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A committee of attorneys involved in litigation arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has made its recommendation for dividing $700 million in fees among 122 law firms involved in years of complex legal work, reports the Associated Press.

Two Louisiana law firms that steered the litigation will get the biggest payouts. Domengeaux Wright Roy & Edwards of Lafayette and Herman, Herman & Katz in New Orleans will get about $87.8 million if a federal judge approves the recommendation filed this week in U.S. District Court in New Orleans.

“Millions of barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig at BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico,” writes Kevin McGill. “Eleven workers were killed and the pollution affected Gulf fisheries, delicate wetlands and recreational beaches.”

Read the AP article.

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The general counsel of Dewey & LeBoeuf while the now-defunct law firm collapsed has experience with crises, so Bloomberg Law asked her to explain the likely legal ramifications of United Airlines’ botched handling of an overbooked flight and what the company may do to mitigate the fallout.

Janis Meyer, now a partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson, focuses her practice on professional responsibility, writes Jason Booth.

She discusses what the airline’s general counsel likely is doing this week to deal with the crisis, who he will speak to, who ultimately bears responsibility, whether apologies serve any legal purpose, and whether the incident would play out differently if phones to capture the event were not available.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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A Florida appellate court rejected Trump National Doral’s attempt to get out of paying a Miami paint store chain over $315,000 — based on an unpaid bill for $32,535, reports The Miami Herald.

“Trump’s company argued last summer and to the appellate court that The Paint Stop hadn’t followed certain Florida statutes to the letter and the Notice to Owner from The Paint Stop identified the wrong contractor. Both [the trial court] and the appellate court slapped those arguments down,” writes reporter David J. Neal.

The bill was for renovations on Donald Trump’s golf resort. Attorneys’ fees accounted for $282,949 in the judgment.

Read the Miami Herald article.

The Boston Herald is reporting that United Airlines — embroiled in controversy after it forcibly removed a doctor from an overbooked flight — could be in for a legal beatdown if the passenger takes the beleaguered carrier to court, according to legal experts.

Reporter Bob McGovern quotes Anthony Tarricone, a Boston attorney who has handled cases involving aircraft accidents and disasters: “I think they are going to have a serious legal issue on their hands. United might say they didn’t hurt him, and that it was security, but United set that situation in motion.”

“United CEO Oscar Munoz may have shot the company in the foot when he told the airline’s employees on Monday that they ‘followed established procedures,’” writes McGovern. “Instead of pegging the case on rogue security personnel, attorneys may be able to point to the statement as an acknowledgement that the company backed the behavior.”

Read the Boston Herald article.

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BlackBerry said Wednesday it has been awarded a preliminary $814.9 million in royalty overpayments made to Qualcomm, according to a CNBC report.

“BlackBerry argued that it was overpaying Qualcomm in royalty payments,” writes Todd Haselton. “Last April, BlackBerry and Qualcomm entered discussions to settle the dispute and analyze an existing ‘agreement to cap certain royalties applied to payments made by BlackBerry under a license agreement between the two parties.'”

Apple also has a suit pending against Qualcomm, claiming the company is “withholding nearly $1 billion in payments from Apple as retaliation for responding truthfully to law enforcement agencies investigating them.”

Read the CNBC article.

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A Dallas County jury found there was clear and convincing evidence that Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., Dickson’s employer for 38 years, was “grossly negligent” in exposing the longtime mechanical engineer to asbestos, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media and Marketing.

Dickson, a resident of Hurst, Texas, died at the age of 74 on Dec. 13, 2013.

The jury awarded Dickson’s survivors $8.8 million, according to the website of his law firm, Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett.

“There was not a company-based respiratory protection policy in place during the time of Billy’s exposure,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney Darren McDowell of Dallas-based Simon Greenstone.

Read the article.

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Twitter, Yelp, Instagram, Foursquare and a few other apps are agreeing to a $5.3 million settlement to an invasion-of-privacy class action in which the companies’ apps were accused of accessing the address books of iOS users without their knowledge or consent, reports Arstechnica.com.

Fees for the lawyers who brought the suit on behalf of an estimated 7 million members of the class will be about $1.59 million. Individual class members are in for a payday of about 53 cents each.

Class members in a suit against Dunkin’ Donuts won’t even get money. They’re in for a payoff of free buttered treats, according to the Associated Press. Their lawyers, however, will collect $90,000 in fees in the settlement.

Thomas Shapiro, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said it wasn’t a profitable case for his firm.

Read the stories in Arstechnica and the AP.

