Appellate

  • April 17, 2024

    Tax Challenge Viable In Court, Philip Morris Tells NC Justices

    A North Carolina administrative court has the power to find a state tax law unconstitutional, tobacco company Philip Morris USA has told the state Supreme Court in its attempt to avoid a more than $300,000 franchise tax bill.

  • April 17, 2024

    Ga. Justices Scoff At 'Unchallengeable' Redistricting Bid

    Georgia's high court on Wednesday seemed dubious of unprecedented claims from a suburban Atlanta county that it could assert the power to redistrict itself, while voicing equal skepticism that the two citizens who challenged that power had standing to do so.

  • April 17, 2024

    Compass Group Gets New Damages Trial In $8M Death Suit

    A California state appeals court has rejected cross-appeals from food service giant Compass Group USA Inc. and a mother suing it for negligence in a wrongful death suit that ended in an $8 million verdict, sending the case back for a new trial on damages.

  • April 17, 2024

    Bankman-Fried Appeal May Cite Unusual Preview Testimony

    Sam Bankman-Fried's appeal of his conviction and 25-year prison sentence may cite a "rather unprecedented" trial procedure in which the FTX founder gave provisional testimony before officially taking the witness stand last year, one of his attorneys said Wednesday.

  • April 17, 2024

    Data Co. Seeks Coverage For $250M Lebanon Explosion Suit

    A data services company told a Texas state court that its insurers must defend it in an underlying $250 million lawsuit stemming from the 2020 Port of Beirut explosion in Lebanon which killed over 218 people, maintaining that the insurers have wrongfully refused.

  • April 17, 2024

    Panel Agrees Pot Investor's Deal In 2017 Suit Nixes 2019 Suit

    A Washington state appeals court has thrown out an investor's suit alleging that a cannabis venture failed to follow through on a deal to acquire ownership interest in exchange for a $650,000 investment, finding his settlement of a prior suit block his claims.

  • April 17, 2024

    GOP Sens. Raise Ethical Concerns Over 6th Circ. Nominee

    Republicans went after a nominee for the Sixth Circuit during a hearing on Wednesday over allegations that he has behaved unethically as a prosecuting attorney, and that the White House picked him through a "backroom deal."

  • April 17, 2024

    NJ Justices Won't Hold Prosecutor Org. To Transparency Law

    The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey is not a public agency and is therefore not subject to record requests under the state's transparency law.

  • April 17, 2024

    Biden Taps Kaplan Hecker, MoFo Attys For DC Appeals Court

    President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced he is nominating a Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP civil rights litigator and the co-chair of Morrison Foerster LLP's appellate and Supreme Court practice to serve on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

  • April 17, 2024

    9th Circ. Tosses $3.9M Tax Foreclosure Appeal As Premature

    The Ninth Circuit dismissed a man's challenge to a court order that he believed allowed the government to foreclose on his property to pay his son's tax liabilities of more than $3.9 million, saying Wednesday that the appeal was premature because the order wasn't final.

  • April 17, 2024

    American Urges 1st Circ. To Reject 'Radical' JetBlue Ruling

    American Airlines has told the First Circuit that a judge's "radical vision of the antitrust laws" that blocked its Northeast Alliance joint venture with JetBlue shouldn't stand, arguing that federal enforcers are relying on misleading claims and outdated precedent to prop up the lower court's mistaken conclusion.

  • April 17, 2024

    Ga. Justices To Examine 'Actual Malice' In Atty's Libel Case

    The Supreme Court of Georgia has agreed to take up a contentious defamation case, pitting an orthopedic surgeon against a defense attorney known for criticizing "litigation networks" of plaintiffs attorneys and doctors, that could determine how difficult it is to sue attorneys accused of bad-mouthing third parties to other attorneys.

  • April 17, 2024

    4th Circ. Affirms No Shield From IRS For Home In Bankruptcy

    A North Carolina man who filed for bankruptcy protection and owes federal tax debt cannot shield the house he owns with his wife from the Internal Revenue Service, which is pursuing the asset as a creditor in the proceedings, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Wednesday.

