“Barclays has announced the appointment of Stephen Shapiro as Group General Counsel, in addition to his current role as Group Company Secretary,” reported in Barclay’s Press Releases.

“Mr Shapiro will succeed Bob Hoyt, who is stepping down following nearly seven years in role, on 1 August 2020.”

“He will join the Group Executive Committee and report directly to Group CEO Jes Staley, in his capacity as General Counsel, and to Group Chairman Nigel Higgins in his role as Company Secretary.”

“Mr Shapiro joined Barclays in 2017, from the FTSE10 company SABMiller plc, where he was Group Company Secretary and Deputy General Counsel, having previously held the role of Global Head of Legal at the firm.”

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Michael Best is pleased to announce six attorneys have been promoted to the firm’s partnership. The newly named partners are as follows: David E. Cline, David M. DiGiacomo, Daniel J. Gawronski, Nicholas J. Herdrich, Tanya M. Salman, and Kevin J.T. Terry.

David E. Cline (Broomfield) is a member of the Corporate Practice Group and Venture Best® team. Cline focuses on counseling high-growth companies and investment entities in a variety of industries on mergers and acquisitions, raising or investing capital, structuring and restructuring, governance, and succession and intergenerational planning. Cline earned his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and his B.A. from Loyola Marymount University.

David M. DiGiacomo (Broomfield) is a member of the Corporate Practice Group, co-leader of the firm’s Cannabis Industry Team, and a member of the Venture Best® team. DiGiacomo helps start-up and early growth companies navigate entity formation, corporate finance, contract negotiations, compliance, investment and capital, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, and other transactional matters. DiGiacomo earned his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and both his M.B.A and B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Daniel J. Gawronski (Milwaukee) is member of the Corporate Practice Group and Venture Best® team who advises corporate clients of all sizes and brings a broad range of experience to his practice in corporate law, including early-stage planning and formation, venture capital and angel fundraising, commercial licensing and contracting, and mergers and acquisitions. Gawronski earned his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin Law School and his B.A., cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Nicholas J. Herdrich (Madison) is a member of the firm’s Corporate Practice Group and Venture Best® team. Herdrich advises clients on a variety of corporate issues including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, securities, and other transactional matters involving start-up, emerging businesses, and investment funds. Herdrich earned his J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his B.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tanya M. Salman (Madison) is a member of Michael Best’s Litigation Practice Group. She counsels clients on a wide array of complex business litigation matters, including disputes over contracts, business torts, real estate, and trademark infringement. Salman earned her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School and her B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Kevin J.T. Terry (Milwaukee) is a member of the Labor & Employment Relations Practice Group. Terry litigates and provides counsel on all aspects of employer-employee relationships, with expertise in issues related to the National Labor Relations Act, including union organizing and unfair labor practices brought by or against labor organizations, NLRB proceedings, and arbitrations. Terry earned his J.D. from Marquette University Law School and his B.A. from the University of Minnesota.

Article Link: https://www.michaelbest.com/Newsroom/242004/Michael-Best-Elects-Six-Attorneys-to-Partnership

Chamberlain Hrdlicka is pleased to announce the addition of Kaitlin Lammers as counsel in the Atlanta office. Lammers joins the firm’s growing Labor & Employment practice, which has a national reputation for its work in wage and hour class and collective actions. Chamberlain Hrdlicka’s Labor & Employment practice has attorneys covering all of its offices, underscoring the firm’s commitment to boosting its ability to serve companies involved in complex employment litigation matters. Lammers is also the fifth addition to the firm’s Atlanta office this year.

Prior to joining Chamberlain Hrdlicka, Lammers served corporate clients and nationwide affiliates to provide advice and defense in labor and employment matters. Lammers has experience managing complex litigation, and risk management.

Lammers has successfully counseled corporate clients in labor and employment disputes, ranging from employee relations issues, union organizing campaigns and elections, arbitrations, and administrative adjudicatory proceedings before state and federal agencies. Additionally, she has advised clients on compliance with a wide variety of federal laws, including the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act,, Title VII and their state-law counterparts, as well as compliance with employers’ collective bargaining agreements and other employment contracts.

Lammers earned her undergraduate degree from Boston University and her law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

BH Properties has launched a debtor-in-possession (“DIP”) initiative and has set aside $200 million in initial funding to finance and acquire troubled middle market real estate assets in receivership or facing bankruptcy, announced firm President James Brooks.

Senior Managing Director of Investments Andrew Van Tuyle and veteran bankruptcy attorney Howard Weg, who will serve as a consultant to the firm, will lead the initiative.

