Appellate

  • February 25, 2025

    Sig Sauer Asks 6th Circ. For Second Shot At Expert Ruling

    The full Sixth Circuit should disqualify expert testimony that said gunmaker Sig Sauer Inc. failed to use existing safety features found in rival products when designing its model P320, the pistol at the center of many unintentional discharge lawsuits, according to the company's petition, which alternatively asked the judges to send it to Kentucky's top court.

  • February 25, 2025

    Alex Jones Asks To Maintain Stay On Sandy Hook Payment

    Infowars founder Alex Jones told the Connecticut Appellate Court that he shouldn't be forced to pay the judgment that Sandy Hook families won in their long-running defamation case as he awaits a review by the state's Supreme Court, saying the plaintiffs are wrong that he discarded underlying constitutional arguments.

  • February 25, 2025

    Minn. Tribe Seeks 8th Circ. Rehearing In Jurisdiction Fight

    The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe are asking the Eighth Circuit to rethink a decision to remand and vacate a dispute over law enforcement jurisdiction on its reservation, arguing that the panel's opinion adds an extended inconclusive discussion of the case's merits.

  • February 25, 2025

    Meta Says 9th Circ. Shouldn't Touch Antitrust Cert. Denial

    The Ninth Circuit should refuse to take up the appeal of a proposed class that was denied certification due to its novel theory that Meta Platforms Inc. would have been forced to pay users for the use of their data if it hadn't lied about how it was using it, the social media behemoth has told the court.

  • February 25, 2025

    SEC Reaffirms Defense Of Market Surveillance Tool

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has said it is not done defending the existence of a controversial market surveillance tool despite the agency's recent curtailment of the types of information it collects.

  • February 25, 2025

    4th Circ. Shuts Down HHS Chemist's 'Grinch' Harassment Suit

    The Fourth Circuit shut down a chemist's bid Tuesday to revive his suit claiming he faced sex bias and retaliatory harassment within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services when a colleague called him the "Grinch," ruling his case is devoid of proof of discrimination.

  • February 25, 2025

    5th Circ. Declines Real Estate Co.'s Injunction Bid In TM Feud

    A panel of Fifth Circuit judges has sided with a lower court's decision that Rampart Resources Inc. should not get a preliminary injunction against rival real estate company Rampart/Wurth Holding Inc.

  • February 25, 2025

    6th Circ. Upholds County Employee's Pension Retaliation Win

    The Sixth Circuit upheld on Tuesday a $180,000 jury victory in favor of a former Michigan county employee who alleged his pension payments were cut off because he publicly criticized the retirement system, backing a lower court's conclusion that his comments were protected by the First Amendment.

  • February 25, 2025

    3 Attys Reprimanded, 2 DQ'd In Ala. Judge Shopping Probe

    An Alabama federal judge on Tuesday publicly reprimanded three attorneys for judge shopping during their legal efforts against a state law criminalizing gender-affirming care, saying that the trio practiced in bad faith and dropping two of them from litigating the case.

  • February 25, 2025

    River Agency Says Harvey Flood Dispute Was Already Decided

    A Texas river management agency urged a state appeals court Tuesday to shut down claims brought by dozens of residents whose properties were flooded by Hurricane Harvey, pointing to a separate appellate court decision that ended similar claims by many of the same people.

  • February 25, 2025

    Businessman Looks To Nix $21M Arbitral Award

    A businessman who controls real estate investment firm World Capital Properties Ltd. is urging the Eleventh Circuit to nix the enforcement of a $21.3 million arbitral award against him, arguing that he never signed an underlying arbitration agreement and objected "early, often and consistently" to the arbitration.

  • February 25, 2025

    5th Circ. Asks NLRB To Back Up Coercion Claim Against Apple

    A Fifth Circuit panel asked the National Labor Relations Board to spell out how Apple Inc. was coercive to a worker during a unionization push in New York, pondering Tuesday whether affirming the board's finding would tamp down on the company's freedom of expression.

