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August 28, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania granted final approval to an $800,000 settlement between Widener University and a class of students that contended the school breached contracts and was unjustly enriched when it failed to provide prorated refunds for tuition and fees after the school shuttered on-campus teaching, services and amenities and transitioned to remote teaching in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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August 28, 2026
NEW YORK — Granting final approval of a settlement that a class of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) participants said “will deliver more than $22.5 million in total economic value through a combination of cash, loan reductions, and liquidity provisions,” a New York federal judge awarded $6.2 million for attorney fees and $727,406.93 for litigation expenses and $35,000 for settlement administration expenses as requested — but denied a request for two $10,000 service awards for the named plaintiffs.
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August 27, 2026
DALLAS — A Texas federal judge granted the Slovak Republic’s motion for default judgment and ordered the enforcement of an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) award in which a tribunal rejected a U.S. oil drilling company’s $133 million claim against the Republic for impairing its investment and instead ordered the driller to pay the Republic’s attorney fees and arbitration costs.
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August 27, 2026
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate court affirmed a lower court’s ruling granting insureds’ motion to enforce a settlement agreement against the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association Inc. (FIGA) in a breach of contract dispute over alleged loss related to hail and wind damage.
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August 26, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — Affirming rulings against the appellant on all other points — including a decision under which he was required to pay attorney fees totaling $122,951 — the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a claim in which he sought statutory Employee Retirement Income Security Act penalties for a retirement plan’s failure to produce an administrative services agreement (ASA) at his request.
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August 26, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri state judge granted final approval to a $2,525,000 settlement between a healthcare provider and a class of individuals whose personally identifying information and health data were disclosed when the provider fell victim to a 2025 cyberattack.
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August 24, 2026
ATLANTA — A Florida federal judge correctly denied attorney fees for YouTube LLC and related entities (collectively, YouTube) after the video streamer prevailed on copyright infringement claims by a film company that owns rights related to culturally significant Spanish language films, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held. The panel said that because the suit was not frivolous or unreasonable, fees were not permissible under the Copyright Act.
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August 24, 2026
DETROIT — Denying a request for $22,050 in attorney fees and costs in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over termination of long-term disability (LTD) benefits, a Michigan federal judge assessed the factors outlined in Sec'y of Dep't of Labor v. King and concluded “that an award of attorney fees would not be reasonable”; that decision applied to both what the judge said was the claimant’s untimely application for appellate fees and her timely application for fees on remand.
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August 21, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Firms that represented publishers’ interests and authors involved in a $1.5 billion class action settlement between a large group of authors and Anthropic PBC in a copyright suit over texts used to train Anthropic’s artificial intelligence programs have filed two notices of appeal, challenging only a portion of the final judgment that relates to more than $100 million in attorney fees awarded to the class counsel.
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August 21, 2026
NEW YORK — A reinsurance broker and an insurance exchange on Aug. 20 stipulated to dismissal in a New York federal court of their case in which the exchange sued the broker over $101,646.20 in brokerage fees the broker deducted from claim payments held in a fiduciary account.
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August 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Texas federal judge’s decision to dismiss a patent holder’s suit against Volkswagen Group of America Inc. with prejudice and to award more than $200,000 in attorney fees; the panel also dismissed counsel William P. Ramey III’s appeal of the judge’s sanctions that held him jointly and severally liable for the fee award because Ramey failed to timely appeal the sanction in his own name.
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August 20, 2026
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court order denying insureds’ request for attorney fees in their dispute with the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) over coverage for water damage to their condominium, finding that Florida law did not preclude an attorney fee award in the case because FIGA, through its affirmative action, denied part of the insureds’ claim.
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August 19, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge denied both parties’ requests for sanctions and affirmed a magistrate judge’s order denying the parties’ discovery requests in a breach of contract suit against a COVID-19 test manufacturer and supplier over alleged defective tests, finding that the magistrate judge correctly denied reopening discovery and that sanctions were not merited.