Due to the Covid-19 virus, virtually every state, from California to New York, has imposed moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions on commercial real estate. BH Properties believes that the coming expiration of these moratoriums later this year, along with the winding down of PPP or other governmental assistance programs, will result in a dramatic and troubling increase in declared defaults, foreclosures, receiverships and bankruptcy filings across the country.

Large real estate projects that were financed by multiple banks, life insurance companies or CMBS-backed loans typically get relief from the large money center banks, financial advisors and investment bankers. But the owners of smaller projects will struggle for assistance,” according to Weg.

BH Properties will offer a variety different packages to provide new financing or acquisition solutions, including:

• Debtor in possession or receivership financing
• Stalking horse bids for private sales, receiverships, REO sales
• Sale-leaseback transactions
• Secured note acquisitions
• 363 sales

BH Properties is an experienced real estate investment firm that includes a successful track record of acquiring assets in and out of Chapter 7 and 11 dating back to 2000 with the acquisition of real property from furniture giant Heilig-Meyers following its bankruptcy and subsequent liquidation. The firm also acted as a stalking horse and was subsequently the winning bidder in 363 sales in both the Radio Shack and Golfsmith bankruptcies.

Earlier this year, the firm announced it will acquire distressed real estate assets and loans from lenders including senior mortgages, mezzanine loans, B-notes and controlling participations secured by fee simple, leasehold interests and long-term leases under the direction of Rowan Sbaiti.

The International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) has announced that Tiffany R. Durst, a member at Pullin, Fowler, Flanagan, Brown & Poe, PLLC, in Morgantown, West Virginia, has accepted an invitation to join the IADC, the preeminent invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests.

Durst focuses her practice in litigation. Her experience includes approximately 40 trials in the last eight years in state and federal court. Her areas of practice include extra contractual insurance/bad faith, governmental/municipal liability, insurance adjuster liability, insurance coverage, legal and medical malpractice defense, deliberate intent defense, personal injury defense, wrongful death, and employment law. Durst also has an active appellate practice before the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

AV Peer Review-Rated by Martindale-Hubbell and a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, Durst has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America 2020 for Appellate Practice, Insurance Law, and Personal Injury Litigation: Defendants. She also was named a “West Virginia Super Lawyer” for Civil Litigation: Defense from 2013 to 2018. In addition, she was named among “America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators, 2018-2019” and “America’s Top 100 Civil Defense Litigators, 2018-2019,” both presented by America’s Top 100 LLC.

Durst received her J.D. from West Virginia University College of Law and her Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) from West Virginia University.

About the International Association of Defense Counsel
The IADC is the preeminent invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests. Founded in 1920, the IADC has members who hail from six continents, 51 countries and territories, and all 50 U.S. states. The core purposes of the IADC are to enhance the development of skills, promote professionalism, and facilitate camaraderie among its members and their clients, as well as the broader civil justice community. For more information, visit www.iadclaw.org.

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“A unit of UBS Group AG is paying $10 million to settle charges with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission that it broke rules concerning giving priority to small investors in the purchase of municipal bonds,” reports Shivdeep Dhaliwal in Benzinga.

“The SEC said Monday it found that UBS Financial Services Inc. allocated municipal bonds meant for retail investors to so-called ‘flippers,’ who then immediately resold the bonds to other broker-dealers for gain between 2012 to 2016.”

“This practice allowed the Swiss bank to obtain bonds for its own inventory in an improper way that violated rules concerning the priority of orders.”

“The federal agency has imposed a $1.7 million penalty, $6.74 million in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and $1.5 million in prejudgement interest along with a censure on UBS.”

Read the article.

“The now-deceased lawyer suspected of fatally shooting the son and seriously wounding the husband of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey on Sunday may have been targeting at least one other judge in New York,” reports Anthony G. Attrino, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Middlesex County.

Roy Den Hollander had a photo of that state’s Chief Judge Janet DiFiore in his car, her spokesman told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

“Den Hollander, a self-described anti-feminist lawyer, was found dead in his car of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in Rockland, New York, about a two-hour drive from the North Brunswick home of Salas, officials have said.”

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“St. Louis prosecutors recently charged attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey with ‘unlawful use of a weapon’ after their zany impromptu gun show a few weeks ago,” reports Joe Patrice in Above the Law’s Crime.

