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Appellate
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August 19, 2025
11th Circ. Bars Salvage Claim Over Historic French Shipwreck
The Eleventh Circuit ruled Tuesday that an underwater salvage outfit cannot recover payment for locating la Trinité, a French ship sunk off the coast of Florida in 1565, because the Sunken Military Craft Act blocks salvage rights without France's consent.
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August 19, 2025
3rd Circ. Upholds Conviction After Traffic Stop 'Small Talk'
A man sentenced to 10 years in prison after police found guns and drugs in his car during a traffic stop can't have the evidence suppressed even though the police engaged him in small talk unrelated to the stop, the Third Circuit affirmed Tuesday, finding that the rapport-building conversation was warranted.
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August 19, 2025
Dredging Vehicle Patent Sinks Over On-Sale Bar At Fed. Circ.
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a Louisiana federal court's axing of claims in a Wilco Marsh Buggies and Draglines Inc.'s excavator and dredging vehicle patent, saying they were invalid because the product detailed in the patent was sold in the 1990s.
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August 19, 2025
Texas Court Unwinds Dismissals In Border Crackdown Cases
An en banc Texas appeals court on Tuesday reversed the habeas corpus dismissals of trespassing charges against nine men arrested during state immigration enforcement operations, citing a Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that rejected claims of prosecutorial sex discrimination in a similar case.
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August 19, 2025
2nd Circ.: Judge Erred In Remanding Vermont-3M PFAS Row
The Second Circuit on Tuesday agreed with 3M Co. that a federal judge wrongly sent Vermont's lawsuit against the company over "forever chemicals" contamination back to state court, finding 3M moved the case to federal court in time.
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August 19, 2025
Ute Tribe Says 1880 Act Proves Land Ownership Claim
The Ute Indian Tribe asked the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday to reverse a lower court decision refusing to hand over ownership of federally managed land, saying a law dating back to 1880 required the U.S. executive branch to "set apart" lands for a new reservation.
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August 19, 2025
Ex-Copyright Chief Says Trump Overstepped Role In Firing Her
The fired leader of the U.S. Copyright Office urged the D.C. Circuit to reject the Trump administration's arguments that her dismissal was lawful, asking the appeals court on Tuesday to return her to her job before Congress returns from recess Sept. 2.
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August 19, 2025
Bad Citations Aren't Always Sanctionable, Wash. Atty Argues
An attorney in Washington state vowed on Tuesday to appeal harsh sanctions an Arizona federal judge meted out Thursday over fake and misleading citations she included in an opening brief, releasing a statement arguing that the court's order "treats the mere existence of AI-hallucinated citations as an automatic violation" but "that is not what Rule 11 requires."
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August 19, 2025
Panel Weighs Ga. High Court Ruling In Sham Donor Suit
Customers who accused a sperm bank of selling sperm without disclosing the true medical and criminal histories of donors urged the Georgia Court of Appeals to revive their lawsuits Tuesday, arguing the dismissals were based on a misreading of a 2020 decision from the state's high court.
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August 19, 2025
4th Circ. Revives Habeas Bid Over Attorney-Client Evidence
The Fourth Circuit has ordered a lower court to conclusively determine whether a Maryland woman's rights were violated after prosecutors retried her for murder using information they gathered from her successful ineffective assistance of counsel motion during the first trial.
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August 19, 2025
Sacramento Says 2nd Circ. Erred In Cannabis Ruling
The city of Sacramento has told the Ninth Circuit that the Second Circuit erred when it applied the U.S. Constitution's dormant commerce clause to marijuana, and urged the appellate court not to follow suit in a similar pending case.
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August 19, 2025
DOJ Asks Full 4th Circ. To Rehear Judges' Speech Dispute
The U.S. Department of Justice petitioned the full Fourth Circuit to rehear a June panel decision reviving a free speech suit from an immigration judges union, saying it flouts U.S. Supreme Court precedent and implements a novel legal requirement.