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Keller and Heckman will produce a new seminar, “The Connected Product Intensive: A Framework for Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management,” May 2-3, 2017 in San Francisco, CA.

Keller and Heckman’s Connected Products Team will focus on the regulatory and litigation risks affecting connected products, and offer practical tips on compliance, risk avoidance, and risk management. Learn how to keep your customers safe and secure and to protect your company’s reputation and investments.

Highlights from the agenda include:

• Guidance on developing compliance frameworks
• Drafting privacy policies
• Responding to a security breach and best practices for encryption
• Environmental considerations including California’s Proposition 65 and state green chemistry laws
• FCC issues from equipment certifications through spectrum availability
• Handling product recalls, crisis management, and product liability litigation
• Energy efficiency considerations
• Advertising and marketing emphasizing claims, price, safety, and social media
• Rules surrounding In-app purchases
• End-User License Agreements

Register for the seminar.

An East Texas jury has awarded Whirlpool Corp. $7.6 million, finding that a California company willfully infringed the patent protecting Whirlpool’s replacement water filters for refrigerators.

The jury delivered the verdict against TST Water, LLC, on March 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall. The finding that the patent infringement was “willful” means the award total could be tripled, a decision to be made by Judge Rodney Gilstrap, according to a release from the firm.

Longview, Texas-based Ward, Smith & Hill founder Johnny Ward represented Whirlpool as lead counsel alongside attorneys from the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster LLP.

“The evidence clearly showed that TST Water willfully infringed Whirlpool’s patent,” said Ward. “The jury rightfully discounted TST’s claims that the patent was invalid. The amount the jury awarded demonstrates that.”

The lawsuit involved Whirlpool “Filter 3” refrigerator filters, which carry  U.S. Patent No. 7,000,894. The company claimed TST Water intentionally copied the Filter 3 design in the development of its WSW-5 and HDX FMW-5 refrigerator filters, which were sold under the brand name WaterSentinel and the label “HDX.” TST Water promoted the installation and use of the filters as an alternative to the Filter 3 in Whirlpool refrigerators.

The case is Whirlpool Corporation v. TST Water, LLC, case 2:15-cv-01528-JRG in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

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Former Trump University students who claimed a share of the $25 million settlement that Donald Trump agreed to shortly after he was elected president will recover 80 percent of the money they spent on the real-estate seminars, according to a Bloomberg Law article.

Plaintiffs claimed the university made false promises of riches and instant success. Trump fought the allegations for years but finally agreed to the deal.

“A total of 2,471 claims seeking $21.3 million in refunds had already been verified, according to the filing. With hundreds of claims still being reviewed, the lawyers expect that refund requests will rise to $25 million,” writes Bloomberg’s Edvard Pettersson.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting that a legal feud between pistol tycoon Gaston Glock and his ex-wife, Helga, has ended with a resounding victory for the legendary gunmaker.

Helga Glock had filed a racketeering lawsuit accusing her former husband of siphoning off millions of dollars from the family firearm empire.

The Austrian company Glock GmbH, through its U.S. subsidiary, supplies most American law enforcement agencies with durable, large-capacity semiautomatic pistols, according to reporter Paul Barrett.

Helga Glock sought $500 million as her share in the company for helping start the company on its profitable trajectory in the 1980s. She charged that her ex-husband used illegal methods to take money fom the international corporation.

The federal judge hearing the case said the suit was unsubstantiated and called the complaint a “shotgun pleading.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Trying a high-profile case under the media spotlight is rare for most lawyers, but it is becoming more and more common given the number of new media outlets and the growing public appetite for legal news and information, writes Bruce Vincent of Muse Communications.

“The delicate balancing act of effectively handling a client’s case while also protecting their public reputation is far from easy, but it can be done if you recognize the potential pitfalls and what to expect from reporters,” he explains in the Muse blog.

In his post, Vincent goes through the steps — starting with determining whether media truly are interested in the case, choosing who will communicate with reporters, being aware of which media outlets and individuals reporters are interested, and the challenges of answering questions from reporters while trying to stay focused on the trial.

Read the article.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week over whether to impose limits on the filings of patent lawsuits in a federal court in East Texas with a reputation for friendliness to plaintiffs, according to a New York Times article.

Reporter Adam Liptak writes that more than 40 percent of patent lawsuits are filed in the East Texas federal district.

“In recent years, a single judge based in Marshall, Tex., oversaw about a quarter of all patent cases nationwide, more than the number handled by all federal judges in California, Florida and New York combined,” Liptak writes.

