Appellate

  • March 12, 2025

    7th Circ. Revives Suit By Law Professor Disciplined Over Exam

    The Seventh Circuit on Wednesday revived a retaliation claim from a University of a law school professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago who was disciplined for including a redacted racist slur on an exam, saying the professor has plausibly alleged that his academic speech is protected by the First Amendment.

  • March 12, 2025

    Phish Fans' Mellow Vibe Undercuts Injury Claims, Judge Hints

    A Washington state appeals court expressed skepticism Wednesday that Phish and Live Nation could have seen foreseen assaults that injured two concertgoers at an outdoor show, with one judge suggesting the jam band's vibes are more in tune with the mellow atmosphere of a Grateful Dead show than a raucous rock concert.

  • March 12, 2025

    Del. Justices Told Conflicts Tainted AstraZeneca Co.'s $3B Sale

    A stockholder class attorney told Delaware's Supreme Court on Wednesday that a vice chancellor never addressed the undisclosed conflicts cited in a Court of Chancery suit accusing AstraZeneca PLC of lining up a conflicted, underpriced $3 billion sale of clinical stage biopharmaceutical venture Viela Bio Inc.

  • March 12, 2025

    11th Circ. Won't Revive Trans Kid's Parents' Suit Against School

    Two Eleventh Circuit judges faced off on the merits of the substantive due process test Wednesday in a lengthy ruling that declined to revive a suit claiming school officials violated parents' rights when they allowed a teenager to express their gender identity at school.

  • March 12, 2025

    Wells Fargo Can't Force Adviser's Widow To Arb., Panel Finds

    Wells Fargo can't force a deceased employee's widow to arbitrate her claims that she never received certain stipulated benefits after her husband's death because the widow never agreed to arbitrate those claims, a California state appeals court has determined.

  • March 12, 2025

    Labcorp Warns Fed. Circ. Of 'Balkanization' In Prenatal IP Row

    Labcorp, one of the world's largest chains of clinical lab providers, told the full Federal Circuit that a loss it incurred there over a patent tied to a $384 million judgment in Texas was the result of the "balkanization" of the court's patent obviousness jurisprudence.

  • March 12, 2025

    Law360 Cheat Sheet: Novartis' Fight Over Generic Entresto

    Novartis has led a wide-ranging litigation campaign to block generic versions of its bestselling cardiovascular drug Entresto that has involved multidistrict litigation, trips to several circuit courts and cases against the federal government. Here, Law360 breaks down how the various cases intersect and what's still playing out.

  • March 12, 2025

    Women Attys, AGs Urge Justices To Protect Provider Choice

    Women attorney groups and a group of state attorneys general urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject South Carolina's attempt to stop Medicaid patients from seeing Planned Parenthood healthcare providers, saying in an amicus brief Wednesday that patients have a right to choose their healthcare providers and have a private right of action to enforce that right.

  • March 12, 2025

    Trump Admin Seeks To End ACA Access For 'Dreamers'

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday proposed a regulation that would do away with the Biden administration's rule allowing recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to qualify for Affordable Care Act coverage.

  • March 12, 2025

    Panel Decries Judge's Watergate Remarks, Axes $2M Verdict

    A Florida appeals court on Wednesday vacated a $2 million verdict in a slip-and-fall suit against Walmart, saying the trial court's comments that allegedly missing video evidence was akin to Nixon's actions in the Watergate scandal signaled his preconceived notion that the company improperly destroyed evidence.

  • March 12, 2025

    Look At All These 1-Word Orders In IP Cases, Justices Told

    A patent owner has told the U.S. Supreme Court that there's momentum behind its push for scrutiny of the Federal Circuit's one-word orders in patent cases and its challenge to courts' summary judgment practices in such matters.

  • March 12, 2025

    Tech Mahindra Urges Justices To Nix White Worker's Bias Suit

    Tech Mahindra asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Third Circuit's ruling reviving a proposed class action claiming the information technology company favored South Asian employees, arguing it deepened a circuit split by greenlighting a case that should have been time-barred.

