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September 30, 2026
SEATTLE — Denying a petition for rehearing en banc without substantive explanation, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 29 let stand an unpublished memorandum disposition in which it briefly upheld the trial court’s ruling requiring recalculation of withdrawal liability under Ninth Circuit precedent but declined to award attorney fees for the appeal.
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September 30, 2026
ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge denied a spray foam manufacturer’s motion for attorney fees from a homeowner who filed suit after falling ill from the effects of allegedly toxic foam used to insulate her home, ruling that even though the plaintiff’s claims against the manufacturer were dismissed on summary judgment, they were “not so substantially groundless as to warrant a fee award.”
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September 30, 2026
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida rejected a request for $215,401.60 in fees and instead ordered an attorney in a dispute between two medical marijuana companies to pay $6,720 in attorney fees spent responding to fictitious citations in his motion.
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September 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) published a split tribunal’s award finding no jurisdiction over a U.S. metered parking system investor’s claim accusing the United Mexican States of violating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and ordered the investor to pay all of Mexico’s attorney fees and costs.
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September 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an attorney’s petition for rehearing en banc in which he sought reconsideration of a Federal Circuit panel’s decision dismissing for lack of jurisdiction the attorney’s challenge to a Veterans Court ruling that affirmed a reduction of his attorney fee award as being unreasonable.
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September 29, 2026
SALEM, Ore. — Review of an Oregon appellate court’s allocation of coverage damages in a contribution coverage dispute between primary and excess insurers over environmental contamination costs incurred by the insureds is not warranted because the appellate court correctly applied the plain language of Oregon’s independent counsel statute and the primary insurer does not dispute the interpretation, a settling insurer says in response to the primary insurer’s petition for review filed in the Oregon Supreme Court.
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September 28, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge entered a final judgment in favor of a photojournalist whose copyrighted footage of protests that occurred in summer 2020 was infringed by the city of Chicago and a former top police officer, ordering that the photojournalist be paid nearly $200,000 in damages, prejudgment interest and costs and entering a permanent injunction against the city defendants; however, the judge denied the photojournalist’s motion for attorney fees.
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September 24, 2026
PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied two attorneys’ petition for a writ of mandamus challenging a judge’s sanction ordering them to pay Walmart Inc. more than $623,000 in attorney fees it incurred litigating a consumer’s class action suit regarding the labeling of its avocado oil, writing that the dispute does not warrant an order of mandamus and that the attorneys can appeal the sanctions order after the litigation concludes.
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September 24, 2026
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Noting that interest from the defendants’ early payment of $13.4 million had grown the common fund to $13,524,410.05, a Massachusetts federal judge gave final approval to the class settlement of a case in which 401(k) plan participants challenged recordkeeping and managed account fees and inclusion of two allegedly underperforming investment options.
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September 23, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States in an amicus curiae brief tells the U.S. Supreme Court that the compensation a private pipeline company must pay in an eminent domain action carried out under the Natural Gas Act is controlled by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and not state law.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New York federal judge’s decision to enter a $3.24 million award for attorney fees and expenses, along with postjudgment interest, in a dispute related to patents describing processes for growing diamonds in a lab, agreeing that the plaintiff-appellant’s infringement position became objectively baseless after discovery, yet the entity still pursued its infringement claims.
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September 18, 2026
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Noting that the long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act dispute concerning deferred compensation “was in the top three percent of contentious cases” she had encountered, a Vermont federal judge awarded less than half of the amounts the parties requested for attorney fees, directing a plaintiff who was a breaching co-fiduciary to pay $189,478.92 for the defendants’ attorney fees and the defendants to pay $320,272.39 for the remaining plaintiffs’ attorney fees and costs.
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September 18, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia Court of Appeals panel denied a law firm’s petition for rehearing of the court’s opinion affirming a lower court’s confirmation of an arbitrator’s final award allocating contingent attorney fees to four law firms that represented a military equipment company in an underlying action.