Because the Texas court is a favorite venue of patent trolls, many tech companies filed supporting briefs in the case, TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, No. 16-341. Those companies urged the Supreme Court to limit the places where defendants in patent cases may be sued.

Read the NYT article.

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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s former chief executive officer accused the drugmaker of failing to deliver 3 million shares promised him as part of an exit package, reports Bloomberg.

Michael Pearson resigned in May as the value of Valeant’s shares dropped and it became the subject of U.S. Justice Department and congressional investigations, write David Voreacos and Cynthia Koons.

They report that Pearson is claiming the company promised him 580,676 restricted shares and 2.46 million performance shares. Those shares would have a market value of more than $30 million, although exhibits to the lawsuit suggest the value for Pearson could be higher.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Whether a mixed insurance contract (i.e., an insurance contract with maritime and non-maritime elements) permits the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction is a complicated question for parties and for the courts, writes Eric Chang in an alert for Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads LLP.

He writes that admiralty jurisdiction can be the basis for subject matter jurisdiction for the federal courts.

“Historically, admiralty jurisdiction was limited to contracts that were purely maritime – involving rights and duties pertaining to ships, vessels, and the navigation thereof on the ocean or elsewhere,” he explains.

That changed, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court exercised admiralty jurisdiction in a “maritime case about a train wreck.”

Read the article.

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Amazon.com scored a big victory Thursday against the IRS in a case that the company says could have cost it about $1.5 billion, reports The Seattle Times.

The IRS contended that the e-commerce giant had inappropriately brought down its U.S. tax bill by grossly undervaluing the assets it transferred to its Luxembourg subsidiary, which the company created more than a decade ago.

“Judge Albert Lauber of the U.S. Tax Court ruled that the IRS’ determination of those assets’ worth was ‘arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.’ He also broadly sided with Amazon on the way the U.S. company calculates how it shares costs with its European subsidiary,” writes reporter Ángel González. “The ruling, in favor of Amazon, untangles part of the complex web of tax litigation the retailer faces as authorities in the U.S. and Europe review how they deal with global companies that straddle many jurisdictions seeking advantageous tax deals.”

Read the Seattle Times article.

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Employers who want to challenge their unfair labor practice complaints may want to delay their cases from being heard, if possible, until after November, recommends a labor lawyer, in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits powers of acting presidential appointees.

Allen Smith, writing for the Society for Human Resource Management, explains implications of the ruling, which found that the acting National Labor Relations Board general counsel did not have the authority to continue in that role once the president nominated him to be confirmed by the Senate to be general counsel.

That means that companies that have objected to the authority of Acting GC Lafe Solomon after he was nominated can challenge any unfair labor practice charge issued against them following his nomination January 2011, according to Phil Wilson, president and general counsel with the Labor Relations Institute in Broken Arrow, Okla.

Read the SHRM article.

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With Democrats outnumbered in Congress, a coalition of blue state attorneys general has emerged as the strongest resistance to Donald Trump’s conservative agenda, according to an article published by Bloomberg Businessweek.

“Together they’ve notched back-to-back victories against Trump’s two attempts to instill a travel ban against several Muslim-majority nations. They now hope to build on that success to form a united front against Trump’s expected efforts to roll back financial and environmental regulation, plus the GOP’s planned repeal of Obamacare,” says the article, written by Erik Larson, Esmé E Deprez and Kartikay Mehrotra.

They quote Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who teaches political science at the University of Southern California, who says that by notching wins against Trump, state AGs can help make up for Democrats being in the minority in Congress

Read the Bloomberg Businessweek article.

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Exterro has published a new e-discovery case law report titled “The Importance of Proportionality under the New FRCP Rules” that is now available for downloading at no charge.

On its website, Exterro says the main goal of the recent FRCP amendments is to support Rule 1’s demand for a just, speedy, and inexpensive resolution to the dispute at hand. Proportionality is at the core of that notion.

This paper’s four cases cover rulings that push parties to be more proactive in finding ways to reach that resolution while avoiding over-burdensome and expensive production requests.

Included are:

• Brief case law recaps which get to heart of the e-discovery issues quickly
• Expert analysis on what these influential court rulings mean for your
  litigation process
• Tips for meeting updated e-discovery court requirements under the the new FRCP rules

Download the report.

Zapproved has published a free summary of “The Perfect Preservation Notice” session at the 2016 PREX, the premier conference for in-house e-discovery professionals. That summary is available for downloading.

• Craig Ball, Craig D. Ball, P.C.
• Dawn Radcliffe, Legal Operations Manager at TransCanada, Ltd.
• Kelly Lack, Litigation Counsel at Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Download the summary.