“Waving an AR-15 and a pistol at marchers passing by their house may confer hero status among the white grievance set, but in the real world it opens you up to felony charges. Luckily for them, Attorney General Eric Schmitt also gets his CLE credits from Tucker Carlson and he’s on a mission to end the politicization of the justice system by directly injecting himself into the process for purely political reasons.”

“The crux of Schmitt’s argument, outlined in a 12-page amicus brief, is that the Second Amendment protects every American’s right to brandish deadly weapons, the castle doctrine applied to the McCloskeys’ actions on their own property, and that any prosecution would chill others from trying to go Tony Montana on peaceful protestors.”

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“Bradley M. Gayton has been named senior vice president and general counsel for the Coca-Cola Co., effective Sept. 1. He succeeds Bernhard Goepelt, who retired from the role in February,” reports Rebekah Schouten in Food Business News.

“Mr. Gayton joins Coca-Cola after nearly 30 years at Ford Motor Co., where he most recently was group vice president, chief administrative officer and general counsel since 2016. He was responsible for sustainability, environment and safety engineering; corporate services; global shared service center operations; security; and Ford Land, which manages company facilities and real estate.”

“Mr. Gayton joined Ford in 1991 as an attorney and advanced through roles of greater responsibility, including director of global trade taxation and customs; assistant tax officer and director of tax operations; assistant general counsel and assistant corporate secretary; assistant general counsel and corporate secretary; and group vice president, general counsel.”

Read the article.

Steptoe & Johnson LLP is pleased to announce the further expansion of its premier Energy Group with the arrival of William Keyser as a partner in the firm’s Washington office. Keyser focuses his practice on federal electric regulation and litigation and transactions involving the nation’s electricity and capacity markets. His arrival follows that of Donna Byrne and John Perkins, who joined Steptoe’s Energy Group in February.

Keyser represents clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Department of Energy, federal and state courts and state public utility commissions. His clients include electric utilities, transmission providers, independent power providers, and energy storage developers. Keyser helps clients address the ever-changing landscape of the energy grid. His practice includes integrating new technology into clients’ portfolios and understanding the application of new market rules to their operations. He has represented and counseled clients on an extensive array of matters including mergers and acquisitions, transmission rates and cost allocation, interconnection procedures, market-based and cost-based sales of energy, and participation in regional transmission organizations. Keyser has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America for the past three years.

Steptoe has one of the most respected energy practices in the United States. For nearly a decade, the practice and its lawyers have received the highest rankings in the legal directories Chambers and The Legal 500. In the 2020 guides, Steptoe was the only firm to receive top-tier rankings from Chambers USA in both the nationwide electric and pipeline categories, and the only firm to receive top-tier rankings in electric litigation and regulation and pipeline regulation by both Chambers and The Legal 500.

Keyser received his B.S. from Pennsylvania State University and his J.D. from the University of North Carolina. Prior to going into private practice, Keyser served as a law clerk for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that nine of the firm’s partners have been named by Who’s Who Legal as among the world’s leading product liability defense practitioners. The Bradley attorneys listed in the Who’s Who Legal: Product Liability Defence 2020 are Lindsey C Boney IV, W. Wayne Drinkwater, James W. Gewin, William F. Goodman III, Tripp Haston, Lela Hollabaugh, Kim Bessiere Martin, Charles A. “Chuck” Stewart and R. Thomas Warburton.

Bradley’s acclaimed Product Liability team members represent clients in a variety of industries and jurisdictions throughout the state and federal court systems. Their representations involve litigation over a diverse range of consumer products, including tires, construction equipment, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, vehicles (both on- and off-road), component parts, industrial equipment, power tools, and building products. Many of the firm’s attorneys have leadership roles on clients’ legal defense teams for litigation in various multidistrict litigation and mass claim matters.

The Who’s Who Legal: Product Liability Defence seeks to identify the top lawyers in all aspects of the defense of product liability claims, including mass tort, class action and cross-border litigation. Only lawyers who receive the highest number of recommendations from peers and clients as determined through independent research are listed in the publication. The Who’s Who Legal guides are intended to serve as reference sources for companies seeking to corroborate the reputations of lawyers recommended by another party.

About Bradley
Bradley combines skilled legal counsel with exceptional client service and unwavering integrity to assist a diverse range of corporate and individual clients in achieving their business goals. With offices in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and the District of Columbia, the firm’s nearly 550 lawyers represent regional, national and international clients in various industries, including banking and financial services, construction, energy, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, real estate, and technology, among many others.

