Appellate

  • March 21, 2024

    Mexico Slams Texas Migrant Law As State-Sanctioned Bias

    The government of Mexico denounced Texas' law empowering state officials to arrest and deport immigrants, telling the Fifth Circuit on Thursday that allowing the law to take effect would result in "state-sanctioned acts of bias" against its citizens. 

  • March 21, 2024

    Texas High Court Drills Down On Oil Cos.' Depth Dispute

    Texas Supreme Court justices prodded the arguments of both Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Citation Oil & Gas Corp. in their dispute over depth limitations on an assignment of mineral interests in West Texas, asking Thursday why both sides seemingly didn't want to argue for all the evidence while presenting their cases.

  • March 21, 2024

    'Access Hollywood' Tape Key To Trump Verdict, 2nd Circ. Told

    Writer E. Jean Carroll urged the Second Circuit on Wednesday not to undo a $5 million verdict finding that Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed her, saying the jury rightly viewed the former president's infamous "Access Hollywood" tape because it revealed "his modus operandi."

  • March 21, 2024

    Year Deadline On Inspection Tort Is 'Absurd,' Ga. Justices Told

    A lawyer for the family of a man who was killed when his home's retaining wall collapsed told the Supreme Court of Georgia on Thursday that the home's inspector should be liable for his death, calling a one-year cutoff on litigation asserted by the inspector "absurd."

  • March 21, 2024

    6th Circ. Skeptical Of Enbridge's Late Pipeline Suit Transfer

    A Sixth Circuit panel questioned how Enbridge Energy LP could move a lawsuit seeking to shut down one of its pipelines to federal court more than two years after it was filed, pressing the company Thursday to justify missing the 30-day cutoff for removals.

  • March 21, 2024

    6th Circ. Revives McKee's Network Plan Fight With Thrifty Med

    The Sixth Circuit reinstated on Thursday McKee Foods Corp.'s suit against Thrifty MedPlus Pharmacy alleging Tennessee law requiring pharmacy benefit managers to let "any willing pharmacies" participate in a network was preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, finding that amendments made to the statute didn't render McKee's claims moot.

  • March 21, 2024

    Calif. Panel Revives Diner's COVID Sanitization Coverage Bid

    A California state appeals court revived a diner's bid for property insurance coverage of COVID-19 losses after it determined the restaurant credibly alleged direct physical losses and that the policy's language covering losses attributable to a virus applied to COVID-19 sanitization efforts.

  • March 21, 2024

    Va. Court Affirms Doctor's Win, Refuses 'Empty Chair' Appeal

    An emergency physician will keep his trial win in a malpractice case involving a patient's fatal aneurysm, a Virginia state appeals court has ruled, rejecting arguments that the trial judge flubbed by refusing to explicitly forbid the jury from considering the possibility that anyone else contributed to her death.

  • March 21, 2024

    8th Circ. Backs Attys' Win In COVID Hotel Eviction Challenge

    Two government attorneys did not violate the U.S. Constitution when they gave the green light to a Minnesota police department to forcibly remove a resident from a Super 8 motel in June 2020 amid a COVID-19 era eviction ban, the Eighth Circuit ruled in a precedential opinion Thursday, citing a "dearth of precedent."

  • March 21, 2024

    DC Circ. Mulls Reach Of EPA's Boiler Emission Limits

    A D.C. Circuit panel on Thursday questioned the backward reach of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's updated emissions standards for industrial boilers while appearing amenable to federal regulators' choice of data used to calculate the pollution limits.

  • March 21, 2024

    9th Circ. Won't Rethink Apple App Store Rival's Antitrust Suit

    A split Ninth Circuit panel has refused to rehear a rival app store developer's bid to revive an antitrust suit alleging that Apple monopolizes the market for app distribution on iOS devices with its App store.

  • March 21, 2024

    Feds Defend Congressional Authority To Reduce HFCs

    The EPA is urging the D.C. Circuit to reject coolant industry challenges to a gradual reduction of climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons, arguing it had a congressional mandate to establish the phase-out and correctly excluded recent years' chemical imports from future quota calculations.

