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Featured
Circuit-By-Circuit Guide To 2024's Most Memorable Moments
One judge said a litigant's position would cause "an effing nightmare," and another decried the legal community's silence amid "illegitimate aspersions." Public officials literally trashed one court's opinion, and fateful rulings dealt with controversial politicians, social media and decades of environmental policy. Those were just a few appellate highlights in 2024, a year teeming with memorable moments both substantive and sensational.
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January 10, 2025
4 Lessons For Contractors From The Bitmanagement Saga
A software company's damages award of just $150,000 after years of litigation over the U.S. Navy violating a licensing deal offers several lessons for federal software contractors about carefully negotiating contractual terms and making sure they can adequately enforce those terms.
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January 10, 2025
Trade Deadline Fight Causes Headaches With Fed. Circ. Panel
A Federal Circuit panel seemed increasingly frustrated Friday as attorneys for both the U.S. Department of Commerce and a company it says should face adverse inferences for missing filing deadlines talked in circles about when such a significant penalty is proper.
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January 10, 2025
Colorado Conduct Panel Dings Judges For Disclosure Lapses
A Colorado judicial commission on Friday criticized 48 judges for failing to file state-mandated personal financial disclosure reports in 2023, saying the lapses "cast a shadow" over the state's judiciary but did not warrant public discipline because no judges were dishonest or improperly secretive.
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January 10, 2025
CACI Denied New Trial Over Abu Ghraib Torture
The defense contractor found liable for conspiring with the U.S. military to torture inmates at the Abu Ghraib military prison said it would appeal to the Fourth Circuit after a Virginia federal judge Friday ruled the company won't get a third crack at trial.
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January 10, 2025
Texas High Court Flips Course To Hear Boeing Back Pay Suit
The Texas Supreme Court changed course Friday in a case over the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association's attempts to recover lost wages from The Boeing Co. after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Boeing's 737 Max plane in 2019, granting a motion for rehearing.
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January 10, 2025
NJ Justices Say Private Lienholders Can Be State Actors
The Garden State's highest court has ruled that a previous version of the New Jersey Tax Sale Law is unconstitutional, pointing to U.S. Supreme Court precedent in concluding that private lienholders are not entitled to surplus equity in property that exceeds the debt owed.
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January 10, 2025
Fed. Circ. Revives Novartis Entresto Patent In MDL
The Federal Circuit on Friday revived a patent covering Entresto, a blockbuster heart failure drug made by Novartis, as part of multidistrict litigation where the company has tried to block generic versions of the product.
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January 10, 2025
Live Nation Dodges Dierks Bentley Concert Death Suit
A Connecticut appeals court affirmed Friday the dismissal of a suit accusing Live Nation of causing a Dierks Bentley concertgoer to drive drunk and cause a fatal car crash, saying a public nuisance claim can't apply to the concert promoter in a drunk driving scenario.
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January 10, 2025
Sen. Durbin Questions Trump AG Nominee's Lobbying
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, pressed federal agencies Friday to provide information on President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general nominee's past role as a foreign lobbyist ahead of her confirmation hearings next week due to concerns about possible conflicts of interest.
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January 10, 2025
6th Circ. Revives Physical Therapist's Miscarriage ADA Suit
The Sixth Circuit revived a physical therapist's suit Friday claiming an Ohio medical center wouldn't let her transfer to a new role after raising concerns that her current job triggered panic attacks following a miscarriage, ruling the lower court failed to correctly probe whether she had a disability.
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January 10, 2025
NC Co. Sues State, Duke Energy Over Lake Bed Compensation
A North Carolina company is suing the state and Duke Energy Carolinas LLC in North Carolina federal court for compensation, after a state high court took away its lake bed parcel following a land dispute with the energy company and other parties.
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January 10, 2025
3rd Circ. Won't Revive Ex-US Steel Worker's Race Bias Suit
The Third Circuit upheld U.S. Steel's win over a Black former train operator's lawsuit claiming he was fired after he was erroneously blamed for a 2015 derailment, ruling Friday he'd failed to show his race cost him the job rather than his lengthy disciplinary record.
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January 10, 2025
SEC's $93M Win Not Backed By Proof, Adviser Tells 1st Circ.
Commonwealth Financial asked a First Circuit panel Friday to undo a $93 million award the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission won last year, saying the lower court was too quick to find that the firm's disclosure practices harmed investors.
