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Appellate
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February 28, 2025
9th Circ. Says Risk Justified Firing Vax-Refusing Actor
A split Ninth Circuit panel declined Friday to revive an actor's suit claiming she was illegally removed from a Starz Network show because she rejected its COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds, ruling her immunization status posed too much of a risk to the production.
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February 28, 2025
Presidents v. Courts: Lincoln, Trump & Judicial Power Limits
Amid fears of President Donald Trump disobeying judges with impunity, debate has focused on famous instances of officials defying the U.S. Supreme Court. But some of the clearest insights into America's handling of White House disregard for courts exist in relatively obscure cases from the Civil War era, when unprecedented presidential actions provoked extraordinary responses from the judiciary — and underscored the limits of its powers.
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February 28, 2025
NJ Out-Of-State Wine Sale Limits Are Justified, 3rd. Circ. Says
The Third Circuit on Friday upheld a New Jersey law barring out-of-state sellers to directly ship wine to in-state consumers, saying that to grant a New York retailer's challenge would "shake the foundations" of New Jersey's three-tiered system for regulating alcohol.
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February 28, 2025
9th Circ. Backs Developer's Conviction For Bribing LA Pol
The Ninth Circuit upheld a developer's conviction for bribing former Los Angeles City Councilor Jose Huizar to foil a challenge to a downtown project, ruling Thursday the district court didn't have to instruct jurors that the government had to prove the developer bribed Huizar to take a specific, official act.
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February 28, 2025
Wash. Judge Picks Apart Parents' Hospital Data Privacy Suit
A Washington appellate judge on Friday grilled parents seeking to revive their proposed privacy class action against a Seattle hospital, expressing frustration with their argument that state wiretapping law could apply to an individual's queries to a public-facing website.
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February 28, 2025
Mich. Justices Reject Credit Suisse's NOL Carryforward Bid
The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday denied Credit Suisse's bid to appeal a lower court's decision that barred the bank from straying from the federal method of determining taxable income to carry forward $21.3 million in losses on its state returns.
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February 28, 2025
Ex-UBS Financial Adviser Must Pay $2M Back, 11th Circ. Told
UBS urged the Eleventh Circuit on Friday to undo rulings in a bankruptcy adversary case precluding a former financial adviser from paying back the proceeds of a $2 million loan deposited in a joint account with his wife, saying the funds shouldn't be immune to creditors.
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February 28, 2025
Dartmouth Wants Fed. Circ. To Ax Fees After Vitamin IP Loss
Dartmouth College is appealing a Delaware federal court's $9.1 million fee award after losing a fight over milk vitamins patented by a biochemist at the school, telling the Federal Circuit that there is no reason it should have presumed that the patents it asserted were "worthless."
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February 28, 2025
Justices Asked To Review IRS Crypto Doc Seizure Case
A cryptocurrency investor who lost his challenge to the Internal Revenue Service's seizure of his account records has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for review, saying the 1976 legal doctrine that sank his case is outdated and fails to meet digital realities, including decentralized banking.
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February 28, 2025
Litigant Funding Co. Has No Claim To NFL Concussion Deal
A special master overseeing the NFL's concussion settlement fund told a Pennsylvania federal court in a filing made public Friday that a company that funds litigants' healthcare expenses was correctly denied money from the fund because the rights assigned to it by former players' doctors counted as "prohibited assignments," not the liens the company claimed they were.
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February 28, 2025
Minn. Justices Send Golf Course Dispute Back To Tax Court
The Minnesota Supreme Court booted a county's property tax fight with the former owner of a golf course back to the state's tax court, saying the lower court's decision to keep the case alive was not a final order subject to review by the justices.
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February 28, 2025
Russia's $34M Award Suit Appeal Must Be Nixed, Cos. Say
Ukrainian gas companies that won a $34 million arbitral award against Russia urged the D.C. Circuit on Thursday to summarily affirm a ruling rejecting the country's sovereign immunity defense, saying Moscow is just trying to prolong the proceeding with overtly unmeritorious claims.
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February 28, 2025
Feds Say Tribes Can't Block New Oregon Casino
The federal government and an Oregon Native American tribe are pushing back on a bid from three other tribes to block the operation of a new casino in Oregon, telling the D.C. Circuit that the tribes filed their emergency motion improperly and are likely to lose on the merits of their case.
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February 28, 2025
FERC Says PJM Watchdog Can't Fight Meeting Roadblock
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday told the D.C. Circuit that PJM Interconnection's electricity market watchdog isn't harmed by being prevented from attending certain meetings held by the regional grid operator and urged the appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the decision.
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February 28, 2025
7th Circ. Says It's Too Early To Mull Fired ISU Coach's Suit
A Seventh Circuit panel says it lacks the jurisdiction to consider if a lower court rightly denied dismissal of a lawsuit brought by an ex-Illinois State University football coach who claims he was unlawfully fired for posting an "All Lives Matter" sign on his office door, because the district judge postponed a decision on the school officials' qualified immunity argument.
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February 28, 2025
La. Regulators Ask Justices To Review Tesla Sales Ban Case
Louisiana regulators have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Tesla's case over the state's ban on direct sales by automakers, saying the presence of car dealership owners on a regulatory board does not violate the electric-car company's due process rights.
