A federal court in California granted preliminary approval to a $4.3 million settlement in an ERISA class action alleging that Sutter Health mismanaged its retirement plan.

A federal court in Louisiana declined to dismiss a Black former employee’s racial harassment claims against the dairy farm where his supervisor called him a “black ass nigger,” made comments about his skin tone, called him a “slave” on multiple occasions; and excluded him from a coworker’s birthday party because he was Black. He resigned after being denied a raise explicitly due to his race. “This is far from one or two isolated incidents.... These incidents, when viewed together, are severe and humiliating.”

An appeals court in Arkansas upheld a ruling in favor of a correctional officer who stopped at Sonic for a hamburger while transporting a pregnant inmate to the hospital for observation. At the hospital, the inmate vomited blood and delivered twins following an emergency C-section; one child died, so the inmate sued for wrongful death and negligence. Sovereign immunity protects the officer because the evidence does not indicate that she was transporting a patient with a serious medical need.

An appeals court in California upheld the trial court’s determination that a $2.5 million damages award is not covered by a homeowners insurance policy. The injuries his roommate suffered when the homeowner hit her with a rubber mallet before sexually assaulting her were the result of intentional conduct and did not arise from an “occurrence” defined in the policy as an “accident.”

An appeals court in Louisiana reversed the trial court’s judgment in favor of the director of a conservative think-tank and a cartoonist, which were sued by a nationally honored public school librarian for defamation. The “factual connotation” in their public comments was defamatory and false. “At the very least” their accusations that the librarian was “instructing children on how to perform sex acts and advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds indicate a reckless disregard of the truth.”

Miami real estate investor Todd Nepola, former husband of reality TV star Alexia Nepola, sued Bravo Media, NBCUniversal and Purveyors of Pop Production, claiming “The Real Housewives of Miami” painted a false picture of his finances.

The Department of Justice claims in six separate suits that California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania refused to hand over their statewide voter registration lists in violation of voting laws. The DOJ says it needs the data —including full names, birthdates, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers — to "safeguard" elections.

An Oregon family sued a pilot training program, two years after one of its training flights crashed into their home. The family says the crash, which killed two of the pilots, destroyed the home, forcing them to have to move six times in two years.

A man who trains dogs to avoid snakes is suing the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, after it told him he can only hold classes with native rattlesnakes if he offers them for free.