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January 10, 2025
Fed. Circ. Skeptical Ioengine Can Overcome On-Sale Bar
A Federal Circuit panel seemed doubtful Friday that none of the hundreds of people who downloaded a firmware upgrade affiliated with an early flash drive used it, which Ioengine LLC would need to prove to beat an on-sale bar invalidation of its patents.
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January 10, 2025
What's Next After Fed. Circ. Limits Orange Book Listings?
Under the Federal Circuit's recent ruling that patents must claim a drug's active ingredient to be included in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book, many patents may be listed improperly, but their fate and the ruling's impact on generic competition are far from settled, attorneys say.
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January 10, 2025
Justices To Review Block On Expanded Student Loan Benefits
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review the Fifth Circuit's block on expanded benefits under a federal program that forgives student loans for borrowers defrauded by higher education institutes.
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January 10, 2025
Justices To Review ACA Preventive Care Fight
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to review a Fifth Circuit decision finding a task force setting coverage requirements on preventive care was unconstitutional, setting up a high-stakes battle over the Affordable Care Act that could affect individuals' insurance coverage for things like colon and breast cancer screenings.
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January 10, 2025
7th Circ. Halts FDIC Enforcement Order Against Ex-Bank Chair
The Seventh Circuit on Friday granted a request from an Illinois community bank's onetime chairman for an emergency stay of professional sanctions the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. ordered as part of an in-house proceeding the executive has alleged was unconstitutional.
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January 10, 2025
Receiver Sought For Pittsburgh Landmark In $143M Default
A group of lenders seeking to foreclose on part of Pittsburgh's Station Square development over a $143 million loan default wants a Pennsylvania state court to appoint a receiver to take over management and marketing of the properties, according to court filings.
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January 10, 2025
FDA Tells Justices RJ Reynolds Challenge Belongs In DC Circ.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to send a suit by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. and two retailers challenging the denial of a marketing application from the Fifth Circuit to the D.C. Circuit, saying federal law doesn't allow a manufacturer to forum shop by bringing a retailer into its challenge.
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January 10, 2025
4th Circ. Accelerates Appeal In Contested NC High Court Race
The Fourth Circuit on Friday agreed to speed up briefing in an appeal centered on which court should hear a Republican judge's ballot challenge in his race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, squeezing the case in for argument before the first session of the new year.
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January 10, 2025
Alaska Airlines May Be Liable For Agent's Fall, Panel Says
Alaska Airlines cannot escape a ticket agent's lawsuit over a baggage conveyor belt accident, a Michigan state appellate panel ruled Thursday, though one dissenting panel member slammed the one-sentence ruling his colleagues upheld, calling it inscrutable.
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January 10, 2025
1st Circ. Questions Reach Of Anti-Torture Law In Civil Cases
The First Circuit on Friday hinted it may be considering limits on the jurisdiction of the Torture Victims Protection Act, during a hearing where former Justice Stephen Breyer recalled concerns he first raised on the Supreme Court that an overly broad reading could pave the way for other nations to arrest Americans for incidents on U.S. soil.
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January 10, 2025
Fani Willis Seeks Return To Trump Election Interference Case
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis has asked the Georgia Supreme Court to reinstate her in the election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump, arguing she was the first Georgia DA to be ejected from a case "without the existence of an actual conflict of interest."
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January 10, 2025
Smith Appeals Injunction On Release Of Trump Report
Special counsel Jack Smith has notified the Eleventh Circuit that he is appealing a temporary injunction blocking the release of his final report on his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump for election meddling and retention of classified documents.
Editor's Picks
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12 Lawyers Who Are The Future Of The Supreme Court Bar
One attorney hasn't lost a single U.S. Supreme Court case she's argued, or even a single justice's vote. One attorney is perhaps "the preeminent SCOTUS advocate." And one may soon become U.S. solicitor general, despite acknowledging there are "judges out there who don't like me." All three are among a dozen lawyers in the vanguard of the Supreme Court bar's next generation, poised to follow in the footsteps of the bar's current icons.
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How Reshaped Circuit Courts Are Faring At The High Court
Seminal rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court's latest term will reshape many facets of American society in the coming years. Already, however, the rulings offer glimpses of how the justices view specific circuit courts, which have themselves been reshaped by an abundance of new judges.
