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SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge on Sept. 12 denied a software provider’s motion to dismiss a suit against it for breach of contract and violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), brought by a payroll company that alleges that it unlawfully lost access to payroll software and searchable client data contained therein after paying licensing fees for more than 20 years.
STATESVILLE, N.C. — A couple alleging that a woman suffered post-surgical complications following a spinal surgery that included a FiberCel product and certain defendants told a North Carolina federal court that they have reached a settlement to resolve all claims, while filing a letter with the court advising that mediation with another defendant has been unsuccessful.
ATLANTA — A Georgia appellate court affirmed a jury verdict of $418,758.55 in an undue influence and fraud suit filed by the estate of a man against a woman almost five decades his junior who had moved in with him, promising to take care of him for the rest of his life, finding that the woman “failed to present any meaningful argument” to show a lack of evidence regarding her “egregious conduct” in gaining control over “an elderly, cognitively impaired man’s finances, assets, and property.”
DENVER — Ruling that a common interest agreement (CIA) does not protect the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) from waiving its privileges and protections by sharing investigative materials with plaintiffs challenging an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deal, a Colorado federal magistrate judge on Sept. 11 said the plaintiffs gained “access to information they can leverage, use to take shortcuts, and rely upon to circumvent ordinary discovery protocols.”
PHILADELPHIA — A jury in a Pennsylvania state court on Sept. 12 ruled in favor of Monsanto Co. in a trial for damages brought by a man who contended that he developed cancer from exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.
BALTIMORE — Experts retained by an organization that alleges that the U.S. Naval Academy unconstitutionally considers race as a factor in admissions can testify after a federal judge in Maryland largely denied a motion to exclude.
ATLANTA — A federal judge in Georgia on Sept. 11 partially granted a motion from the estate of a songwriter and the company that manages his works to bar former President Donald J. Trump and associated entities from using a soul tune from the 1960s at future campaign appearances, but the judge held that the estate and the company are not harmed by videos of the song being used at past campaign stops.
PASADENA, Calif. — A split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Sept. 11 reversed the dismissal of a putative class action against a hand sanitizer maker that advertises its products as capable of killing “99.99% of germs,” with the majority finding that the plaintiff adequately raised an “alternative theory” that the defendant misrepresented the effectiveness of its products under “real-world conditions” in which consumers’ hands may be dirty, greasy or wet.
DENVER — An assistant principal who was fired after citing religious beliefs when disagreeing with a play that was to be put on by students may proceed with his discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), a 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Sept. 10, opining that the former employee “provide[d] a plausible link between his termination and a discriminatory motive.”
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge granted motions to dismiss filed by the manufacturer of embryo culture media and its subsidiary in a case in which a couple alleges that a defective solution that was used in the fertility procedure caused none of their fertilized eggs to survive to the blastocyst stage.
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge on Sept. 10 granted summary judgment to defendants in a defective metal-on-metal hip implant case remanded from a multidistrict litigation after finding that the man who alleges that he was injured failed to prove causation or that his doctor relied on misrepresentations from the company.