Bloomberg Law reports that two women among a group of female associates accusing Morrison & Foerster LLP of pregnancy discrimination must replead some or all of their claims, a federal judge ruled.

One of the plaintiffs was too late with her claims under federal and District of Columbia law, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said. And another plaintiff’s allegations were insufficient to support her argument that a release she signed was unduly influenced by the dire economic situation caused by her termination, the court said.

The women are part of a proposed nationwide class action filed in April 2018.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The former general counsel of ExlService Holdings says in a lawsuit that she suffered from gender stereotyping in her job, illustrated by an order from the CEO that she serve cake to the company’s junior male employees at a company anniversary.

The Washington Post reports on the complaint, which says the CEO at that anniversary event singled out then-GC Nancy Saltzman as one of the “ladies” in the room, despite the fact that she was the most senior female executive at the company. The complaint says Saltzman was humiliated.

The complaint says the event was an example of gender stereotyping. The Post‘s Deanna Paul writes: “According to the complaint, [the CEO] ‘took steps to exclude her from career and advancement opportunities, subjected her to enhanced scrutiny, and micromanaged her’ in a manner her male equals were not.”

She complained to other executives about stereotyping, but she later was fired.

Read the Washington Post article.

The trial involving Hurricane Harvey-related claims from Houston-area property owners who were flooded by the water release from two U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs will begin on May 6, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

“We’re pleased that we can finally present the evidence to claim fair compensation for the residents whose property was flooded because of the government’s failures,” said Daniel Charest of Burns Charest LLP, co-lead counsel for the residents. “The Corps of Engineers knew its reservoirs and management plans would result in the flooding of private property, which is exactly what happened in August 2017.”

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 homes and businesses flooded near government-run dams to the west of Houston. The plaintiffs allege the actions of the Corps of Engineers and its design of the reservoirs led to the flooding of their private property, resulting in an unlawful “taking” of land under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Addicks and Barker reservoirs were built in the 1940s and 1950s. Over the years, the government allowed developers to build thousands of homes and businesses on land that the Corps knew was at risk of flooding, according to plaintiffs. During Harvey’s rains, some of these properties flooded from reservoir overflow, and others flooded when the Corps chose to release water to protect the dams.

The two-week bench trial is before the Court of Federal Claims but will take place in the federal courthouse in downtown Houston.

Bloomberg Law reports that a lawyer and his client didn’t pay more than $1 million in sanctions imposed by an Illinois judge for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit they’re appealing, prompting the judge to approve a bond to pay the sanctions that must be posted no later than May 9.

Bloomberg’s Stephen Joyce writes that Judge Margaret Ann Brennan imposed sanctions totaling $1,061,623 against Marshall Spiegel and his lawyer, John Xydakis, in a case involving a condominium association. Spiegel and Xydakis had engaged in harassing behavior, the judge found.

Two adverse decisions and a November 2015 notice that their claim against  condo board member was not well grounded didn’t Spiegel and Xydakis from producing more filings and launching new lawsuits.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Bloomberg Law reports that the former chair of Dentons government contracts practice group claims that the firm owes her more than $390,000, but the firm has fired back, saying she owes the firm almost $2 million in client fees.

Jessica Abrahams, now at Drinker Biddle & Reath, claims Dentons breached a contract that guaranteed she’d have the funds in her capital account returned to her if she left the firm.

Dentons responded in a statement that when Abrahams left, “Dentons was owed more than $1.8 million from her clients and those fees and costs largely remain outstanding today.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The Florida Bar hit Fort Lauderdale lawyer Ashley Krapacs with an emergency suspension for alleged behavior including “terrorist legal tactics” and “cyberstalking restraining order” in online posts about two peers.

The Miami Herald reports that the case started with Krapacs filing for a restraining order against a man whom she claimed was violently abusive during their relationship. The Bar presented an example from Krapacs’ LinkedIn account that referred to one of the lawyers on the other side:

“Old White Male Attorney #2 steps up to the plate to harass a domestic violence victim with yet another baseless legal treat. Classy.”

