Rob Berntsen is exiting Xcel Energy after barely a year to snag one of the most prized legal jobs in the power industry.       

“There is much to be said about contracts that use brightline rules to establish certainty. That is not this contract. Instead of setting a firm timeline, the contract created a continuing obligation for reclamation that survived its termination,” said Judge Joshua P. Kolar, who authored the opinion.       

“The district court’s final judgment here was silent about the disposition of the defendant’s counterclaims. After that omission was identified, the parties and the district court proposed four separate solutions. That number suggests some clarification might be helpful to parties and district courts,” the per curiam opinion said.       

Citing its 2024 ruling in DeGreer v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., the appellate court concluded that, because the plaintiff wasn’t “unambiguously excluded” from a narrowed class action, the plaintiff’s claims had paused during the class-action proceedings.       

In a 5-2 decision, the majority affirmed a Jackson County Circuit Court Judge’s decision to nullify a jury’s $4 million award to R.M.A., a transgender male student.       

The court concluded its March order remained, determining its conclusion wasn’t at odds with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding willful violations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).       

The court denied the Kansas City Southern Railway Company’s attempts to enact attorney-client privilege between its counsel and one of its employees who witnessed the accident at the center of the underlying negligence suit in Cole v. The Kansas City Southern Railway Company.       

But Matthew Cooper, who has been GC since 2018 and is leading the integration effort, has to stick around three more years to receive the full payout.       

Recently minted chair Chris Hohn said he is optimistic that 2025 will be “as good or better” than 2024, because of the firm’s diversified portfolio and the volume of work in the pipeline.       

“We conclude that an award of $140 million in punitive damages was ‘ascertainable’ from the entry of the first judgment in 2017,” the court said. “Neither the district court nor this court has ever held that $140 million is too high. Punitive damages have gone from $700 million to $280 million to $140 million, but