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October 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 5 granted a motion filed by the solicitor general of the United States for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument supporting the position of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and Georgia Tech Athletic Association (GTAA) in a case involving sex discrimination suits filed by two former university system employees.
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October 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 5 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a group of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) employees seeking review to determine how much detail is needed regarding a plaintiff’s religious beliefs to file a Title VII claim and survive dismissal after a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority affirmed dismissal of religious discrimination claims stemming from requests for exemption from COVID-19 testing, masking and distancing guidelines.
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October 06, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California significantly slashed a more than $2.5 million request for attorney fees and costs filed by counsel representing an African American construction products supplier employee who was awarded $5 million in a racial bias suit, finding that the attorneys must have been “grossly negligent in” the preparation of the request “because no lawyer in their right mind would knowingly submit bills to any court for working more than 24 hours a day, for attending a deposition they didn’t attend, and for violating almost every standard billing practice known to ethics.”
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October 05, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Finding that a group of employers, labor unions and foreign workers would likely succeed on claims that federal agencies skipped required rulemaking and threatened employers’ ability to retain and hire workers by implementing a proclamation issued by President Donald J. Trump that conditions certain H-1B visas on employers making a $100,000 payment to the federal government, a California federal judge partially granted a preliminary injunction and vacated the policies guiding the proclamation’s implementation and barring enforcement of the policies until the agencies conduct notice and comment rulemaking and required analyses under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA).
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October 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 5 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by United Airlines Inc. concerning class certification in a case by workers who accuse the airline of discrimination by failing to provide religious and medical accommodations from the COVID-19 vaccine requirement; the high court’s orders list noted that Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh would have granted the petition.
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October 01, 2026
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Going “one step further” than the response in opposition, a Pennsylvania federal judge held that a motion filed by the last remaining defendant in a lawsuit brought by the estate of a man who died while working at a natural gas drilling site to compel genetic testing of two children listed as beneficiaries was “meritless” and precluded by limitations prescribed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 35.
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October 01, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Sept. 30 granted an emergency motion by U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) and its board seeking to prevent federal government parties from allegedly “carrying out plans to carve President [Donald J.] Trump’s name into the façade of the iconic USIP headquarters building”; the motion was filed in a case in which the USIP parties are challenging Trump’s authority to have fired them in March 2025.
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October 01, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will not revisit a panel majority’s decision to overturn three out of four liability verdicts underlying a federal North Carolina jury’s $22.1 million award for a former Wells Fargo Securities LLC managing director who was fired after requesting permission to continue working from home when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, despite arguments that the majority overlooked parts of the trial record, relied on unpreserved arguments and adopted rules that conflicted with precedent.
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October 01, 2026
GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland partially granted federal government parties’ motion to dismiss and dismissed without prejudice a putative Privacy Act class complaint by four former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employees who were terminated based on directives issued by the Trump administration and who alleged that their employment records were incomplete and inaccurate, finding that the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) “provides the exclusive means for the Plaintiffs to obtain judicial review of this adverse personnel action.”
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September 30, 2026
JACKSON, Miss. — A nurse who had previously disclosed to her employer continuing medical conditions related to COVID-19 filed a complaint on Sept. 29 in Mississippi federal court against the medical center where she worked, asserting that her former employer violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in part by retaliating against her for requesting accommodations for injuries from an auto accident and for complaining about uncompensated meal breaks.
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September 30, 2026
DENVER — Resolving cross-appeals filed after the class in an early retirement benefits dispute concerning a multiemployer fund obtained a judgment in the amount of $24,851,056, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 29 revived fiduciary breach claims asserted by 66 boilermakers but otherwise affirmed the trial court.
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September 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigration detainees and the state of Washington filed supplemental briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 29 opposing arguments made by the United States in an amicus curiae brief supporting a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the operator of immigration detention centers, which is asking the high court to decide whether the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause permits a state to find that detainees participating in a voluntary work program are employees who are owed state-mandated minimum wages.
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September 29, 2026
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The last remaining defendant in a lawsuit filed by the estate of a man who died while working at a fracking site told a Pennsylvania federal judge that it still wants to pursue a motion to compel genetic testing despite the other movants leaving the case following a summary judgment order, a dismissal and a settlement.
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September 25, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a joint motion for summary reversal — filed by federal government officials and three members of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) who sued after they were terminated without cause in May 2025 by President Donald J. Trump — in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2026 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter.
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September 23, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority held that factual disputes over the suspension and investigation of a former West Texas A&M University (WTAMU) police detective need to be decided by a jury in reversing and remanding a Texas federal judge’s summary judgment ruling that the officer failed to establish a prima facie case for retaliation pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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September 23, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C.— A multinational professional services company and its U.S. and federal government contracting subsidiaries agreed to pay the United States a total of $25 million in an out-of-court settlement to resolve False Claims Act (FCA) and related claims alleging that the company considered race or sex in hiring and promotion decisions, limited career development opportunities based on race or sex and falsely certified compliance with Title VII and Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) nondiscrimination requirements in federal contracts.
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September 23, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In two petitions for writs of certiorari filed in the U.S. Supreme Court stemming from a pair of separate but related National Labor Relations Board proceedings in a more than eight-year-long bargaining dispute, a road construction company is asking the high court to determine how courts must interpret an agency rule created through adjudication and whether dismissed employee petitions to decertify a union can be shielded from judicial review.
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September 22, 2026
SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge agreed to exclude testimony from two experts retained by a woman who claims that she was wrongfully terminated, finding that testimony on the alleged psychological injury she endured in her employment is irrelevant to the sole remaining claim and that testimony on her lost wages is based on unreliable data.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Sept. 18 stayed until December a lawsuit by the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office challenging her purported removal by President Donald J. Trump; the stay is in light of a bill awaiting Senate approval that “would make clear that the Register of Copyrights is an officer ‘appointed by the President’ with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
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September 21, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Nevada-based electronic equipment company and a California gentlemen’s club agreed to pay a combined total of more than $97,000 to settle respective discrimination charges filed on behalf of pregnant women with the San Francisco District of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission following successful conciliation processes.
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September 17, 2026
DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa federal judge granted a motion to exclude testimony from an expert retained by a Black teacher who alleges that a school district failed to adequately address racial harassment by students with behavioral disabilities, finding that the expert’s opinions on racial bias and harassment would not help the jury resolve the issues in dispute.
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September 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an attempt to obtain review of a split District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, the United States, along with various military departments and their officials, seeks U.S. Supreme Court review of whether a Department of Defense (DOD) policy that essentially disqualifies transgender individuals from the military violates the U.S. Constitution.
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September 16, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — Holding that Wells Fargo Securities LLC successfully met the high bar for overturning three out of four claims underlying a federal North Carolina jury’s $22.1 million verdict for a former managing director who was terminated after requesting permission to continue working from home after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority reversed the lower court’s denial of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on failure-to-accommodate, disability discrimination and wrongful termination claims and remanded for reconsideration of back pay and interest.
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September 15, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred when it held that a private contractor running immigration detention facilities must pay detainees participating in a voluntary work program the state-mandated minimum wage rather than the $1 per day wage most were making, the United States argues in an amicus curiae brief filed Sept. 15 in the U.S. Supreme Court.
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September 15, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s judgment for six former employees of a state transit agency who were awarded more than $1 million each by a jury for the agency’s failure to accommodate their religious objections to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, holding that the agency was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law or a new trial because it did not carry its burden of showing that the religious objections could not be accommodated without undue hardship.