Reuters Legal

FTC Chair Lina Khan's initiative to use antitrust laws to protect workers faces a key test on Aug. 26 when the agency will argue the merger between grocery chain Kroger and its rival Albertsons would crush unionized workers' bargaining power. Khan and her fellow antitrust enforcers in the Biden administration have sought to use antitrust laws - deployed in recent decades mostly to protect consumers against high prices - to combat what they view as anticompetitive practices squeezing workers' paychecks. Labor has been an area of focus for Khan, a former law professor and congressional antitrust counsel, who took the reins of the agency in June 2021. The lawsuit alleges the merger would concentrate ownership and lead to higher grocery prices. Read Jody Godoy's report: https://reut.rs/3yTyYos

A national judicial conduct committee upheld a panel's findings that a now-former federal judge in Alaska committed misconduct by engaging in an inappropriate sexualized relationship with one of his law clerks and creating a hostile work environment for court employees. The Judicial Conference's Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability affirmed a decision by the 9th Circuit Judicial Council that prompted U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred to resign from the bench last month. The five-member panel found that the council had conducted a 'thorough investigation,' afforded Kindred all the due process and had ordered 'appropriate' remedial measures in response to the 'seriousness of the misconduct.' Those measures involved reprimanding Kindred and asking for his voluntary resignation. The council had also referred the case to the federal judiciary's top policymaking body, the Judicial Conference, to consider recommending Kindred's impeachment in Congress. Read Nate Raymond's report: https://reut.rs/3ZfUsqD

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will argue Kroger's $25 billion merger with rival grocer Albertsons is bad for shoppers and workers when the agency's lawsuit goes to trial in federal court in Portland, Oregon. The FTC and several states sued to block the deal in February, saying it would eliminate competition between the top two traditional supermarket chains in the U.S., spelling higher prices for consumers and less bargaining power for unionized grocery workers. It is also a key test of FTC Chair Lina Khan's initiative to use antitrust law to boost wages and mobility for workers. The trial is expected to last around three weeks and feature evidence about how major grocery retailers and smaller rivals set prices and view competition in the industry. Read Jody Godoy's report: https://reut.rs/3ANkMhf

 A U.S. appeals court refused to let the Biden administration enforce a new federal rule protecting LGBT students from discrimination in schools and colleges based on gender identity in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, which had all sued to challenge the measure. A 2-1 panel of the 11th Circuit sided with the four states, finding that the administration had overstepped its authority by interpreting Title IX, a federal law against sex discrimination in education, to cover gender identity. The decision leaves the anti-discrimination rule, which took effect on Aug. 1, blocked in 26 states by a patchwork of federal court orders in place during ongoing legal challenges by Republican-led states. States suing over the rule have said that it forces schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms, and faculty to use pronouns for transgender students, that correspond to their gender identities. Read Brendan Pierson's report: https://reut.rs/4fYrdOF

Georgetown law professor Shon Hopwood, who spent 11 years in prison for robbing several banks in the 1990s and was later celebrated for turning his life around, is slated to be arraigned on felony charges on Aug. 26 in connection with an ongoing domestic violence case, according to court records. Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia on Aug. 21 charged Hopwood with two counts of obstruction of justice and five counts of contempt for violating the conditions of his release. Those are in addition to four previously filed misdemeanor charges for simple assault, each connected with 2023 incidents at the Washington home of Hopwood and his wife, Ann Marie Hopwood. Hopwood's attorney, Phil Andonian, said his client will plead not guilty, as he did with the earlier charges. Karen Sloan has the details: https://reut.rs/4dAymmX

Johnson & Johnson said it is negotiating with plaintiffs' lawyers who have opposed the company's proposed settlement of lawsuits alleging its baby powder and other talc products caused cancer, seeking to eliminate holdouts to the deal. J&J has announced plans to finalize a $6.48 billion global settlement through the bankruptcy of a subsidiary company after earlier efforts were rebuffed twice by federal courts. J&J says the majority of claimants support its settlement offer. But it has paused a vote count for a short time so that it can gather additional votes from plaintiffs who have until recently opposed the deal. The bankruptcy settlement would end all talc lawsuits alleging that J&J products cause ovarian cancer, and it would prevent similar cases from being filed in the future. Read more: https://reut.rs/4dAOJzV 

Two New York crisis pregnancy centers and a national anti-abortion group can tell women about an unproven treatment to reverse the effect of the abortion pill mifepristone, a federal judge has ruled, a setback for efforts by the state's Democratic attorney general to crack down on such claims. U.S. District Judge John Sinatra in Buffalo, New York, wrote in a recent preliminary order that the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of free speech protects the right of Gianna's House, Options Care Center and the National Institute for Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) to ‘speak freely’ about abortion pill reversal and ‘to say that it is safe and effective for a pregnant woman to use in consultation with her doctor.’ The order will remain in place while Sinatra, who was appointed by Republican then-President Donald Trump, considers the case more fully. It applies only to the two centers and NIFLA. Find out more: https://reut.rs/4fVYdHu 

The 4th Circuit upheld Maryland's licensing requirements for people seeking to buy handguns, saying the law remained valid even after the 2022 Supreme Court decision.   In a 14-2 vote the court reversed a panel's 2-1 decision last year that had found the 2013 law requiring most Maryland residents to obtain a license and undergo training and background checks before buying a handgun was unconstitutional.   Subscribe to The Afternoon Docket: https://reut.rs/4aVlZjE

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr said it has added a non-equity partnership tier, becoming the latest U.S. law firm to eschew the traditional model in which all partners share ownership. The non-equity tier will apply to WilmerHale's new hires, and its existing 253 equity partners will not be affected by the change, a spokesperson for the firm told Reuters. The number of top law firms sticking with single-tier partnerships has been dwindling. Among the 200 highest-grossing law firms in the U.S., 86% have at least two tiers of partnerships, according to a 2023 report from law firm consultancy Adam Smith, Esq., LLC. Read David Thomas' report: https://reut.rs/4dAjTaq

A federal judge has dismissed charges against a Kansas man for possessing a machine gun, saying prosecutors failed to establish that a federal ban on owning such weapons is constitutional. The decision by U.S. District Judge John Broomes on Aug. 21 appeared to mark the first time a court has held that banning machine guns is unconstitutional after the conservative-majority SCOTUS in 2022 issued a landmark ruling that expanded gun rights. In that ruling, SCOTUS established a new test for assessing firearms laws, saying restrictions must be ‘consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation.’ The court clarified that standard in June as it upheld a ban on people subject to domestic violence restraining orders having guns, saying a modern firearms restriction needs only a 'historical analogue,' not a 'historical twin,' to be valid. Broomes, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said prosecutors in the latest case failed to identify such a historical analogue to support charging the man with violating the machine gun ban. Nate Raymond has more: https://reut.rs/3ACGQv4