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May 06, 2026
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Overruling the lone objection he said failed to “raise substantive or persuasive concerns about the adequacy, reasonableness, or fairness of the settlement,” a California federal judge granted final approval to a $21.5 million class deal that resolved a long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act pension benefits class action the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partly revived in November 2024 after a bench trial.
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May 06, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California issued a pretrial order on an insurer’s declaratory relief claims and the insured’s remaining counterclaims for breach of contract, violation of California Business and Professions Code Section 17200 and declaratory relief five days after ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment that the insurer had a continuing duty to defend its insured even after the defamation claim in the underlying lawsuit was dismissed.
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May 06, 2026
OLYMPIA, Wash. — In an en banc decision affirming discovery rulings in favor of former foster children who accuse Washington state of negligence for purportedly failing to protect them from physical and sexual abuse, the Washington Supreme Court ruled in part that the documents are privileged under state law but must be produced because a statutory exception applies.
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May 05, 2026
CARSON CITY, Nev. — A Nevada Supreme Court panel found that a lower court properly awarded attorney fees to a corporation in a contract dispute with a subcontractor whose faulty workmanship led the sprinkler system it installed in a hotel and casino to leak, finding that the subcontract entitled the corporation to attorney fees.
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May 04, 2026
CHICAGO — A company that develops and sells workplace biometric timeclocks and its insurers will pay $1,685,000 to end class claims by an Illinois woman that the company collected and stored her biometric data and the biometric data of others in violation of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA), according to an order dismissing the case with prejudice filed by a federal judge in that state.
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May 04, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — A federal judge in New Jersey denied a directors and officers liability insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in its insureds’ breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit, rejecting the insurer’s argument that the policy’s contract exclusion bars coverage for an underlying action alleging the insureds owe $435,378.93 under a credit card processing services agreement.
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May 04, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted final approval of a $65 million settlement in a case brought by investors against the company that created Snapchat for allegedly misleading investors when discussing the impact of Apple Inc.’s advertising changes to the company’s revenue.
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May 01, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware state judge on April 30 denied a motion by Fox News Network (FNN) to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it for defamation per se by California Gov. Gavin Newsom regarding FNN’s claim on-air that the governor “lied” about not having a phone call with President Donald J. Trump in June 2025 and denied FNN’s request for attorney fees based on Newsom’s withdrawal of a claim for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL).
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May 01, 2026
MADISON, Wis. — Awarding reduced attorney fees and costs of $151,612.50 and $402, respectively, and noting that the insurer ultimately reinstated the long-term disability (LTD) benefits at issue, a Wisconsin federal judge rejected the “baseless” argument that remand for reprocessing “does not constitute some success on the merits” in a case filed by a former internal medicine physician.
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April 30, 2026
SEATTLE — A Washington federal magistrate judge on April 29 denied a motion to disqualify the U.S. law firm representing a Chinese law firm in its bid to enforce a confirmed arbitral award worth more than $765,000 in unpaid attorney fees against the Chinese firm’s former client, finding that an attorney who transitioned from the defendant’s firm to the plaintiff’s firm was not involved in the plaintiff’s case; the judge also declined to award fees incurred litigating the motion.
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April 29, 2026
MIAMI — Bound by Cantens v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s London, a Florida appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of insureds’ Hurricane Irma coverage lawsuit because they failed comply with the presuit notice requirements under Florida Statutes Section 627.70152(3)(a).
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April 29, 2026
CARTHAGE, N.C. — A North Carolina state court judge granted final approval of a class action settlement in a data breach suit alleging that a radiology practice failed to safeguard patients’ personally identifiable information, which led to the data breach impacting more than 8,000 class members, finding “fair, reasonable, and adequate” the terms of the claims-made settlement which provides, among other things, that the practice pay $100,000 in attorney fees and expenses to class counsel.