  • April 17, 2024

    Justices Rule Criminal Forfeiture Deadline Isn't Absolute

    The U.S. Supreme Court held Wednesday that courts can issue forfeiture orders at sentencing in criminal cases even if prosecutors fail to submit a draft request prior to the court-ordered date, ruling noncompliance with the rule doesn't strip judges of the authority to direct defendants to hand over ill-gotten gains.

  • April 17, 2024

    Justices Ease Pathway For Title VII Suits Over Job Transfers

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discriminatory job transfers even if they don't come with significant harm, a declaration that clears the way for more workplace bias suits to move ahead.

  • April 16, 2024

    7th Circ. Finally Freezes Hytera's $1M-Per-Day Sanctions

    The Seventh Circuit on Tuesday halted the daily $1 million fine and sales ban ordered against Hytera Communications for participating in Chinese litigation against a district judge's orders, after previously refusing to save the company from its "self inflicted wounds."

  • April 16, 2024

    Split 5th Circ. Won't Rehear Case Over Agency Protections

    A divided Fifth Circuit on Tuesday denied en banc rehearing of a panel decision that likely sets up a U.S. Supreme Court challenge of long-standing limits to the president's power to fire executive branch subordinates.

  • April 16, 2024

    Crypto Co. Can't Be Sued Over 'Scam Token,' 2nd Circ. Hears

    The business, founder and venture capital backers behind decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap Labs told the Second Circuit that a New York federal judge was right to dismiss a suit from investors who claimed they bought scam tokens on the platform since the business didn't enter into any contract with buyers.

  • April 16, 2024

    Cashed Check Kills VW Emissions Deal Appeal, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday threw out an attempt to unravel an $80 million deal resolving consolidated consumer litigation alleging Volkswagen and Porsche manipulated emissions and fuel-economy tests for nearly 500,000 gas-powered vehicles, saying the objector has already cashed his portion of the settlement.

  • April 16, 2024

    Corp. Transparency Act A Valid Use Of Powers, 11th Circ. Told

    The U.S. Department of Treasury told the Eleventh Circuit that a federal district court erred in finding the Corporate Transparency Act unconstitutional, saying the lower court misunderstood the law's scope and relation to efforts to curb financial crime.

  • April 16, 2024

    Justices Asked To Review Texas' Online Porn Age Check Law

    Texas' law requiring all visitors to adult-oriented websites to prove their age before accessing the content is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, a trade group for the pornography industry told the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to overturn a split Fifth Circuit decision that allowed the age-verification requirement to go into effect.

  • April 16, 2024

    Nigeria Looks To High Court Case To Nix OK Of $70M Award

    Nigeria has told the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent opinion clarifying the reach of a carveout in federal arbitration law helps to boost its case looking to nix enforcement of a nearly $70 million arbitral award on sovereign immunity grounds.

  • April 16, 2024

    Supreme Court Asked To Look At 'Original Patents'

    A Texas patent outfit is back at the U.S. Supreme Court with an appeal over a loss in the lower courts, this time over a reading of legal precedent involving patent law's rarely invoked "original patent" requirements.

  • April 16, 2024

    Tribal Groups Want Full 9th Circ. To Rehear Oak Flat Appeal

    An Apache nonprofit is asking the Ninth Circuit's entire 29-judge panel to review its lawsuit that seeks to block a copper mining company from destroying a sacred Indigenous religious site, arguing that an en banc hearing is warranted given the appellate court's latest split decision on the land transfer.

  • April 16, 2024

    9th Circ. Upholds Tossing Skillz Gaming Tech Investor Suit

    The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a decision to toss a proposed class action claiming that mobile gaming company Skillz Inc. misled investors about its technology prior to a 2021 merger with a special purpose acquisition company, ruling that issues with the gaming software do not make the company' statements false or misleading.

Expert Analysis

  • Back Labels In False Ad Cases Get Some Clarity In 9th Circ.

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    Courts in the Ninth Circuit have recently delivered a series of wins to advertisers, making clear that any ambiguity on the front of a product's package can be resolved by reference to the back label — which guarantees defendants a powerful tool to combat deceptive labeling claims, say attorneys at Patterson Belknap.