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August 19, 2025
NJ Panel Upholds Use Of Phone Passcode Seen By Police
A man sentenced to 60 years in prison after kidnapping and sexually assaulting another man can be resentenced due to recent precedent concerning persistent offenders, but can't suppress evidence gained after police saw his cellphone passcode and used it to read his texts, a New Jersey appellate panel ruled Tuesday.
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August 19, 2025
Fed. Circ. Won't Revisit Steel Duties On German Companies
The Federal Circuit denied Tuesday a request for it to reconsider a precedential opinion upholding steel duties on German companies imposed after the U.S. Department of Commerce applied adverse facts available in an antidumping investigation.
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August 19, 2025
Nantucket Civil Rights Case Partially Revived On Appeal
A Massachusetts intermediate-level appeals court ruled Tuesday that "hostile" responses by Nantucket's longtime town manager to a Black resident's comments about a hate crime investigation could reasonably be found by a jury to violate the resident's state civil rights.
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August 19, 2025
FERC Grid Project Carveouts Are Unjustified, DC Circ. Told
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can't justify its decision to exempt a Kansas electricity cooperative's transmission projects from a regional grid operator's process to determine how project costs are divided before they're approved, the D.C. Circuit heard Monday.
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August 19, 2025
Google, Samsung Join Fed. Circ. Fight Against Fintiv Policy
Google and Samsung are urging the Federal Circuit to stop the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from applying new Patent Trial and Appeal Board guidance to cases that were already pending, in a mandamus petition authored by the agency's former solicitor.
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August 19, 2025
Alcoa Retirees Ask 7th Circ. To Back Lifetime Benefits Order
A group of retirees and the United Steelworkers urged the Seventh Circuit not to pause a lower court's order requiring Alcoa USA Corp. to reinstate lifetime access to a healthcare plan, raising concerns about elderly retirees dying and not receiving benefits.
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August 19, 2025
Trump Tariff Suit Belongs In Trade Court, Gov't Tells DC Circ.
Suits challenging President Donald Trump's imposition of emergency tariffs belong in the U.S. Court of International Trade and a D.C. federal judge improperly considered a case lodged by Illinois-based toy makers in his court, the government told the D.C. Circuit.
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August 19, 2025
Ex-Judge Gets Law License Back After Bribery Suspension
A former Philadelphia Municipal Court judge can practice law in Pennsylvania again following a split state Supreme Court decision to reinstate his license that had been suspended after he admitted to accepting $90,000 to drop out of a congressional election.
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August 19, 2025
Pa. Justices OK Lower Court's Test For When Posts Are Public
A split Pennsylvania Supreme Court endorsed a lower court's proposed test for whether an elected official's personal social media messages are subject to the state's open records law, with the majority agreeing the posts should only be considered public if they have the "trappings" of a government record.
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August 19, 2025
Fed. Circ. Backs PTAB Ax Of DexCom Glucose Patent Claims
The Federal Circuit won't disturb a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that a DexCom patent on glucose monitoring systems is unpatentable, saying the medical device company misread the board's decision.
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August 19, 2025
9th Circuit Pauses Oak Flat Land Transfer Pending Appeals
A Ninth Circuit panel has hit pause on the federal government's scheduled transfer of a centuries-old Indigenous worship site within Arizona's Tonto National Forest to a copper mining company while challenges to a multibillion-dollar proposed project play out in the appellate court.
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August 19, 2025
Trump's 'Abnormal' Use Of FCA Could Get Tricky In Court
The Trump administration is wielding the False Claims Act in unusually narrow ways to drive policies on social and cultural issues — including gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion programs — but the government's potential theories of liability under the federal law remain largely untested and might not hold up in court, experts say.
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August 19, 2025
5th Circ. Says NLRB Structure Likely Unconstitutional
The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday upheld injunctions barring the National Labor Relations Board from prosecuting unfair labor practice cases against SpaceX and two other companies, saying the removal protections that federal labor law gives board members and agency judges likely violate the U.S. Constitution.