Despite COVID-19 travel restrictions, quarantine, travel insurance claim denied  

MARSHALL, Texas – An East Texas woman has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the company that serves as the VRBO travel website’s exclusive travel insurance provider. The lawsuit alleges that CSA Travel Protection, the American affiliate of Italy-based Assicurazioni Generali Group, has refused to honor its policy and refund more than $3,500 for a cancelled booking of oceanfront property in Florida. 

 Tralisa Sheridan, a resident of White Oak, Texas, made a reservation through VRBO in March 2019 for accommodations in Navarre, Florida, to host multiple family members for her daughter’s destination beach wedding, planned for March of 2020. At the time of the booking, Ms. Sheridan paid $180 for a travel insurance coverage plan from CSA. 

Sheridan and the wedding party planned to drive to and from the destination, beginning on March 21, the same day Santa Rosa County officials suspended all access to Navarre’s beaches. Because of this action and the prior rollout of other COVID-19 travel restrictions, including the imposition of 14-day quarantine requirements for interstate travel between Texas and Florida, Sheridan promptly notified VRBO and CSA of the need to cancel the booking and provide a refund. 

 CSA responded by email 38 days later that the claim was being denied, and despite multiple subsequent requests by Sheridan, the insurer has provided no further details or rationale for the denial. 

 “Unfortunately, we’re seeing too many examples of insurers in the travel and hospitality sector attempting to shirk their responsibilities and failing to honor rightful claims,” said Derek Potts, the attorney for Ms. Sheridan. “Through a class action against these defendants, we will seek the compensation that thousands of individuals who booked through VRBO and purchased this insurance are due.” 

 The case is Tralisa Sheridan et. al. v. Assicurazioni Generali et.al., No.220-CV-244, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.  

Hinshaw & Culbertson, a national law firm, today announced that Lauren Campisi, Stephen P. Strohschein, Stewart Spielman, Eric J. Simonson, and Heather LaSalle Alexis have joined the firm as partners to further support the firm’s Consumer Financial Services and Bankruptcy and Restructuring practice groups. Formerly with McGlinchey Stafford in Louisiana, the group has extensive experience advising financial services companies and institutions nationwide on issues including federal and state regulatory compliance, lending matters, consumer and commercial bankruptcy, workouts, restructuring and distressed debt turnarounds. The group will operate from an office in New Orleans, Louisiana, and their addition expands the firm’s national platform and South Florida roots to a significant new regional market in the South.

Campisi is a national leader in the field of consumer financial services. She advises clients on regulatory and compliance matters and strategy, including product creation, documentation, licensing, federal and state enforcement actions and supervisory examinations, and single-party and class action litigation. Strohschein focuses on a broad array of commercial lending issues including real estate, automotive floor plan finance, asset-based and small business lending. Spielman brings extensive experience in the middle market sector advising clients on commercial debt matters (restructuring, workouts, and turnarounds) including floor plan workouts and front end financing, small business banking, and Small Business Administration (SBA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guaranteed loan programs. Simonson is an experienced trial attorney representing companies in the financial, technology, construction, and other industries in a wide range of commercial contract disputes, lease disputes, and related litigation. He also has extensive class action experience. Alexis advises clients on a wide array of commercial and consumer bankruptcy matters, and brings extensive experience advising clients with commercial debt matters in the energy, middle market and small business banking sectors.

The addition of new capabilities that this team provides include litigation involving creditor rights matters, commercial loan workouts, business restructurings, liquidation of distressed assets, and all aspects of bankruptcy from pre-planning to post-confirmation implementation and bankruptcy compliance advice, all areas which are expected to experience significant activity beginning in Q4 and going into 2021 and beyond.

The team collectively is currently advising clients on compliance with federal and state laws and emergency orders related to COVID-19 relief.

Lauren E. Campisi
Campisi, a leading national consumer financial services lawyer, represents a diverse and broad range of financial services providers. She provides strategic, practical advice on federal and state law compliance matters regarding licensure, product creation, documentation and servicing, due diligence, and vendor management, as well as federal and state enforcement actions and supervisory examinations and single-party and class action litigation. Campisi’s clients include national and state-chartered banks, national mortgage lenders and servicers, automotive and personal property finance companies, installment lenders and online lenders. She is also deeply experienced in counseling companies on issues related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and has filed multiple petitions before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on TCPA issues. She routinely provides guidance on the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), prohibitions against unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices (UDAAP) and state lending, licensing and debt collection laws and regulations.

