a dispute regarding the classification of an employee of a national bakery products corporation.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Maryland Supreme Court, in answering a certified question from a district court, held “that the licensed dispensing of, or administration of benefit plans for, a controlled substance does not constitute an actionable public nuisance.”

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 24 refused to reconsider its holding that a professional liability insurance policy’s fee exclusion bars coverage for a financial services company insured’s liability in two underlying class actions alleging that certain mortgage loan fees were unlawful and that the insured was derivatively liable under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act.