  • February 25, 2025

    Ga. County Collected Too Late On Theft Claim, Panel Says

    The Georgia Court of Appeals has stripped a state county of a nearly $350,000 judgment it won from insurer Old Republic Surety Co. to cover a court employee's theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public coffers, ruling the county filed its claim well after the statute of limitations had run.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Expert Analysis

  • 2nd Circ. AmTrust Decision Shows Audit Reports Still Matter

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    Though the Second Circuit eventually found on reconsidering a case over the high-profile accounting meltdown at AmTrust that audit reports are material to investors, its previous contrary holding highlights the seriousness of the ongoing crisis of confidence in the audit report, say attorneys at Bernstein Litowitz.

  • Series

    Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.

  • 9th Circ.'s High Bar May Limit Keyword Confusion TM Claims

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    A recent Ninth Circuit ruling that a law firm did not infringe upon a competitor’s trademarks by paying Google to promote its website when users searched for the rival’s name signals that plaintiffs likely can no longer win infringement suits by claiming competitive keyword advertising confuses internet-savvy consumers, say attorneys at Mitchell Silberberg.

  • Post-Election Implications For The EPA's Methane Rules

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    Amid the U.S. Supreme Court's recent denial of requests to halt implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's methane rule in two suits, and given the outcome of the election, a complete reversal of the methane rule is expected, but state-level policymaking and enforcement will continue, says John Watson at Spencer Fane.

  • Opinion

    Justices Should Squash Bid To Criminalize Contract Breaches

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    In Kousisis v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court should reject the sweeping legal theory that breaches of contract can satisfy the property element of the mail and wire fraud statutes, which, if validated, would criminalize an array of ordinary conduct and violate basic constitutional principles, say attorneys at The Norton Law Firm.

  • Racing Patents To The Fed. Circ.: Collateral Estoppel Lessons

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    As more and more parties find themselves in two different forums addressing the same issues and then competing in a race to the Federal Circuit, certain strategies can help despite unanswered questions on when Patent Trial and Appeal Board determinations trigger collateral estoppel, say attorneys at Akin.

  • Nvidia Supreme Court Case May Not Make Big Splash

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    The skeptical tenor of the justices' questioning at oral argument in Nvidia v. Ohman Fonder suggests that the case is unlikely to alter the motion to dismiss pleading standard in securities class actions, as some had feared, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Series

    Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Performing circus arts has strengthened my ability to be more thoughtful, confident and grounded, all of which has enhanced my legal practice and allowed me to serve clients in a more meaningful way, says Bailey McGowan at Stinson.

  • Purse-Case Scenarios: 'MetaBirkin' Appeal Tests TM Rights

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    A federal court's finding that "MetaBirkin" nonfungible tokens infringed on Hermes' iconic Birkin bag imagery is now on appeal in the Second Circuit, and the order will have a lasting effect on how courts balance trademark rights and the First Amendment, say attorneys at Venable.

  • 3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

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    Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

  • 6th Circ. Ruling Prevents Disability Insurer Overreach

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    The Sixth Circuit’s recent ruling in McEachin v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance offers disability insurance claimants guidance on how they might challenge misapplications of policy limitations for mental illness when a medical condition accounts for their disability, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Unclear Criteria, Data Rights, Conflicts

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    Liam Bowers at MoFo examines three recent decisions from the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims examining the use of unstated evaluation criteria, an agency's investigation of its own data rights and unequal access to information about an organizational conflict of interest.

  • The Bar Needs More Clarity On The Discovery Objection Rule

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    Almost 10 years after Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 was amended, attorneys still seem confused about what they should include in objections to discovery requests, and until the rules committee provides additional clarity, practitioners must beware the steep costs of noncompliance, says Tristan Ellis at Shanies Law Office.

  • Foreclosing Lenders Still Floating In Murky Legal Waters In NY

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    The New York foreclosure landscape remains in disarray after the state's highest court last month declined to weigh in on whether legal changes from 2022 that severely curtailed lenders' ability to bring successive foreclosure cases were retroactive, says Brian Rich at Barclay Damon.

  • In Terror Case, DC Circ. Must Weigh Justices' Twitter Ruling

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    When the D.C. Circuit hears oral argument in AstraZeneca UK v. Atchley, how the court interprets the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Twitter v. Taamneh will have a significant impact on future claims brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act and Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, say attorneys at Lewis Baach.

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