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Appellate
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February 25, 2025
Payments Weren't Admission Philly Cop Got COVID At Work
A Philadelphia police officer's "excused time," or E-Time, payments when he contracted COVID-19 were not a substitute for workers' compensation or an acknowledgment that he caught the disease on the job, so a state appellate court said Tuesday that he could not reinstate those payments under the workers' comp law.
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February 25, 2025
7th Circ. Mostly Denies Religious Groups' Visa Rule Challenge
A Seventh Circuit panel rejected religious groups' assertions that a visa regulation applying to foreign ministers burdens their religious and First Amendment rights, but revived their Administrative Procedure Act claim challenging the regulation.
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February 25, 2025
Utah Asks 10th Circ. To Block EPA's Ozone Standard Finding
The state of Utah has called on the Tenth Circuit to block a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determination that the state's most populous region is not complying with national ozone standards, saying international emissions are mostly to blame.
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February 25, 2025
5th Circ. Eyes Congress' Quorum As Texas Fights PWFA
The Fifth Circuit grappled Tuesday with whether the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was rightly blocked from enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act against the state of Texas, with several judges struggling to pinpoint whether the U.S. Constitution requires lawmakers' physical presence to have a quorum.
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February 25, 2025
Fired Worker Couldn't Justify COVID Vax Refusal, 3rd Circ. Says
A software engineer who refused to comply with his company's COVID-19 vaccine policy couldn't claim he had a "sincere religious objection" while shielding his medical records from disclosure and vacillating on his reasons, a Third Circuit panel ruled Tuesday.
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February 25, 2025
High Court Split Over Civil Rights Jury Trials For Prisoners
The U.S. Supreme Court appeared evenly divided Tuesday over whether the Seventh Amendment guarantees prisoners the right to a jury trial when disputed facts regarding exhaustion of remedies are intertwined with their underlying claims, including allegations of sexual misconduct and retaliation.
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February 25, 2025
Okla. Tribe Can't Revive Creek Land Dispute, DC Circ. Told
The federal government has urged a D.C. Circuit panel to deny an Oklahoma tribe's request to revive its challenge to a decision that rejected its proposed liquor ordinance in a dispute over shared jurisdiction with the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, arguing there's no identifiable cause of action that entitles relief.
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February 25, 2025
NJ Appeals Panel Upends Custodians' COVID Pay Award
A New Jersey appellate court reversed an arbitration award Tuesday granting extra money to school custodians who worked during the COVID-19 state of emergency, saying the award conflicts with a state statute that provided school employees with regular pay throughout the pandemic.
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February 25, 2025
Atlanta Says 'Cop City' Completion Moots Public Vote
The city of Atlanta has told the Eleventh Circuit that the recent completion of its controversial "Cop City" police training center should render moot a lawsuit by noncity residents who had hoped to force a long-stalled public vote to roll back the city's approval of the project.
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February 25, 2025
NC High Court Hopeful Says Ballot Count Defied State Law
A North Carolina judge is pressing forward with his legal battle to throw out more than 60,000 ballots in a race he lost by just 734 votes, arguing in a newly filed appellate brief that the state Elections Board has ignored voter registration laws for decades.
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February 25, 2025
Justices Limit 'Prevailing Party' Status For Atty Fees
Litigants will no longer be considered the "prevailing party" — and thus won't be eligible for attorney fees — if they achieve courtroom victories via preliminary injunction instead of a final judgment, the U.S. Supreme Court has found, in a ruling that's expected to be a blow to legal advocacy groups.
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February 25, 2025
5th Circ. Backs FedEx's Win In Worker's Age Bias Suit
The Fifth Circuit refused to reopen a former FedEx manager's lawsuit alleging he was terminated because he was in his 50s, finding he couldn't overcome the delivery company's assertion that he was fired for failing to take action when a co-worker brought a BB gun to work.
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February 25, 2025
Federal Judiciary Repeats Request For More Judges
A federal circuit judge, speaking on behalf of the federal judiciary, repeated on Tuesday the need for more federal judges to alleviate the overwhelmed courts after President Joe Biden vetoed legislation late last year that would have added seats to the bench.
