SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge on July 17 dismissed without leave to amend a consumer’s putative class action lawsuit against the maker of “Hamburger Helper” products for allegedly misrepresenting the cheese content of its products with a picture of a bowl of cheesy pasta and the statement “Made With Real Cheese,” finding cheese was not advertised as a primary ingredient and that the labels would not deceive reasonable consumers.

CINCINNATI — Ruling that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act expressly preempts state law claims and that lost monetary benefits are not equitable relief, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 17 affirmed judgment for the administrator of so-called “top hat” deferred compensation and retirement plans.

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The Food and Drug Administration on July 17 announced that five tobacco- and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products manufactured by Juul Labs Inc. have been authorized to be marketed and sold in the United States, three years after the company’s premarket tobacco application (PMTA) was denied by the FDA.

NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the judgment of a Louisiana federal court, which granted summary judgment in favor of the Small Business Administration (SBA) in a case challenging the SBA’s refusal to forgive a portion of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan amount that had been based on money the loan recipient paid to its independent contractors the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

SAN FRANCISCO — In a pair of developments, a California federal judge on July 17 granted a class certification motion in an artificial intelligence copyright suit involving pirated works, saying “It will be straightforward to prove the classwide wrong done” and the case is the exact type that benefits from representative litigation.  In an earlier ruling the judge asked for a response to Anthropic PBC’s motion for reconsideration or an interlocutory appeal of a ruling on the company’s fair use arguments.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia appeals court on July 17 held that “a lay juror could determine, from their common knowledge and everyday experience, whether” a janitorial company “exercised reasonable care in warning passersby of the hazard caused by the wet floor,” reversing a decision by a lower court that failure to present expert testimony was fatal to a woman’s case.

CONCORD, N.H. — A New Hampshire trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing an expert to testify about intimate partner violence in a criminal case, the state Supreme Court said, finding that the testimony met the state’s admissibility standards.

WACO, Texas — A Texas federal judge who found that Cisco Systems Inc. did not infringe multiple claims of a computer system patent before a jury began deliberations said in a July 16 opinion that two remaining patents at issue are invalid as being directed at an abstract concept without a necessary transformative inventive idea added to it.