  • March 21, 2024

    Trump's Mystery Docket: Inside NY's Secretive Filing System

    The first criminal indictment of a former American president may have arrived in 21st century New York, but it landed in a court system stuck in the past — where the official record is a disorganized and incomplete mass of paper with no accounting of what's inside.

  • March 21, 2024

    Teleflex Catheter Patent Makes It Through Fed. Circ.

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday opted to leave untouched an administrative patent board ruling that rejected a legal effort to invalidate a patent covering a type of catheter that's sold by Teleflex. 

  • March 21, 2024

    Pa. Justices Won't Review If 'Skill Games' Are Gambling

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision not to hear an appeal from state officials contesting the legality of Pennsylvania Skill games, which are commonly found in bars and restaurants, lets stand a ruling that such games are not illegal gambling machines.

  • March 21, 2024

    Robins Kaplan, Funding Firm Must Pay Sanctions, Court Told

    An investment firm has urged a New York state appellate court to uphold a $156,000 sanction levied against a litigation funding firm and its counsel from Robins Kaplan LLP over the law firm's access to the opposing party's Dropbox account, saying a trial court acted within its discretion in imposing the sanction.

  • March 21, 2024

    3rd Circ. Agrees Investors Have No Case Against Vax Maker

    The Third Circuit on Thursday upheld a Pennsylvania federal judge's ruling that a putative class of investors alleging biopharmaceutical company Ocugen Inc. made misleading statements about its ability to quickly produce a COVID-19 vaccine failed to state a claim against the company.

  • March 21, 2024

    6th Circ. Doubtful Of Hospital Workers' Vax Exemption Claim

    A Sixth Circuit panel appeared skeptical Thursday of an argument from a class of former employees of Ohio Children's Hospital that their First Amendment rights to freedom of religion were violated under the hospital's COVID-19 employee vaccination policy.

  • March 21, 2024

    7th Circ. Won't Let Admitted Fraudster Ditch $1.3M Restitution

    A woman who admitted to wire fraud in connection with a three-person scheme to file hundreds of false tax returns owes $1.3 million in restitution to the government, the Seventh Circuit ruled Thursday, rejecting the woman's claim that the amount was miscalculated.

  • March 21, 2024

    Oil Worker's $4M Injury Verdict Tossed By Texas Justices

    A Texas appeals court on Thursday erased an oil worker's nearly $4 million jobsite injury award, ruling jurors should have had to determine if one of the companies held responsible for the accident was shielded from liability for lending employees to the other defendant.

  • March 21, 2024

    DOL Urges 5th Circ. To Back Biden Admin. ESG Investing Rule

    The U.S. Department of Labor urged the Fifth Circuit on Thursday to uphold a rule allowing retirement advisers to consider social issues such as climate change when choosing investments, arguing that conservative states challenging the rule haven't shown it defies federal benefits law.

  • March 21, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Upholds Edwards' PTAB Win On Heart Valve Patent

    The Federal Circuit has affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that various parts of medical technology maker Cardiovalve's patent on an artificial heart valve implant were invalid as obvious.

  • March 21, 2024

    6th Circ. Zeroes In On CBA In Vax Bias Preemption Battle

    A Sixth Circuit panel pressed on Thursday a cargo airline and pilots who say they were unlawfully fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccinations about the pilots' union contract, with one judge asking whether the open questions about their collective bargaining agreement meant the discrimination case was preempted.

  • March 21, 2024

    Ga. Justices Fear 'Massive Effect' Of Teacher Contract Claim

    Justices of Georgia's highest court appeared skeptical Thursday of claims from a teacher who said he was wrongly denied a contract renewal with his school district over a deadline dispute, with several justices worrying that siding with him could upend the standard contract renewal procedure for thousands of educators statewide.

  • March 21, 2024

    6th Circ. Unsure Of OSU, Prof's Harassment Wins

    A Sixth Circuit judge asked an Ohio State University attorney Thursday "why in the world" a jury wasn't allowed to decide parts of a former graduate student's sexual harassment and retaliation claims against the university and a professor.