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February 25, 2025
NJ Atty Suspended Over Secret Outside Legal Work
A Garden State lawyer has been suspended for two years by the state's Supreme Court for surreptitiously accepting payments for legal services while never opening a file at his former firm for the clients or sharing profits with the firm, but instead had clients pay him directly.
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February 25, 2025
Ga. Chief Justice Resigning After Over 20 Years On Bench
Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael P. Boggs — who has steered the state's courts in spending pandemic relief funds and approving changes to the state's bar exam — announced Tuesday that he's stepping down at the end of March to return to private practice.
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February 25, 2025
Ayahuasca Church Appeals To 9th Circ. In $2M Atty Fee Fight
A Phoenix-based church is appealing to the Ninth Circuit a decision denying it more than $2 million in attorney fees after reaching a deal with the federal government to allow it to use ayahuasca for religious purposes.
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February 25, 2025
Insurers Owe Chubb $3.3M For Safelite Defense Costs
Two insurers must contribute $1.65 million each toward costs a Chubb unit incurred defending windshield repair company Safelite against a competitor's suit, an Ohio federal court ruled, finding the pair were not prejudiced by breaches of their policies' notice and voluntary payment provisions.
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February 25, 2025
10th Circ. Affirms Falsity Claims Bar Coverage Of HOA Fight
The Tenth Circuit affirmed that two AIG units need not cover a ski resort's homeowners association and other insureds found liable for trying to induce the owner of resort condo units to pay $15.5 million in fees it didn't owe, pointing to what are known as knowledge-of-falsity exclusions.
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February 25, 2025
10th Circ. Asked To Rethink Denying Atty's Racing Deductions
A Denver personal injury lawyer asked the Tenth Circuit to reconsider its decision barring his $300,000 tax deduction for car-racing costs as professional advertising, saying the court deprived him of due process in dismissing his argument that the IRS wrongly denied him a chance to settle.
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February 25, 2025
4th Circ. Taps 6 Judges For 6-Month Stint In NC Western
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Albert Diaz of the Fourth Circuit has issued orders to five district court judges and one of his fellow appellate judges to serve temporarily in the Western District of North Carolina from March through the end of August.
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February 25, 2025
High Court Orders New Trial In Okla. Death Row Case
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a new trial for an Oklahoma inmate whose conviction and death sentence for a 1997 murder, the state confesses, was the product of prosecutors withholding evidence and knowingly presenting false testimony.
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February 24, 2025
9th Circ. Axes Fee Award In California Pizza Kitchen Hack Deal
The Ninth Circuit on Monday scrapped an attorney fee award of $800,000 given to class counsel as part of a deal resolving data breach litigation against California Pizza Kitchen, finding that the lower court had failed to properly compare the "actual value" of the settlement — which the panel put around $950,000 — to the requested fees.
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February 24, 2025
'We Need Go No Further': 10 Notable Judge Bruce Selya Lines
Senior First Circuit Judge Bruce Selya, who died Saturday at age 90, will be remembered not only for the opinions he wrote but for the flowery language he used to write them. Here are 10 of the judge's notable "Selyanisms" from recent years.
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February 24, 2025
FDIC Scraps 10th Circ. Brief Backing Colo.'s Opt-Out Law
In a pivot, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Monday withdrew a Tenth Circuit brief that had supported Colorado in industry litigation against the state's "opt-out" law aimed at curbing higher-cost online lending.
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February 24, 2025
9th Circ. Mostly Clears The Way For Mont. Logging Project
The Ninth Circuit on Monday reversed portions of a Montana federal judge's decision to vacate U.S. Forest Service approval of a controversial Black Ram logging project on the Kootenai National Forest, but told the lower court it had to take a closer look at some of the environmentalists' objections.
Expert Analysis
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A Novel Expansion Of Alien Tort Statute In 9th Circ.
The Ninth Circuit's Doe v. Cisco rehearing denial allows a new invocation of the Alien Tort Statute to proceed, which could capture the U.S. Supreme Court's attention, and has potentially dramatic consequences for U.S. companies doing business with foreign governments, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.
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Empathy In Mediation Offers A Soft Landing For Disputes
Experiencing a crash-landing on a recent flight underscored to me how much difference empathy makes in times of crisis or stress, including during mediation, says Eydith Kaufman at Alternative Resolution Centers.