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Law360's Guide To Biden's Judicial Picks
UPDATED December 20, 2024 | President Joe Biden is shaping the federal judiciary by adding to the courts' professional and demographic diversity — a sharp break from former President Donald Trump, who made the judiciary more homogeneous as the judges confirmed under him were 84% white and 76% male.
Expert Analysis
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6 Predictions For Cyber Risk And Insurance In 2025
This year is likely to bring with it some thorny and expensive cyber challenges, including increased ransomware activity, more data breach class actions and continued efforts to define business interruption loss calculations, say attorneys at Wiley.
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7 Ways 2nd Trump Administration May Affect Partner Hiring
President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House will likely have a number of downstream effects on partner hiring in the legal industry, from accelerated hiring timelines to increased vetting of prospective employees, say recruiters at Macrae.
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Opinion
Courts Must Curb The Drug Price Negotiation Program
The Inflation Reduction Act's drug price negotiation program upends incentive structures that drive medical innovation, and courts must act appropriately to avoid devastating consequences for American healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry, says Jeff Stier at the Consumer Choice Center.
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E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Custodian Selection
Several recent rulings make clear that the proportionality of additional proposed custodians will depend on whether the custodians have unique relevant documents, and producing parties should consider whether information already in the record will show that they have relevant documents that otherwise might not be produced, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Opinion
Section 230 Debates Will Continue, With Or Without TikTok
Regardless of whether TikTok is forced to shut down in the U.S. in the coming weeks, legal disputes will continue over social media platforms' responsibility under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for harms allegedly caused by content shared on their apps, says Carla Varriale-Barker at Segal McCambridge.
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Surprise NC COVID Ruling Revises Reasonable Expectations
The North Carolina Supreme Court's recent finding in favor of policyholders in a suit for business interruption coverage due to COVID-19 shutdown orders runs contrary to most other state and federal courts' holdings on the issue, and may revitalize the reasonable expectations doctrine in the state, say attorneys at Goldberg Segalla.
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Impact Of Successful Challenges To SEC's Rulemaking Ability
In 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission faced significant legal challenges to its aggressive rulemaking agenda as several of its rules were vacated by the Fifth Circuit, which could hinder the SEC's ability to enact rules extending beyond express statutory authority in the future, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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5 Transition Tools Trump Could Use To Implement His Agenda
President-elect Donald Trump will have several tools available to him to halt or otherwise claw back federal regulations promulgated during the Biden administration, including reconciliation, executive orders and memoranda, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.
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When Judging Product Label Claims, Follow The Asterisk
A recurring question in false advertising class actions is whether misleading or ambiguous statements on a product's front label can be cured by information on the back label — but recent decisions from the Ninth Circuit suggest that a front-label asterisk can help alert consumers to seek further clarification, say attorneys at Hunton.
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Justices Seem Focused On NEPA's Limits In Utah Rail Case
After last month's oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the court appears poised to forcefully reiterate that the National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to review only those environmental impacts within their control, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
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Fed. Circ. Patent Decisions In 2024: An Empirical Review
Despite an ever-increasing backlog of argument-ready cases, the Federal Circuit issued fewer decisions in 2024 than in previous years, and the decisions' overall friendliness toward patent owners and applicants was low, says Dan Bagatell at Perkins Coie.
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Series
Exercising On My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer
While I originally came to the Peloton bike for exercise, one cycling instructor’s teachings have come to serve as a road map for practicing law thoughtfully and mindfully, which has opened opportunities for growth and change in my career, says Andrea Kirshenbaum at Littler.
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5 Drug And Device Developments That Shaped 2024
The last year saw significant legal developments affecting drug and device manufacturers, with landmark decisions and regulatory changes that require vigilance and agility from the industry, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.
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Lessons From United's Axed Win In Firing Over Online Pics
In Wawrzenski v. United Airlines, a California state appeals court revived a flight attendant’s suit over her termination for linking photos of herself in uniform to her OnlyFans account, providing a cautionary tale for employers navigating the complexities of workplace policy enforcement in the digital age, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.
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Reviewing The High Court's Approach To Free Speech Online
As the U.S. Supreme Court began addressing the interplay between the First Amendment and online social media platforms, its three opinions from last term show the justices adopting a nuanced approach that recognizes that private citizens, public employees and online platforms all have First Amendment rights, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.