Expert Analysis
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How High Court Ruling Can Aid Judgment Enforcement In US
In CC/Devas (Mauritius) v. Antrix, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that only two steps are required to keep a foreign sovereign in federal court, making it a little easier for investors to successfully bring foreign states and sovereign-owned and -controlled entities into U.S. courts, says Kristie Blase at Felicello Law.
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What High Court's Tenn. Trans Care Ruling Means Nationally
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, is fairly limited in scope and closely tailored to the specific language of Tennessee's law, but it may have implications for challenges to similar laws in other states, say attorneys at Hall Render.
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Justices Rewrite Rules For Challenging Enviro Agency Actions
Three recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings — Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, Oklahoma v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining — form a jurisprudential watershed in administrative and environmental law, affirming statutory standing and venue provisions as the backbone of coherent judicial review, say attorneys at GableGotwals.
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Series
My Opera And Baseball Careers Make Me A Better Lawyer
Though participating in opera and the world of professional baseball often pulls me away from the office, my avocations improve my legal career by helping me perform under scrutiny, prioritize team success, and maintain joy and perspective at work, says Adam Unger at Herrick Feinstein.
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High Court ACA Ruling May Harm Preventative Care
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Braidwood last week, ruling that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary has authority over an Affordable Care Act preventive care task force, risks harming the credibility of the task force and could open the door to politicians dictating clinical recommendations, says Michael Kolber at Manatt.
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Opinion
Subject Matter Eligibility Test Should Return To Preemption
Subject matter eligibility has posed challenges for patentees due to courts' arbitrary and confusing reasoning, but adopting a two-part preemption test could align the applicant, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the courts, says Manav Das at McDonnell Boehnen.
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8 Ways Lawyers Can Protect The Rule Of Law In Their Work
Whether they are concerned with judicial independence, regulatory predictability or client confidence, lawyers can take specific meaningful actions on their own when traditional structures are too slow or too compromised to respond, says Angeli Patel at the Berkeley Center of Law and Business.
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Kousisis Concurrence Maps FCA Defense To Anti-DEI Suits
Justice Clarence Thomas' recent concurrence in Kousisis v. U.S. lays out how federal funding recipients could use the high standard for materiality in government fraud cases to fight the U.S. Justice Department’s threatened False Claims Act suits against payees deviating from the administration’s anti-DEI policies, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.
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Justices' Review Of Fluor May Alter Gov't Contractor Liability
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to review Hencely v. Fluor, a case involving a soldier’s personal injury claims against a government contractor, suggests the justices could reconsider a long-standing test for determining whether contractors are shielded from state-tort liability, says Lisa Himes at Rogers Joseph.
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Google Damages Ruling Offers Lessons For Testifying Experts
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in EcoFactor v. Google represents a shift in how courts evaluate expert testimony in patent cases, offering a practical guide for how litigators and testifying experts can refine their work, says Adam Rhoten at Secretariat.
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Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: Communicating With Clients
Law school curricula often overlook client communication procedures, and those who actively teach this crucial facet of the practice can create exceptional client satisfaction and success, says Patrick Hanson at Wiggam Law.
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One Year On, Davidson Holds Lessons On 'Health Halo' Claims
A year after the Ninth Circuit's Davidson v. Sprout Foods decision — which raised the bar for so-called health halo claims — food and beverage companies can draw insights from its finding, subsequently expanded on by other courts, that plaintiffs must be specific when alleging fraud in healthfulness marketing, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Justices' NRC Ruling Raises New Regulatory Questions
In Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court avoided ruling on the NRC's authority to license private, temporary nuclear waste storage facilities — and this failure to reach the merits question creates new regulatory uncertainty where none had existed for decades, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Rocket Mortgage Appeal May Push Justices To Curb Classes
Should the U.S. Supreme Court agree to hear Alig v. Rocket Mortgage, the resulting decision could limit class sizes based on commonality under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Evidence as opposed to standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, say attorneys at Carr Maloney.
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3 Judicial Approaches To Applying Loper Bright, 1 Year Later
In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in its Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, a few patterns have emerged in lower courts’ application of the precedent to determine whether agency actions are lawful, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.