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Series
Being An Artist Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My work as an artist has highlighted how using creativity and precision together — qualities that are equally essential in both art and law — not only improves outcomes, but also leads to more innovative and thoughtful work, says Sarah La Pearl at Segal McCambridge.
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Reading Tea Leaves In Fed. Circ. Deep Dive On Review Scope
Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer investigates why a recent Federal Circuit opinion spent six pages explaining its unsurprising conclusion on proper scope of review — that no deference need be afforded to the trial court in a case dismissed for failure to state a claim.
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How Judiciary Can Minimize AI Risks In Secondary Sources
Because courts’ standing orders on generative artificial intelligence and other safeguards do not address the risk of hallucinations in secondary source materials, the judiciary should consider enlisting legal publishers and database hosts to protect against AI-generated inaccuracies, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl.
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Newly Acquired Information Can Be Key In Drug Label Cases
The question of whether federal law preempts state law claims is often central in pharmaceutical labeling cases, like the Fosamax litigation now before the Third Circuit — but parties must also consider whether there is newly acquired information to justify submitting a proposed labeling change in the first place, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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Tips For Employers As Courts Shift On Paid Leave Bias Suits
After several federal courts recently cited the U.S. Supreme Court's Muldrow decision — which held that job transfers could be discriminatory — in ruling that paid administrative leave may also constitute an adverse employment action, employers should carefully consider several points before suspending workers, says Tucker Camp at Foley & Lardner.
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NC Ruling Takes Practical Approach To Duty-To-Defend Costs
In Murphy-Brown v. Ace American Insurance, a case of first impression, the North Carolina Business Court adopted the commonsense rationale of many state courts in holding that policyholders' defense costs should be deemed presumtively reasonable when a insurer breaches its duty to defend, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.
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Calif. Ruling Offers Hope For Mitigated Negative Declarations
In Upland Community First v. City of Upland, a California appeals court upheld a warehouse development's mitigated negative declaration over its greenhouse gas emissions thresholds — a rare victory against this type of challenge providing reassurance that such declarations can be upheld, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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False Patent Marking Claims Find New Home In Lanham Act
While the Patent Act may have closed the courthouse doors for many false patent marking claims, the Federal Circuit, in its recent decision in Crocs v. Effervescent, may be opening a window to these types of claims under the Lanham Act, says John Cordani at Robinson & Cole.
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3rd. Circ. Ruling Shows Employers Where To Put ADA Focus
A recent Third Circuit decision in Morgan v. Allison Crane & Rigging, confirming that the Americans with Disabilities Act protects some temporarily impaired employees, reminds employers to pursue compliance through uniform policies that head off discriminatory decisions, not after-the-fact debates over an individual's disability status, says Joseph McGuire at Freeman Mathis.
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Nvidia Case's Potential Impact On Securities Class Actions
In Nvidia v. Ohman Fonder, the U.S. Supreme Court could strip lower courts of their long-standing ability and obligation to holistically weigh all relevant facts supporting plaintiffs' allegations of securities fraud, which would have a wide-ranging impact on securities fraud class actions in the U.S., say attorneys at Labaton Keller.
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Justices Face Tough Question On HHS Hospital Pay Formula
In Advocate Christ Medical Center v. Becerra, the U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services properly applied certain Medicare reimbursement adjustments to hospitals — a decision that could significantly affect hospitals' ability to seek higher Medicare reimbursement for low-income patients, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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How Attorneys Can Break Free From Career Enmeshment
Ambitious attorneys can sometimes experience career enmeshment — when your sense of self-worth becomes unhealthily tangled up in your legal vocation — but taking the time to discover and realign with your core personal values can help you recover your identity, says Janna Koretz at Azimuth Psychological.
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Where Can Privacy Plaintiffs Sue When Injury Is Online?
Website owners need to understand wiretapping laws to understand whether they may be sued for activity tracking in California or Pennsylvania courts, where the statutory damages for violations of half-century-old laws can be substantial — and a recent Third Circuit decision suggests establishing specific jurisdiction is not as easy as 1-2-3, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.