  • What Bankruptcy Deadline Appeal May Mean For Claimants

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    If the Third Circuit reverses a recent appeal made in In re: Promise Healthcare, litigation claimants within the circuit will not be able to rely on the proof of claim process to preserve the claim — but if the court affirms, the U.S. Supreme Court may need to step in to resolve the circuit split on this issue, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Why Fed. Circ. Should Resolve District Split On Patent Statute

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    A split exists among district courts in their analysis of when marking cannot be done on a patented article due to its character, and the Federal Circuit should consider clarifying the analysis of Section 287(a), a consequential statute with important implications for patent damages, say Nicholas Nowak and Jamie Dohopolski at Sterne Kessler.

  • Employers Beware Of NLRB Changes On Bad Faith Bargaining

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    Recent National Labor Relations Board decisions show a trend of the agency imposing harsher remedies on employers for bad faith bargaining over union contracts, a position upheld in the Ninth Circuit's recent NLRB v. Grill Concepts Services decision, says Daniel Johns at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Practicing Law With Parkinson's Disease

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    This Parkinson’s Awareness Month, Adam Siegler at Greenberg Traurig discusses his experience working as a lawyer with Parkinson’s disease, sharing both lessons on how to cope with a diagnosis and advice for supporting colleagues who live with the disease.

  • When Trade Secret Protection And Nat'l Security Converge

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    The Trump administration's anti-espionage program focused on China is over, but federal enforcement efforts to protect trade secrets and U.S. national security continue, and companies doing business in high-risk jurisdictions need to maintain their compliance programs to avoid the risk of being caught in the crosshairs of an investigation, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • Why Incorporating By Reference Is Rarely Good Practice

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Promptu Systems v. Comcast serves as a reminder that while incorporating by reference may seem efficient, it is generally prohibited by courts and can lead to sanctions when used to bypass a word count limit, says Cullen Seltzer at Sands Anderson.

  • Strategies For Defense Attys To Subpoena A Nonparty Witness

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    Federal criminal defendants seeking to subpoena potentially exculpatory information from nonparty witnesses must satisfy a stringent standard and should consider several often overlooked arguments to assure courts they’re not engaging in a fishing expedition, says James Roberts at Schlam Stone.

  • Series

    Playing Hockey Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Nearly a lifetime of playing hockey taught me the importance of avoiding burnout in all aspects of life, and the game ultimately ended up providing me with the balance I needed to maintain success in my legal career, says John Riccione at Taft.

  • ESG Challenges In Focus After Sierra Club Opposes SEC Rule

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    The Sierra Club's recent objection to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosures for investors presents an unusual — pro-disclosure — legal challenge and an opportunity to take a close look at the varying critiques of ESG regulations, say Colin Pohlman, and Jane Luxton and Paul Kisslinger at Lewis Brisbois.

  • Opinion

    High Court Should Settle Circuit Split On Risk Disclosures

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    The U.S. Supreme Court should grant the petition for writ of certiorari in the Facebook case to resolve a growing circuit split concerning when risk disclosures can be misleading under federal securities laws, and its decision should align with the intent of Congress and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, says Richard Zelichov at DLA Piper.

  • Opinion

    Why Supreme Court Should Allow Repatriation Tax To Stand

    If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't reject the taxpayers' misguided claims in Moore v. U.S. that the mandatory repatriation tax is unconstitutional, it could wreak havoc on our system of taxation and result in a catastrophic loss of revenue for the government, say Christina Mason and Theresa Balducci at Herrick Feinstein.

  • For Lawyers, Pessimism Should Be A Job Skill, Not A Life Skill

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    A pessimistic mindset allows attorneys to be effective advocates for their clients, but it can come with serious costs for their personal well-being, so it’s crucial to exercise strategies that produce flexible optimism and connect lawyers with their core values, says Krista Larson at Stinson.

  • High Court's Jan. 6 Rioter Case May Have Wide Ripple Effects

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    The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear oral arguments in Fischer v. United States, a case that will determine whether a law enacted after the Enron scandal can be used to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters, and could affect the government’s ability to charge those who impede a range of official proceedings, say Brook Dooley and Sara Fitzpatrick at Keker Van Nest.

  • 5th Circ. Clarifies What Is And Isn't A 'New Use' Of PFAS

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    The Fifth Circuit's March 21 decision in Inhance Technologies v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, preventing the EPA from regulating existing uses of PFAS under "significant new use" provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act, provides industry with much-needed clarity, say Joseph Schaeffer and Sloane Wildman at Babst Calland.

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