In 2018, Chambers USA selected Lauren as a Recognized Practitioner in the field of national consumer financial services compliance, one of only thirty-four attorneys to receive individual recognition and in 2019 and 2020, Chambers recognized Lauren as an ‘Up and Coming’ attorney within the industry. Campisi is also a Fellow of the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers, Secretary of the Governing Law Committee of the Conference on Consumer Finance Law, Vice-Chair of the Truth in Lending Subcommittee of the American Bar Association Consumer Financial Services Committee and Chair of the Bank Counsel Committee of the Louisiana Bankers Association. Campisi was selected as a Leadership Council on Legal Diversity Fellow (LCLD) in 2011, the inaugural year of the program. She received a B.B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Loyola University New Orleans and a J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

Stephen P. Strohschein
With almost four decades of experience, Strohschein’s national practice focuses on a wide range of matters in the banking and commercial lending sectors, with an emphasis on floor plan lending. His team represents major automotive captive lenders and banks across the country. In addition, he advises lenders on commercial loan origination, workouts, foreclosures, collections and bankruptcy issues and has litigated commercial lending cases before numerous federal and state courts.

Strohschein is qualified as a specialist in Business Bankruptcy Law by the American Board of Certification and his numerous accolades include being selected among The Best Lawyers in America® Bankruptcy and Creditor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law, Litigation – Bankruptcy 2006-2020. He received his B.S. in Business from Louisiana State University and his J.D. from the Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Previously he served as a law clerk to the Honorable LeRoy Smallenberger in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Stewart Spielman
With a focus on commercial debt restructuring in the middle market, Spielman represents institutional lenders and equity funds on a wide variety of front end and back end commercial lending matters, including floorplan documentation and closings, as well as, complex commercial loan workouts, restructurings, modifications and enforcement matters. In addition, he advises creditors on best practices and policies for servicing commercial loan portfolios, form development and implementation, as well as ordinary course amendments, extensions, waivers and recapitalizations. He advises creditors on a variety of issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including heightened servicing standards, loan deferrals and the Main Street Loan Program.

Spielman is certified as a Business Bankruptcy specialist by the American Board of Certification and the Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization. He was selected as an LCLD Fellow in 2014. He received a B.S. in psychology from Louisiana State University and a J.D., with a Maritime Law Certificate, from Tulane University Law School.

Eric J. Simonson
Simonson advises businesses on commercial litigation both at the district court and appellate level in state and federal courts throughout the country. He represents companies in the financial, technology, construction, and other industries, in a wide range of commercial contract disputes, lease disputes, and also construction litigation. Simonson represents mortgage lenders and mortgage loan servicers defending claims brought under RESPA, TILA, FDCPA, FCRA and related federal and state statutes. He also represents mortgage lenders, mortgage servicers and other clients in a variety of bankruptcy matters.

Simonson was named “Ones to Watch” by New Orleans CityBusiness in 2017 and is a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association. He received a B.S. in finance from Louisiana State University, an M.B.A. from the University of New Orleans, and a J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law.

Heather LaSalle Alexis
Alexis has extensive experience in all aspects of commercial restructuring and loan workouts involving energy, middle market and small business loans as well as agented and syndicated loans and asset-based lending facilities. She also represents creditors, both secured and unsecured, in all aspects of commercial and consumer bankruptcy cases, including the defense of adversary proceeding. She also advises clients on various matters involving bankruptcy law including bankruptcy accounting, repossession, and escrow issues. She is well-versed in the enforcement of security interests and other loan remedies in Louisiana state and federal courts involving a range of collateral including real estate, financed and leased equipment, titled vehicles, vessels and UCC collateral.

Previously, she was on secondment in the Special Assets legal department of a large national bank, where she worked with the bank’s distressed loans in the middle market and energy sectors. Alexis was selected as an LCLD Fellow in 2016. She received a B.A. and M.P.A. from Louisiana State University, and a J.D., cum laude, from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

“Although many companies are already revisiting contractual provisions relating to nonperformance, like force majeure clauses, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to wreak havoc on public health and the economy, other proactive (but less publicized) contractual measures can facilitate early discovery and mitigation of potential nonperformance,” discuss Barbara Murphy Melby and A. Benjamin Klaber in Morgan Lewis’ Tech & Sourcing.

