First up this week, we have a team at Knobbe Martens led by Stephen Jensen, Stephen Larson, Joseph Re, Adam Powell, Kendall Loebakka and Cheryl Burgess, who represented Applied Medical in an antitrust trial against Medtronic. Last week, after a nearly three-week trial, federal jurors in Santa Ana, Calif., found Medtronic violated federal and state antitrust laws by selling its LigaSure device below cost and bundling it with other products in attempts to monopolize the market for advanced bipolar devices used to seal blood vessels during surgery. Jurors awarded $381.7 million in damages, a number that could be tripled post-trial. The Knobbe Martens team included Joe Jennings, Nick Zovko, Ben Shiroma, Nefi Oliva, Adam Copeland and Isabella Pestana. In a closely watched patent case in the decentralized finance community (or DeFi, for those of you in the know), a team led by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partners Josh Krevitt and Stuart Rosenberg and Latham & Watkins partner Patricia Young scored a defense win for Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation. U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan this week granted their motion to dismiss infringement claims brought by Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin Ltd. under two related patents for a “constant product automated market maker” system. The judge found that the patents are directed at the unpatentable abstract idea of calculating currency exchange rates to perform transactions. The Gibson Dunn team representing Uniswap Labs includes partners Kate Dominguez, Ben Hershkowitz and Brian Rosenthal, of counsel R. Scott Roe and associates Ryan Jin and Evan Kratzer. The Latham team representing the Uniswap Foundation includes Gabriel Bell, Sean Gloth and Di Ai. Jacob Plattenberger and Alan Holcomb of TorHoerman Law, and Scott Hall of The Law Offices of Scott Hall won a $25 million verdict last week against ConAgra Foods Inc. for a California man who claims that a butter flavoring formerly used in PAM cooking spray caused him to develop bronchiolitis obliterans, commonly known as "popcorn lung." After about a month-long trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court, jurors found that the diacetyl in PAM butter flavored cooking spray was a substantial factor in causing Roland Esparza, 58, to develop the condition. Esparza is currently taking supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day and is awaiting a double lung transplant. Shout out Cravath, Swaine & Moore team, including partners Kevin Orsini and Omid Nasab, for the firm’s continued representation of Northern California utility company PG&E in the legal fallout from the company’s role in wildfires earlier this decade. Last week, the Cravath team knocked out a proposed class action brought on behalf of property owners in PG&E service areas whose property insurance was cancelled or not renewed, or whose rates were increased on or after Dec. 10, 2022. Alameda County Superior Judge S. Raj Chatterjee found that California law does not permit recovery of increased insurance premiums and costs as damages for negligence. Shout-out to a Dechert team led by antitrust partners George Gordon and Julia Chapman, who secured a summary judgment win for Johnson & Johnson in a proposed antitrust class action. Plaintiffs claimed the company prevented competition for its prescription immunosuppressant biologic medication Stelara by leveraging its $6.5 billion acquisition of biosimilar maker Momenta Pharmaceuticals. On the eve of a scheduled trial in January, U.S. District Judge Jamar Walker in Norfolk, Virginia agreed to reconsider a prior order denying summary to J&J. This week, Walker entered judgment for J&J after finding plaintiffs failed to show J&J had intent to monopolize the market. The Dechert team included Christina Sarchio, Katherine Unger Davis, Amanda Antons, Steven Bizar, Katherine Helm, Forrest Lovett, Judah Bellin, Shyam Shanker, David Costigan, Madeline Holler, Charles Hsu and Agnese Whitt. Shout-out to a DLA Piper team that harnessed expert testimony to help secure summary judgment last week for BASF in an asbestos related-suit in New Jersey. An auto body technician diagnosed with mesothelioma claimed his condition was caused by asbestos in talc mined and sold by a BASF predecessor that was used in two brands of auto-body filler. The DLA team put forward testimony by a materials science expert who tested the two fillers and found that, even if the talc in them contained asbestos, the likelihood that working with the fillers would produce inhalable asbestos would be “essentially zero.” Last week, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Ana Viscomi held that the plaintiff’s lawyers hadn’t met their burden to show causation due to a lack of relevant expert testimony concerning the potential release of asbestos from the products. The DLA Piper team included Matt Holian, John Wellschlager, Adam DeSipio, Paul Day, Nicole Duffy Solarz, Bill Kiniry III and Steve Barrett. Barrett and Solarz drafted the briefs. Barrett argued the motion. Shout-out to James Bennett of Dowd Bennett and Esther Lander of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, who are representing Starbucks in a lawsuit brought by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office claiming the company’s DEI policies discriminate based on race and gender. Last week, U.S. District Senior Judge John Ross in Missouri granted the company’s motion to dismiss the state’s federal claims, finding Missouri lacked standing. “If individuals in Missouri do exist who have been personally discriminated against by defendant, they are free to redress those injuries in their own individual lawsuits,” the judge wrote. “The State of Missouri cannot simply step into the shoes of any group of aggrieved citizens without a quasi-sovereign interest of its own.” Shout-out to lawyers at Keker Van Nest & Peters, the Prison Law Office, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, who secured a preliminary injunction requiring that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security provide “constitutionally adequate healthcare” to people detained in at the California City Detention Facility in the Mojave Desert. This week, U.S. District Senior Judge Maxine Chesney required the state’s newest and largest immigration detention facility to provide access to an independent, third-party monitor to review medical records and facilities and to interview patients and staff to ensure compliance with her order. The team representing the plaintiffs includes Keker’s Steven Ragland, Cody Harris, Carlos Martinez and Lisa Lu; Margot Mendelson, Tess Borden, Patrick Booth, Alison Hardy and Rana Anabtawi of the Prison Law Office; the ACLU’s Kyle Virgien, Felipe Hernandez, Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz and Carmen Iguina González; and CCIJ’s Priya Arvind Patel and Mariel Villarreal. Shout-out to a team at Latham team that helped Pacira BioSciences Inc. fend off securities litigation filed in the wake of an adverse court ruling concerning a patent covering its key nonopioid pain management drug, Exparel. Plaintiffs claimed that Pacira failed to disclose the “devastating” effects of a June 2023 claims construction ruling before the patent was ultimately invalidated in August 2024, leading to a 47% single-day drop in the company’s stock price. But U.S. District Senior Judge Stanley Chesler in New Jersey granted the company’s motion to dismiss with prejudice last week on all grounds—falsity, scienter and materiality. “Securities laws do not require issuers like defendants to characterize interim rulings or to concede defeat before a court has issued a ruling on the actual issue in the case," the judge wrote. The Latham team includes partners Kevin McDonough and Jooyoung Yeu and associates Nicholas Rosellini, Jessica Hui and Steven Van Iwaarden.