  • March 12, 2025

    Del. Senate Panel Sends Corp. Law Overhaul To Full Chamber

    Delaware legislation that could narrow stockholder opportunities to sue state-chartered corporations for fiduciary duty breaches or access to books and records moved to the state's full Senate on Wednesday after a less than 90-minute committee hearing that leaned toward the bill's supporters.

  • March 12, 2025

    Education Dept. Eyes Appeal After Teacher Grants Revived

    President Donald Trump's administration opened two lines of attack on a Boston federal judge's order temporarily reinstating $250 million in U.S. Department of Education grants for teacher training that were cut last month because of their ties to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, filing an appeal with the First Circuit while also seeking an emergency stay.

  • March 12, 2025

    4th Circ. Won't Undo Health Data Access Order

    A Fourth Circuit panel issued a ruling Wednesday that affirmed a lower court's order requiring PointClickCare to allow Real Time Medical Systems to access patient data that it uses to provide nursing facilities with alerts for potential medical complications.

  • March 12, 2025

    Mich. Justices Fret About Insurer Fallout In Benefits Case

    The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed receptive to an insurance pool's argument that it does not owe coverage to a municipality for canceling a retirement benefit, asking about the potential for a major impact on the industry were it to affirm an adverse ruling.

  • March 12, 2025

    Mich. Appellate Judge Pans Medical Pot Co.'s Sales Tax Claim

    A Michigan Court of Appeals judge sounded skeptical Wednesday of a medical cannabis provisioning center's claim that nonbinding guidance from the state tax agency shielded it from collecting sales tax for the first year after a law regulating its type of business was enacted.

  • March 12, 2025

    Trump Admin Drops Biden Bid To Unfreeze ACA Trans Rule

    The Trump administration asked the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday to dismiss its appeal, filed in July by the Biden administration, of a Texas federal judge's decision to halt a rule protecting access to gender-affirming healthcare.

  • March 12, 2025

    Del. Justices Uphold LG Co.'s Loss In Firing Challenge

    Delaware's top court has backed a Chancery Court ruling that Alphonso Inc., a TV data company majority-owned by an LG subsidiary, was not permitted to push out five co-founders.

  • March 12, 2025

    COVID Test Device Maker Settles Fed. Circ. Feuds With Rival

    A company that makes saliva collection devices used for COVID-19 tests says it will drop out of Federal Circuit appeals fights with Longhorn Vaccines & Diagnostics stemming from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board canceling 183 of Longhorn's patent claims as a punishment for "egregious abuse of the PTAB process."

  • March 12, 2025

    Mich. Justices Urged To Break Long Silence On Doc Dumping

    An attorney for the estate of a crash victim asked Michigan's highest court to reinstate a lawsuit against a truck driver's employer and sanctions for tossing records in a dumpster, saying the case was an opportunity for the court to break its silence on the issue of destroying evidence.

  • March 12, 2025

    Justices Face Renewed Calls To Nix Mass. Wind Farm Permits

    Fishing industry groups have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to undo federal approvals of the Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast, less than two months after the justices declined to consider another legal challenge by project opponents.

  • March 12, 2025

    4th Circ. Voids IRS Win In Collections Suit Against NC Couple

    The IRS should not have been granted a district court win over a North Carolina couple's 2007 tax bill because there was conflicting evidence about when the taxpayers had reached out to the agency for an installment payment agreement, the Fourth Circuit said Wednesday.

  • March 12, 2025

    Second Bid For Roundup Mass Tort Launched In New Jersey

    A second application for lawsuits against Monsanto Co. and Bayer AG alleging injuries by exposure to the company's weed killer Roundup to be designated as multicounty litigation has been filed with the New Jersey Supreme Court, according to a notice to the bar.