“As part of third-party vendor management or sourcing procedures, it is common practice for many companies to vet their vendors prior to contract signing for financial viability and wherewithal. In some cases, like contracts for critical products or services or larger vendor relationships, companies include contractual provisions that provide for regular information sharing regarding a vendor’s financial status and specific rights, including step-in and termination, if the financial status materially adversely changes. While these types of provisions are not new, in light of the impact of COVID-19 on supply and demand for certain products and services and the corresponding potential impact on certain critical or strategic vendors, they are gaining more attention from third-party vendor management and sourcing organizations. Companies, which previously looked to rights and remedies such as non-exclusivity and early termination without penalty as sufficient to address the potential risk, increasingly are focused on financial viability provisions to allow for early warning of a potential problem and early action, if necessary, to avoid disruption.”

Read the article.

“Recently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), overruling an important Obama-era decision, held that employers do not have a pre first-contract duty to bargain before disciplining employees in a manner consistent with an existing policy or practice. The Board’s Care One at New Milford unanimously overruled Total Security Management Illinois 1, LLC, and will be applied retroactively to all cases pending before the NLRB,” write Anne Marie Buethe and Matthew C. Tews in Stinson’s News & Insights.

“In Care One, an employer suspended three employees and discharged another pursuant to its disciplinary policy. The employees were newly union-represented, but not yet covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The employer did not provide the union with prior notice or an opportunity to bargain. The union brought an unfair labor practice charge claiming that the employer violated the Total Security rule. The Board’s 2016 Total Security decision had held that an employer must provide a newly certified union with notice and an opportunity to bargain before imposing serious discipline (i.e., suspension, demotion, discharge), during the time after the union was certified but before the parties had entered a first CBA if the imposition of such discipline involved any discretion.”

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“A Ninth Circuit opinion handed down in January affirmed the First Amendment principle that the right of public access to new court filings attaches as soon as the clerk receives them,” writes Bill Girdner in Courthouse News Service.

“But during the preceding oral argument at the Ninth Circuit’s Pasadena courthouse, Judge Mary Murguia asked a natural question: ‘Doesn’t Ventura County have to docket those physical files first?'”

“Those procedures are part of intake, the actual filing of a legal document, not the later work of putting that filing into the court’s docket. Rulings in both cases — one against a clerk in California, the other against two clerks in Virginia – affirmed a First Amendment right of access at the point of the clerk’s receipt. But both cases also involved courts based on paper, a medium that is fast disappearing in the rearview mirror of history.”

“So the same question will be asked by a judge in the future about a digital court: ‘Doesn’t the court need to docket those electronic files first?’”

Read the article.

“President Trump announced the Council on Environmental Quality’s final rule, Update to the Regulations Implementing the Procedural Provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act. This rulemaking marks the first substantial revision to the NEPA regulations since their initial promulgation over 40 years ago. The CEQ released the proposed rule in January 2020 for a 60-day public comment period, during which the Council received over 1.1 million comments. Though well received by industry stakeholders as emphasizing best practices to streamline the NEPA review process, the proposal faced heavy criticism from environmental groups for a variety of reforms they believe curtailed opportunities for public participation and altered the scope of traditional NEPA analysis,” write Fred R. WagnerThomas M. LinganTyler G. Welti Chelsea E. O’Sullivan in Venable LLP’s Insights.

“The final rule, which comes just a few months after the close of the public comment period despite the enormous public response, largely tracks the proposal and retains some of the more controversial provisions.”

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“The city of Oakland has settled a lawsuit with the victims of the 2016 ‘Ghost Ship’ fire that killed 36 people. The total settlement is for $32.7 million — $23.5 million will go to families of people who died, and $9.2 million will go to Sam Maxwell, who survived the fire with lifelong injuries,” reports Andrew Limbong in NPR’s Arts & Life.

“Oakland’s City Council wrote in a statement the ‘The City continues to assert, as the agreement provides that it is not liable for these tragic losses. The City decided to settle this case because of the cost-benefit analysis.'”

“Paul Matiasic, an attorney representing five of the victims families, said in a statement that the case has always been about more than just money.”

Read the article.

Lawyers for Facebook are “trying to convince a judge they should be allowed to settle a class action lawsuit that accuses the company of violating users’ privacy,” reports Bobby Allyn in NPR’s Technology.

“Facebook agreed earlier this year to pay $550 million to settle the case, which claims that the tech giant illegally used facial-recognition technology in its ‘tag suggestions’ service.”

“The deal was the largest-ever payout as the result of a class-action lawsuit alleging online privacy violations.”

“…under the settlement, people who have had their face data harvested in Illinois are expected to receive checks of just $150.”

“U.S. District Judge James Donato of California, who is overseeing the case, says that payout is woefully inadequate.”

Read the article.