Under the new federal “Speak Out Act,” employers will no longer be able to enforce pre-dispute non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses to disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. The new law, which passed with bipartisan support in Congress, was signed into law by President Biden on December 7. The…
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Deceptive Labeling Class-Action Alert: FDA Proposes Updated “Healthy” Food Label Standard
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently published a proposed rule that, if implemented, would update the labeling standards that food products must meet in order to be labeled as “healthy.” The FDA first established a definition for “healthy” in 1994, and at that time nutrition science and federal dietary…
Banks Accused of Funding Epstein’s Sex Trafficking
Sex trafficking requires more than one person to be involved in the process. So it should come as no surprise that the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking didn’t stop with Epstein. His wife, Ghislaine Maxwell, was also found guilty of child sex trafficking and other crimes in connection…
Spotting the Red Flags of Trusts and Estates Fraud
Executors and trustees have a large amount of responsibility with respect to the assets they manage and to the beneficiaries for whose benefit they manage such assets. However, with a high degree of responsibility comes a high degree of accountability. That accountability comes in the form of the fiduciary duties…
Lubin Austermuehle Partner Authors Amicus Brief in Fee Petition Case Successfully Resulting in Reversal of Trial Court
In a case that has potentially far-reaching implications for fee petitions, the Illinois Third District appellate court formally adopted a framework for considering such petitions laid out by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago. Perhaps just as important, the Third District rebuffed the trial court’s reduction of attorney fees…
D.C. Council Passes Amendment to Scale Back Ban on Non-Compete Agreements
After passing one of the strictest non-compete laws in the nation, the District of Columbia Council has responded to criticisms about the bill by passing the Non-Compete Clarification Amendment Act of 2022 which significantly scales back key aspects of the non-compete ban law enacted back in 2021 but which has…
Bankruptcy Is Used by Wealthy Companies to Avoid Legal Liability
Approximately 38,000 consumer lawsuits have been filed against Johnson & Johnson for allegedly including asbestos in their baby powder, which allegedly caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. Executives at Johnson & Johnson allegedly knew about the risks of asbestos for decades and still included it in their baby powder. Those same…
Federal Appeals Court Revives Class Action against Airline over Undisclosed Fee
In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit revived a class action lawsuit filed against Avior Airlines accusing the airline of forcing passengers to pay undisclosed fees in order to board flights from Miami to Venezuela. In its decision, the appeals court ruled that the…
Seventh Circuit Rules that Employer Cannot use Arbitration Agreement to Escape Shareholder Suit over Retirement Plan
The Seventh Circuit in a recently issued decision held that an employer cannot invoke an arbitration provision to evade a shareholder class-action lawsuit seeking broad relief under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a federal law aimed at protecting participants in private employer retirement plans. In its decision, the…
Is There a Statute of Limitations on Reclaiming Stolen Artwork?
The Nazis viewed modern art as “degenerate” and therefore confiscated whatever pieces of art they found to be “degenerate,” but that didn’t stop them from profiting off those pieces of art. While the Nazi party refused to display artwork it did not approve of in German museums, they saw nothing…