She also accused the court of being biased, according to the Herald‘s David J. Neal.

Read the Miami Herald article.

A Miami-based personal injury attorney, a prostate cancer survivor, sued his health-care insurance provider in April, accusing it of wrongfully denying him and potentially thousands of other men coverage for a lifesaving prostate cancer treatment.

Richard Cole has had a hard time finding a judge to hear his case, if only because they all keep recusing themselves, reports The Washington Post.

Then one judge, who also felt he had to recuse himself and who was a prostate cancer survivor himself, made it clear how he felt about the case. In his recusal order, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. wrote “To deny a patient this treatment, if it is available, is immoral and barbaric.”

Read the Post article.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has agreed to hear a case to consider whether the rule of capture applies to hydraulic fracking, reports The Hydraulic Fracking Blog of Norton Rose Fulbright.

The case involves landowners’ trespass and conversion claims against an energy company based on hydraulic fracking activities. The plaintiffs  compared the energy company’s fracking activity to slant drilling, claiming that the proppants of hydraulic fracturing “serve the same purpose as a drill bit invading the land.”

Read the article.

Bill Boyce, a justice on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston for 11 years, has joined Alexander Dubose & Jefferson in the firm’s Houston office.

In addition to his experience on the bench, he practiced law for 18 years as an associate and partner at Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

While in private practice he argued more than 60 cases in appellate courts throughout Texas and across the country, including the United States Supreme Court.  He has been board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Civil Appellate Law since 1994 and has served on the board’s appellate exam drafting committee.  He has been selected as Appellate Judge of the Year by the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists.

Read more about Boyce.

A Texas Supreme Court ruling in Texas Outfitters Limited v. Nicholson explains why there is no bright-line rule delineating the duty of the executive right holder in resolving disputes among the mineral interest family, according to Gray Reed & McGraw.

The article in the firm’s Energy & the Law blog explains that the case presented an opportunity for the court to apply the guidelines outlined in an earlier ruling to a different scenario: whether the executive breached the duty by refusing to lease.

The ruling in “Outfitters reinforces the message that surface protection is not the only goal an executive is allowed to pursue – especially if a co-owner has leased.”

Read the article.

The 9th Circuit recently handed down an opinion that helps provide guidance to those employers trying to comply with collective bargaining agreements while simultaneously being challenged to apply potentially inconsistent definitions in California’s overtime law, writes Rebecca King for a Fisher & Phillips website post.

The case involved an offshore oil worker whose contract called for 12-hour shifts for a week and required him to be on the off platform between shifts. He wanted to be paid for the hours he was required to be on site.

Read the article.

Zapproved has published “The Essential Guide to Ediscovery Law and Practice” and made it available for downloading from the company’s website at no charge.

The new guide covers relevant critical sections of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and includes case law examples.

The company says the guide summarizes those portions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that pertain specifically to ediscovery: from Rule 26’s definitions of scope and proportionality to Rule 37’s explanation of spoliation and delineation of available sanctions.

And the guide includes interspersed targeted advice and case law illustrations.

Download the guide.

The Cook County Record is reporting that a county judge has ordered more than $1 million in sanctions and penalties against a lawyer and his client in connection with a litany of legal actions against a condo association.

The lawyer is John Xydakis, a Chicago real estate lawyer. He represented Marshall Spiegel, who sued the 1618 Sheridan Road Condominium Association. On Feb. 8, 2018, Judge Margaret Ann Brennan denied Spiegel’s request to file a 99-count, 223-page fifth amended complaint and later that year denied his motion to reconsider that ruling, writes Scott Holland.

The judge’s order noted “Xydakis filed claims against nearly every resident” of the condo and “without any factual basis … alleged serious offenses, including theft, slander, harassment and stalking.” She said the claims they brought “have no basis in law or fact.”

Read the Cook County Record article.

Cleveland-based BigLaw firm Jones Day, which has struggled with its reputation in the past as a diverse and inclusive workplace, is being sued for gender, pregnancy and maternity discrimination to the tune of more than $200 million, reports Crain’s Cleveland Business.

