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August 28, 2026
NEW ALBANY, Ind. — Hanover College discriminated against female student-athletes when it eliminated the women’s swimming team, four swim team members allege in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in Indiana.
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August 28, 2026
ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s remand of a class action alleging that Missouri marijuana dispensaries collected an unlawful county sales tax from customers, holding that under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Royal Canin U.S.A., Inc. v. Wullschleger, the local controversy exception to jurisdiction in the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) applied once the plaintiffs amended their complaint to limit the class to citizens of Missouri.
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August 28, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court gave university researchers an additional month to respond to a petition for a writ of certiorari in which President Donald J. Trump and various federal government agencies ask the justices to decide whether the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the consideration of academic research project viewpoints when deciding funding.
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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 28, 2026
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ending an “eight-year saga,” a federal judge in Kentucky granted a lead plaintiff’s motion for final approval of a $5 million class action settlement in a consolidated case accusing a pizza chain franchisor of violating the Sherman Act by coordinating no-poach agreements between its franchisees, finding that classwide resolution is appropriate under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23(a) and (b)(3) and that the settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate” pursuant to Rule 23(e).
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August 28, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The most advanced of the appeals springing from a wave of pension risk transfer (PRT) cases filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act is in the Fourth Circuit, where oral argument with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) participating as amicus curiae is scheduled for Sept. 16.
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August 28, 2026
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida dismissed without prejudice as moot a class complaint over access to legal counsel by detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” after the federal and state governments provided evidence that the facility was closed and all detainees were removed from the facility.
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August 28, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS — Dismissal with prejudice has been granted pursuant to the parties’ stipulation in Minnesota federal court in a case over cost-sharing for medical services associated with preventive treatment that reduces the risk of HIV infection.
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August 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amid an ongoing wave of private enforcement lawsuits concerning health plans’ tobacco surcharges, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and other federal agencies on Aug. 26 said they recognize that “enforcement relief and additional clarification may be necessary to mitigate uncertainty for wellness programs that provide a reward to increase healthy choices and behaviors and lower healthcare costs.”
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August 27, 2026
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated a trial court’s summary judgment ruling against a putative class suit by Amazon workers seeking pay for time spent undergoing mandatory security checks, ruling that that opinion and a February opinion by the Connecticut Supreme Court addressing two questions certified to it by the Second Circuit were “squarely at odds.”
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August 27, 2026
CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed certification of a mandatory class in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over retiree healthcare benefits but reversed a ruling in which it concluded that the lower court had wrongly “judicially estopped” the defendants “from disavowing any obligation to provide lifetime healthcare benefits to pre-1993 retirees based on statements” made in a separate case.
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August 27, 2026
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that a lower court erred when it rejected a pension fund’s price-maintenance theory, denied class certification and granted summary judgment to Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), reviving the pension fund’s nearly two-decade-long securities fraud suit against Freddie Mac.
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August 27, 2026
BOSTON — A First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of investors’ case against a biopharmaceutical company, holding that investors had no actionable securities fraud claim against the defendants because the company and CEO did not make any materially misleading statements about the findings of two clinical trials for a drug the company was producing.
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August 26, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — An en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an opinion and order declined to add new class representatives on appeal and dismissed the appeal brought by Venezuelan nationals who sought to halt the federal government’s removal of them and a putative class under the president’s April 2025 proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) due to an “invasion” by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan organized crime syndicate; the Fifth Circuit opined that it lacked jurisdiction over the appeal after the government informed the court that the named petitioners were removed from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), removals permitted pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court majority’s May 2025 per curiam opinion.
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August 26, 2026
CINCINNATI — In a ruling issued after an order granting reconsideration in part, a federal judge in Ohio approved the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 portion of a $1.18 million settlement reached between a class of pizza delivery drivers and their employer over vehicle expense reimbursements while adhering to an earlier conclusion that the court lacked jurisdiction to approve a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) component of the same agreement.
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August 26, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Nationwide settlements that include payments of more than $1 billion and changes to buyer-broker compensation to resolve allegations that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and real estate franchises conspired to artificially inflate residential real estate commission costs were affirmed by the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which concluded in an opinion addressing seven consolidated appeals that the trial court reasonably determined that the settlements were fair and did not violate antitrust law.
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August 26, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge partially dismissed claims brought against Otter.ai Inc. by individuals who argue that the company does not obtain prior consent of all participants in a virtual meeting before its Notetaker transcription function is engaged to record a conversation, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to sufficiently plead unauthorized computer access, and as to several plaintiffs, a reasonable expectation of privacy, but allowed claims predicated on real-time interception, third-party eavesdropping and collection of biometric voice data to proceed.
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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 26, 2026
SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge denied as moot OpenAI Global LLC’s motion to dismiss a class action complaint after a user of ChatGPT filed an amended complaint in which she alleges that OpenAI improperly disclosed ChatGPT users’ conversation information to third parties without obtaining user consent.
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August 25, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has stayed issuance of its mandate for a July 30 ruling in a putative class case pending resolution of a certiorari petition that the appellants say they have already filed. In the petition, the appellants argue that the panel ruling deepens a 7-1 circuit split concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, with the Fourth Circuit’s recent Trauernicht v. Genworth Fin. Inc. ruling standing alone on one side of the conflict.
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August 25, 2026
DENVER — A divided 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel granted the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) motion to stay pending appeal a trial court’s preliminary injunction in a putative class action by student-athletes suing over a June 2026 new eligibility rule.
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August 24, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a settlement in a class action alleging ZOA Energy LLC violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by advertising, labeling and selling its energy drink products with the false claim that they contained “0 preservatives” but were formulated with citric and ascorbic acids and sodium and potassium citrate.
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August 20, 2026
ATLANTA — After considering two questions certified from a federal court in Georgia, the Georgia Supreme Court determined that exposure to a toxic substance without a present physical injury does not foreclose equitable relief, which instead turns on whether the plaintiff suffered any “legally cognizable injury” and the absence of an adequate remedy at law; however, the state high court did not rule on how this principle applied to the underlying conflict involving a toxic plume released from a chemical plant.
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August 20, 2026
ATLANTA — Saying in part that “some of the most objectively imprudent investments will lack an apples-to-apples comparison precisely because they are such objectively bad fiduciary decisions,” the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revived an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action focused on target-date funds (TDFs) that are proprietary to the investment manager of the retirement plan at issue.