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April 29, 2026
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge in Virginia granted final approval of a $425 million class settlement, ending a multidistrict litigation in which consumers accused Capital One N.A. and Capital One Financial Corp. (together, Capital One) of failing to inform them when their type of savings account was replaced with a new, higher interest account yet their money remained in the former accounts and earned a lower percentage of interest.
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April 28, 2026
MIAMI — Ticketholders for a 2024 soccer match have reached a class settlement of up to $14 million to end claims that some of them were denied entry and others were denied access to their seats after thousands of fans without tickets rushed the Florida stadium; final approval of the agreement was issued by a federal judge in Florida.
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April 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a technology company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in an April 27 order list, turning down a request to hear arguments that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly affirmed a California federal judge’s entry of more than $250,000 in attorney fees and additional sanctions against the company’s counsel for bringing a suit the judge found to be obviously meritless.
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April 23, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled April 22 that a California federal judge too rigidly applied local rules when denying a new trial motion from defendant entities found liable for willful copyright infringement through their distribution of DVDs of a Christian film; the panel’s opinion resolves three consolidated appeals from the case.
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April 22, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge granted final approval to an $84 million settlement and then closed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit that concerned allegations that Wells Fargo & Co. improperly used dividends of its preferred stock held in its 401(k)’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) fund; the judge noted that the defendants didn’t contest the plaintiffs’ assertion “that the settlement is ‘the largest-ever class action settlement of ERISA claims arising from an employee stock ownership plan.’”
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April 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In two opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that the evidence did not support a California federal jury’s determination that defendant medical entities in a sprawling dispute over a cosmetic penile implant device had misappropriated trade secrets; the panel found that all alleged trade secrets had been publicly disclosed in prior art patents.
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April 22, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California denied an insurer’s motion to reconsider the judge’s grant of summary judgment to developers in the developers’ case seeking coverage for construction defects and granted the developer’s motion for entry of final judgment against the insurer, finding the motion for reconsideration to be untimely and, because that motion was denied, that the motion for entry of final judgment should be granted.
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April 22, 2026
TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida federal judge granted final approval of a $650,000 data breach class settlement against a beverage company, certifying a nationwide class and awarding one-third in attorney fees over the company’s objection, after earlier denying preliminary approval and requiring the plaintiff to cure deficiencies in the settlement papers in a case arising from a cyberattack that allegedly exposed employees’ personal information.
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April 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 rejected an artist’s petition for a writ of certiorari, leaving in place a partly split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that reversed a California federal jury’s finding that Walmart Inc. had infringed copyrighted photos of the artist’s jellyfish-shaped lamps; the high court refused to hear arguments suggesting that the Ninth Circuit improperly considered the sufficiency of trial evidence while weighing a pretrial motion.
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April 21, 2026
MIAMI — A Florida federal judge adopted a magistrate’s report and recommendation and confirmed an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) award resolving a dispute between shareholders in a Venezuelan airline, ordering the respondent to pay more than $119,000 in attorney fees awarded by the tribunal plus interest and declining to award additional fees incurred litigating the matter in federal court.
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April 21, 2026
LAKELAND, Fla. — A Florida appellate court affirmed a lower court ruling granting attorney fees to a medical practice in its dispute with the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) over payment for medical treatment for a patient insured by a now-insolvent insurer, agreeing with the lower court that the practice is not entitled to attorney fees incurred prior to the insurer’s insolvency because the litigation occurring prior to the insolvency was not related to FIGA’s denial of coverage.
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April 17, 2026
RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina federal judge denied a motion for attorney fees filed by a cardiology practice in a qui tam suit alleging that the practice and physicians violated the False Claims Act (FCA) and related North Carolina law by billing government insurers for unnecessary cardiac catheterizations, finding the assertion by the United States and North Carolina that the defendants submitted false claims for procedures that were not medically necessary and with disregard for the truth “substantially justified.”
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April 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a decision to deny law firm’s motion to enforce its charging lien entitling it to the attorney fees its client was awarded, finding that the lower court erred by requiring the firm to satisfy both parts of the legal framework governing charging liens in the firm’s home state of Indiana.