“The firm’s admitted practice of pay confidentiality, combined with the “nearly absolute control” exercised by Jones Day’s Managing Partner Steve Brogan, has resulted in an opaque review system that allows bias and retaliation to run unchecked, Nilab Tolton, Andrea Mazingo, and four Jane Does say in their April 3 complaint,” writes Crain’s Jeremy Nobile.

“Jones Days’s fraternity culture presents female attorneys at Jones Day with an unpalatable choice: participate in a culture that is at best inhospitable to women and at worst openly misogynistic or forego any hope of success at the Firm,” the lawsuit states.

Read the Crain’s article.

Lawyers at Pond Lehocky Stern Giordano had a beef with a Philadelphia workers compensation judge who ruled against them, so they told a member of the governor’s staff that the judge was romantically involved with a local workers’ comp lawyer.

Three months later, Judge Andrea McCormick was out of a job, reports The Inquirer of Philadelphia.

“State investigators say they responded to Pond Lehocky’s complaint by pulling eight years of McCormick emails and determined that she had violated multiple policies: using her work computer to make online purchases and exchange personal photos, and sharing court decisions before they were officially posted online, among other alleged offenses,” writes the Inquirer‘s William Bender.

“We never asked for anyone to be terminated,” Pond Lehocky partner David Stern said in an email.

Read the Inquirer article.

An Ohio probate judge committed misconduct by hearing multiple cases in which he was previously the attorney of record and failing to notify clients after his judicial appointment that he was terminating his representation, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled.

Bloomberg Law reports that Judge Robert Nathaniel Rusu Jr. heard about 170 cases where he had previously served as the attorney of record, according to the court’s findings.

In most of the cases, Rusu signed or stamped a deputy clerk’s form letters. In other cases, Rusu waived reporting requirements, approved settlement distributions, and appointed fiduciaries.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Fears Nachawati trial lawyer Matthew McCarley will be featured in an upcoming episode of the true crime show “In Ice Cold Blood,” detailing the murder-for-hire of a 69-year-old woman who was killed for her $5 million life insurance policies.

In 2014, Anita Fox was found fatally stabbed inside a Colleyville house where she worked as a housekeeper, according to a recent post by Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. Bernard “Little Joe” Gorman and his father, Bernard “Big Joe” Gorman, were arrested for the murder, with the police investigation uncovering a complex insurance fraud scheme involving Ms. Fox’s daughter and son-in-law, Virginia and Mark Buckland.

The investigation revealed that over the course of several years, the Bucklands had taken out a series of life insurance policies on Fox, naming themselves as sole beneficiaries. Following the recommendation of an insurance agent, the couple brought in the Gormans, members of a nomadic ethnic clan known as Irish Travellers, as third-party investors. Looking for immediate returns, the pair allegedly stalked and murdered Fox, who has been identified as a member of the English Travellers, another nomadic ethnic group, according to the Androvett post.

Represented by McCarley and Brice Burris of Fears Nachawati, Fox’s son and estate executor, Al Fox III, filed suit to prevent the Bucklands from profiting from the insurance policies. Though the couple has never been charged criminally in the murder, a jury in the 2018 civil case found that they were instrumental in crafting the insurance scheme that led to Fox’s death. Jurors awarded her son $166 million.

“Five years after her death, the scheme is still shocking in its sheer audacity,” said McCarley. “They have not faced criminal charges for their role in the murder, but the one thing that Mr. Fox can take comfort in is knowing that his sister and brother-in-law will never profit financially from his mother’s death.”

Hosted by actor and rapper Ice-T, “In Ice Cold Blood” is broadcast on the Oxygen Network. The episode “Gypsy Grandma” will premiere at 7 p.m. CDT April 8.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the former general counsel of the Houston Housing Authority won $1.87 million in a lawsuit against the agency after she accused it of retaliation.