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September 18, 2026
LAS VEGAS — A split panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s award of attorney fees in a false advertising suit, holding that the case was “exceptional" under the Lanham Act because the plaintiff repeatedly pursued meritless claims despite prior dismissals.
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September 18, 2026
MONTPELIER, Vt. — A Vermont Supreme Court panel held that a trial court erred in awarding attorney fees to a lender after the borrower defaulted on the loan’s promissory note, finding that the lender did not present the requisite evidence that the requested attorney fees were reasonable after the borrower disputed the fees’ reasonableness.
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September 18, 2026
CARSON CITY, Nev. — A Nevada Supreme Court panel held that a lower court erred in awarding attorneys the full amount of requested contingent attorney fees for representing a man in a medical malpractice suit, finding that the fees were capped under state law because the settled claim sounded in professional negligence rather than ordinary negligence.
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September 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In his Sept. 16 opening merits brief, an immigration detainee urges the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that a habeas corpus action challenging civil detention qualifies as a “civil action “under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), allowing a prevailing petitioner to request attorney fees and costs under the EAJA.
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September 17, 2026
NEW YORK — A Delaware-based esports company on Sept. 16 filed a response in New York federal court to a United Kingdom video game arena owner’s petition to confirm a JAMS arbitral award against it and its subsidiary worth more than $7.7 million, writing that it “does not oppose confirmation of the arbitration award” but that it opposes the petitioner’s request for attorney fees and costs incurred bringing the litigation, writing that a fee award is not warranted based on its nonpayment of the award because the parties are engaged in settlement discussions.
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September 16, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Ford Motor Co. filed a brief in California federal court opposing a law firm’s motion to dismiss and strike Ford’s complaint accusing the firm of violating the state’s unfair competition law (UCL) by allegedly fraudulently billing Ford for more than $25 million in allegedly “fabricated” attorney fees accumulated through multiple lawsuits brought against it under California’s Lemon Law, which the firm says is an impermissible “retaliatory” suit.
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September 16, 2026
BOSTON — In a memorandum and order citing the prejudice a long-term disability (LTD) claimant suffered and the LTD plan administrator’s “lack of concern for its” statutory obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a Massachusetts federal judge decided that the claimant is entitled to a “modest” penalty of $5,000 because the administrator provided plan documents only 230 days after the first of the claimant’s many requests.
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September 14, 2026
NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New York federal judge’s award of nearly $5 million in attorney fees to six women who prevailed on Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) claims against bond trader Howard Rubin, holding that the judge reasonably used a case-specific lodestar analysis and acted within his broad discretion in setting above-usual local rates and trimming the claimed hours by 15%.
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September 14, 2026
BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Supreme Court found that a lower court properly denied business damages to the owner of property condemned for a highway interchange and affiliated intervenors because the property owner did not own the businesses at issue and the intervenors’ businesses were not located on the property but held that the Idaho Transportation Board (ITB) was not entitled to attorney fees on appeal because the appeal was not frivolous.
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September 11, 2026
MIAMI — A Florida appellate court reversed a lower court’s order enforcing the full settlement amount against the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) for a hurricane damage claim settlement agreed upon between a now-insolvent insurer and an insured, finding that the homeowner failed to meet her burden to show that the settlement did not include attorney fees; the court remanded for a hearing to determine whether a portion of payments to counsel were for attorney fees.
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September 11, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge awarded $146.78 million in attorney fees and service awards totaling $135,000 in a privacy class action over Google LLC’s collection of mobile-app data, while in a separate posttrial order the judge denied the plaintiffs a new trial on their California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA) claim and rejected Google’s bid to overturn a $425.65 million privacy verdict.
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September 10, 2026
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York issued a final order and judgment granting final approval of a $5,875,000 settlement to end investors’ securities fraud class action against a Chinese internet and data center service provider and certain of its former executives.