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August 17, 2026
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Second District Texas Court of Appeals panel held that a trial court judge was wrong to reduce a jury’s damages award to a couple who brought bad faith and Texas insurance law claims against their homeowners insurer for refusing to cover the cost of replacing an allegedly hail-damaged roof of their home. The panel opted, though, to modify the award to $14,500 instead of granting the jury’s full damages award or remanding the case based on a rejected settlement offer and a provision of the state insurance code.
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August 17, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Granting a motion for $227,348.40 in attorney fees and costs in a long-term disability (LTD) case in which the plaintiff was awarded $31,016.65, a California federal judge said in a minute in-chambers order that he “will not further reduce the recoverable fees based on Plaintiff’s partial success, especially given the intertwining nature of the successful and unsuccessful issues.”
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August 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Aug. 13 published an ad hoc committee’s decision denying in full the Argentine Republic’s application to annul a split tribunal’s award against it worth more than $23 million in favor of Austrian investment entities whose gaming license investment was expropriated and ordering Argentina to pay more than $1.2 million in attorney fees, expenses and arbitration costs because it raised “duplicative” arguments “which could never have been sustainable.”
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August 14, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida federal judge agreed to stay the enforcement of more than $1.3 million in Rule 11 sanctions while attorneys that represented a plaintiff school entity and the school itself appeal the order; sanctions were entered after the plaintiff school continued to pursue nationwide trademark damages for several months in 2023 after discovery failed to produce supporting evidence and engaged in what the judge previously called “five-and-a-half years of abusive litigation” in a dispute over virtual schooling trademarks while some of the attorneys appeal the sanctions.
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August 14, 2026
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate court panel reversed and remanded a lower court’s order denying a motion by the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) to enforce a settlement agreement and granting the insureds’ motion to enforce a settlement agreement in a dispute over coverage for purported water damage, finding that the lower court erred in requiring that FIGA “pay the entire settlement amount,” which included the attorney fee portion.
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August 14, 2026
ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s award of attorney fees to a debtor’s lawyer, finding the debtor failed to show the bankruptcy court erred in allowing attorney fees to be paid from undisbursed funds held by the bankruptcy trustee after the debtor’s Chapter 13 bankruptcy case was dismissed.
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August 14, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Supreme Court overturned an appellate court’s order reversing a trial court’s denial of attorney fees to a contractor in its subcontractor’s suit against it for breach of contract after the contractor refused to pay the subcontractor for its work because it claimed that the subcontractor’s work was defective, finding that the contractor failed to identify the basis for its request for attorney fees.
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August 14, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated an attorney fee award and remanded for further proceeding, finding that a lower court did not determine whether attorney fees a company sought from a guarantor were part of an underlying loan and, therefore, had to be allocated under an intercreditor agreement governing proceeds from the sale of the borrower’s assets.
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August 14, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s award of attorney fees in favor of a consumer credit reporting agency after it successfully moved for dismissal of a consumer’s third complaint against it for allegedly reporting false and derogatory information regarding his bankruptcy on his credit report, finding that the lower court properly awarded fees under Texas state law.
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August 13, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A more than decade-long class case against Grubhub Inc. and Grubhub Holdings Inc. (together, Grubhub) by drivers who alleged that they were unlawfully classified as independent contractors was settled for $24.75 million, according to an order by a federal judge in California granting final settlement approval and partially granting a motion for attorney fees and costs.
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August 13, 2026
CHICAGO — Homebuyers who sued a real estate broker trade association and three real estate franchisors for allegedly conspiring over commission rates have reached class settlements with two of the franchisors for a total of $28.5 million, according to orders of settlement filed in a federal court in Illinois.
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August 12, 2026
LINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Supreme Court issued an opinion affirming a lower court’s finding that the purchasers of property was not owed attorney fees from the trust that sold the property when the seller refused to defend their title in a third-party quiet title suit because the purchasers successfully defended against the quiet title suit.