  • March 12, 2025

    Cal State Can Bar Caste Bias, 9th Circ. Affirms

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Wednesday affirmed a lower court's ruling that two California State University professors lacked standing to challenge the university's inclusion of caste as a protected class in its antidiscrimination policy, saying the policy never specifically mentions Hinduism and therefore does not stigmatize the religion or force self-censorship.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Inconsistent Injury-In-Fact Rules Hinder Federal Practice

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    A recent Third Circuit decision, contradicting a previous ruling about whether consumers of contaminated products have suffered an injury in fact, illustrates the deep confusion this U.S. Supreme Court standard creates among federal judges and practitioners, who deserve a simpler method of determining which cases have federal standing, says Eric Dwoskin at Dwoskin Wasdin.

  • Takeaways From Oral Argument In High Court Trademark Case

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    Unpacking oral arguments from Dewberry Group v. Dewberry Engineers, which the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on this year, sheds light on the ways in which the decision could significantly affect trademark infringement plaintiffs' ability to receive monetary damages, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

  • In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

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    Several recent rulings illustrate the challenges in-house counsel can face when attempting to preserve attorney-client privilege, but a few best practices can help safeguard communications and effectively assert the privilege in an increasingly scrutinized corporate environment, says Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics.

  • 4 Potential Effects Of 3rd Circ.'s Coinbase Ruling

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    The Third Circuit's recent landmark decision in Coinbase v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the SEC's refusal to engage in rulemaking to clarify its stance on crypto enforcement was "insufficiently reasoned" could have wide-ranging impacts, including on other cases, legislation and even the SEC's reputation itself, says Daniel Payne at Cole-Frieman.

  • Disability Ruling Guides On Cases With Uncertain Causation

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    In Dime v. MetLife, a Washington federal court’s recent ruling in favor of a disability claimant instructs both claimants and insurers on the appropriate standard for establishing and making a disability determination when there is limited medical evidence explaining the disability’s cause, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.

  • National Bank Act Rulings Facilitate More Preemption Analysis

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    Two recent National Bank Act preemption decisions from an Illinois federal court and the Ninth Circuit provide the first applications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s May ruling in Cantero v. Bank of America, opening the potential for several circuit courts to address the issue this year, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Series

    Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.

  • Opinion

    New DOJ Leaders Should Curb Ill-Conceived Prosecutions

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    First-of-their-kind cases have seemingly led to a string of overly aggressive prosecutions in recent years, so newly sworn-in leaders of the U.S. Department of Justice should consider creating reporting channels to stop unwise prosecutions before they snowball, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • Opinion

    Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

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    Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

  • What Justices' FLSA Ruling Means For 2-Step Collective Cert.

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in EMD Sales v. Carrera may have sounded the death knell for the decades-old two-step process to certify collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which could lead more circuits to require a preponderance of the evidence showing that members are similarly situated, says Steven Katz at Constangy.

  • Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

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    Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  • SEC Motion Response Could Reveal New Crypto Approach

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    Cumberland DRW recently filed to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement action against it for the unlawful purchase and sale of digital asset securities, and the agency's response should unveil whether, and to what extent, the Trump administration will relax the federal government’s stance on digital asset regulation, say attorneys at O'Melveny.

  • Perspectives

    Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

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    KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.

  • Perspectives

    DC Circ. Cellphone Ruling Upends Law Enforcement Protocol

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    The D.C. Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Brown decision, holding that forcibly requiring a defendant to unlock his cellphone with his fingerprint violated the Fifth Amendment, has significant implications for law enforcement, and may provide an opportunity for defense lawyers to suppress electronic evidence, says Sarah Sulkowski at Gelber & Santillo.

  • The Post-Macquarie Securities Fraud-By-Omission Landscape

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 opinion in Macquarie v. Moab distinguished inactionable "pure omissions" from actionable "half-truths," the line between the two concepts in practice is still unclear, presenting challenges for lower courts parsing statements that often fall within the gray area of "misleading by omission," say attorneys at Katten.

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