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February 28, 2025
Cheyenne Sioux Tribe Says US Must Pay For Building Repairs
A Wyoming tribe is asking the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an order that determined the federal government is not responsible for paying for a deteriorating building on its reservation, arguing that the contract over the structure is rooted in a treaty-based, nation-to-nation relationship.
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February 28, 2025
4th Circ. Won't Undo National Block Of Trump Birthright Order
A split Fourth Circuit panel on Friday rejected the federal government's effort to tailor an injunction blocking the enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship, saying the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction.
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February 28, 2025
NC Judge's Ballot Battle Will Sideline Voters, Court Told
A North Carolina Supreme Court candidate's continuing bid to throw out more than 60,000 ballots threatens to sideline thousands of legitimate voters, state election officials and his campaign rival told an appeals court on the same day they got an outpouring of amicus support.
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February 28, 2025
Michigan Justices Spurn Live Nation Campers' Death Case
Concert promoter Live Nation cemented its escape from allegations that lax oversight of a music festival campground led to three festival attendees dying of carbon monoxide poisoning, as Michigan's highest court rejected the families' appeal Friday.
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February 28, 2025
DA Eyes Type Of Weinstein Evidence That Sank 1st Verdict
Manhattan prosecutors preparing to retry Harvey Weinstein want a jury to hear about alleged sexual assaults by the jailed Hollywood mogul that are not part of his indictment — the same kind of testimony that doomed his original conviction on appeal.
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February 28, 2025
11th Circ. Asked To Revive Defect Claims In Tesla Crash Suit
The father of a teenager killed in a Tesla crash asked the Eleventh Circuit on Friday to revive his battery defect claims against the electric car maker, arguing that the lower court should have allowed them to go to a jury.
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February 28, 2025
GOP Rep. Reintroduces The JUDGES Act
The chair of the House Judiciary Committee's courts panel has reintroduced a bill to create 66 new and temporary federal judgeships, which former President Joe Biden vetoed at the end of last year.
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February 28, 2025
Fla. Justices Say Atty Broke Rules With Nonviable Engle Suits
The Florida Supreme Court has found an attorney guilty of violating court rules by filing baseless Engle progeny suits and failing to properly communicate with his clients, and told a referee to determine the appropriate sanction.
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February 27, 2025
Split 9th Circ. Won't Let ClassPass Arbitrate Auto-Renew Fight
A split Ninth Circuit panel Thursday refused to send a proposed class action challenging ClassPass' subscription auto-renewal practices to arbitration, with the majority concluding that its online notices are too "muddled" while a dissenting judge slammed the majority's opinion for purportedly sowing "great uncertainty" in what constitutes a conspicuous notice.
Expert Analysis
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Args In 2 High Court Cases May Foretell Clarity For Employers
Mary Anna Brand at Maynard Nexsen examines possible employment implications of two cases argued before the Supreme Court this fall, including a higher bar for justifying employees as overtime exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and earlier grants of prevailing party status for employee-plaintiffs seeking attorney fees.
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California Supreme Court's Year In Review
Attorneys at Horvitz & Levy highlight notable decisions on major questions from the California Supreme Court's last term, including voter initiatives, hostile work environment and the economic loss rule.
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DC Circ. Decision Opens Door To NEPA Regulation Litigation
A recent D.C. Circuit decision in Marin Audubon Society v. Federal Aviation Administration could open the door to more litigation over the White House Council on Environmental Quality's National Environmental Policy Act regulations, and could affect how many agencies conduct and interpret environmental assessments, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.
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Navigating 4th Circ.'s Antitrust Burden In Hybrid Relationships
The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to review the Fourth Circuit's Brewbaker decision, a holding that heightens the burden on antitrust prosecutors when the target companies have a hybrid horizontal-vertical relationship, but diverges from other circuits, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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Dissecting The Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Debate
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Allergan v. MSN highlights the ongoing evolution of the obviousness-type double patenting doctrine, revealing increasing tension between expiration-based interpretations and procedural flexibility, says Jeremy Lowe at Leydig Voit.
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Calif. Ruling May Shield Public Employers From Labor Claims
In Stone v. Alameda Health System, the California Supreme Court recently exempted a county hospital from state-mandated rest breaks and the Private Attorneys General Act, granting government employers a robust new bulwark against other labor statutes by undermining an established doctrine for determining if a law applies to public entities, say attorneys at Hunton.
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Contract Disputes Recap: Perils Of Perfunctory Interpretation
Attorneys at Seyfarth examine three recent decisions in which the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals and the Federal Circuit ruthlessly dismantled arguments that rely on superficial understandings of different contract terms.
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2nd Circ. AmTrust Decision Shows Audit Reports Still Matter
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.
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Series
Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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9th Circ.'s High Bar May Limit Keyword Confusion TM Claims
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.
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Post-Election Implications For The EPA's Methane Rules
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.
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Opinion
Justices Should Squash Bid To Criminalize Contract Breaches
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.
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Racing Patents To The Fed. Circ.: Collateral Estoppel Lessons
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.
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Nvidia Supreme Court Case May Not Make Big Splash
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.
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Series
Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer
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.