“Karen Miniex, the former general counsel for the agency, alleged her boss at the housing agency retaliated against her after she investigated fraud in the agency’s voucher program targeted at veterans,” according to the report. “The trial was held before U.S. District Judge Nancy F. Atlas.”

A statement from the agency said an appeal is being considered, should the judge uphold the jury’s verdict.

Read the Houston Chronicle article.

A former lawyer with Hunton & Williams has been awarded $6.3 million for a brain injury caused when she hit her head on a low-hanging pipe in the Atlanta parking garage used by people at the law firm, reports the ABA Journal.

Aja Diamond McCoy was a lawyer at the firm now known as Hunton Andrews Kurth when she suffered the injury.

Jurors awarded her $8 million, but McCoy was deemed to be partially at fault, reducing the award to $6.3 million. She suffers from “unpredictable and severe” pain from the 2013 injury.

Read the ABA Journal article.

A Washington, D.C. federal judge entered a $353 million default judgment March 23 against Iran for its role in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, according to the plaintiffs’ law firm, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.

The commercial airliner was hijacked in 1985 shortly after takeoff from Athens, Greece, headed to Rome, and then on to Boston and Los Angeles, with 139 passengers aboard, most of whom were Americans. The lawsuit, filed by 108 passengers and family members, was filed under a 2008 statute creating a federal cause of action against foreign states designated as State Sponsors of Terrorism for supporting terrorist attacks. Iran was added to the list in 1984, based on its support for a campaign of terrorist hijackings, bombings and kidnappings largely aimed at American citizens.

On June 14, 1985, terrorists from the Iranian-financed terrorist group Hezbollah boarded TWA Flight 847, posing as passengers, while heavily armed with guns, hand grenades and other explosives. When the aircraft reached cruising altitude, they stood up and ran down the aisle, threatening to blow up the aircraft unless Israel released 700 imprisoned Shiite Muslims. The plane was diverted to Beirut, Lebanon for refueling. The hijackers then ordered the plane to fly back and forth between Beirut and Algiers, Algeria for the next three days, releasing small groups of mostly women and children along the way. On the second stop in Beirut, airport authorities turned out the lights and blocked the runways, nearly forcing a crash landing.

During the flight, passengers were beaten, made to hold torturously painful positions for hours, and subjected to mock executions. In Beirut, the terrorists killed Navy diver Robert Stethem, dumping his body on the tarmac. Family members could only imagine the worst, having no way of knowing the fate of their loved ones. Then, 39 male passengers were taken into Beirut, where they were held for several more weeks until Israel agreed to satisfy some of the terrorists’ demands by releasing prisoners held in Israel and Kuwait.

The lawsuit centered on evidence that Iran financed, supported, trained, and guided Hezbollah for the purpose of using terrorist attacks to promote a largely anti-Semitic and anti-American agenda. The U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act affords plaintiffs the ability to sue a foreign country for damages caused by its sponsorship of terrorist attacks. Similar lawsuits against Iran, Sudan, Syria and North Korea have resulted in judgments for compensatory damages totaling billions of dollars.

In his order granting plaintiffs’ motion for entry of default judgment, District Court Judge Richard Leon noted that the victims’ declarations “paint a harrowing tale of the events that transpired aboard TWA Flight 847.”

“These families have lived with the trauma of the hijacking for over 30 years with little hope of getting closure,” said plaintiffs’ counsel Mark N. Bravin, partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP (MSK). “They have now succeeded in holding Iran accountable in a court of law for its role in the hijacking and are entitled to the damages awarded by the court.”

Each of the 108 plaintiffs will be eligible to seek partial payment of their judgments from the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund. Congress created the Fund in December 2015 to address the difficulties American victims have encountered when trying to enforce court judgments against the foreign states that sponsor terrorist attacks.

“The District Court’s decision acknowledges the significant physical and emotional trauma our clients suffered and will enable them to collect at least a portion of the damages awarded to them by the court,” added Bravin.

The case is Allan, et. al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, Civil Action No. 1:17-cv-00338, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In addition to Bravin, plaintiffs were represented by Theresa Bowman and Matthew Williams, also of MSK.