Expert Analysis

  • AI Takes Transformers Beyond Robots In Disguise

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    At the intersection of artificial intelligence and copyright law, the shape-shifting models known as transformers raise the question of whether using copyrighted materials to train such models constitutes a transformative use, says Sean Li at Benesch.

  • Black-Led VC Fund Case Could Hinge On Nature Of Grants

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    Organizations whose missions involve any manner of race-conscious funding should closely monitor arguments this week in American Alliance v. Fearless Fund, a case filed against a grant program that seeks to address the gap in venture capital funding for Black women-led businesses, which will examine whether grants are charitable under Civil Rights Act Section 1981 liability, say Kali Schellenberg and John Stapleton at LeVan Stapleton, and Kenneth Trujillo at Chamberlain Hrdlicka.

  • Ex-OpenSea Staffer Case May Clarify When Info Is Property

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    In considering the appeal of a former OpenSea manager’s wire fraud conviction in U.S. v. Chastain, the Second Circuit may soon provide guidance about whether economic information is traditional property in certain insider trading prosecutions — a theory of fraud that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly narrowed, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • NC TikTok Order Holds Lessons On Handling State AG Probes

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    Earlier this month, a North Carolina appeals court compelled TikTok to give the state attorney general information relating to 98,000 recorded Zoom meetings, reminding companies that successful civil litigation strategies may have the opposite effect in the state or regulatory investigation context, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • CFPB's Proposed Overdraft Rule Evokes A Dickensian Tale

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new proposed rule, declaring overdraft credit to be under Truth In Lending Act protection, creates tension between vigorous agency action and judicial concerns about administrative overreach that calls to mind Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," say Eric Mogilnicki and David Stein at Covington.

  • NY Discovery Stay Ruling Empowers Securities Defendants

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    A New York state appeals court’s recent decision in Camelot Event v. Morgan Stanley — which extends a federal securities law's discovery stay to state courts — clarifies an issue that has perplexed state courts across the country and provides the advantage of reduced discovery costs to securities defendants, say Katherine Kelly Fell and Jeremy Wertz at Milbank.

  • 9 Tools To Manage PAGA Claims After Calif. High Court Ruling

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    In Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, the California Supreme Court recently dealt a blow to employers by ruling that courts cannot dismiss Private Attorneys General Act claims on manageability grounds, but defendants and courts can still use arbitration agreements, due process challenges and other methods when dealing with unmanageable claims, says Ryan Krueger at Sheppard Mullin.

  • How Merck Settlement Can Inform Cyberinsurance Approach

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    This month's settlement in Merck v. ACE spotlights how cyber exclusions have evolved since the significant decision in the case — allowing for insurance coverage despite the presence of a policy war exclusion — and where else corporate risk managers may look for coverage in case of a cyberattack, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.

  • Taking A Closer Look At Fed. Circ. Claim Construction Split

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    An empirical analysis of a year's worth of claim construction decisions from the Federal Circuit and four key district court jurisdictions shows that these constructions vary in material ways depending on the analysis' source, and this body of case law would benefit from clarification by the Federal Circuit itself, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Workplace Speech Policies Limit Legal And PR Risks

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    As workers increasingly speak out on controversies like the 2024 elections and the Israel-Hamas war, companies should implement practical workplace expression policies and plans to protect their brands and mitigate the risk of violating federal and state anti-discrimination and free speech laws, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • 10 Years Of Retail Battles: Unpacking Pricing Litigation Trends

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    A close look at a decade of pricing class actions against retailers reveals evolving trends, plaintiffs bar strategies, and the effects of significant court decisions across states, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • The 7th Circ.'s Top 10 Civil Opinions Of 2023

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    Attorneys at Jenner & Block examine the most significant decisions issued by the Seventh Circuit in 2023, and explain how they may affect issues related to antitrust, constitutional law, federal jurisdiction and more.

  • Employee Experience Strategy Can Boost Law Firm Success

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    Amid continuing business uncertainty, law firms should consider adopting a holistic employee experience strategy — prioritizing consistency, targeting signature moments and leveraging measurement tools — to maximize productivity and profitability, says Haley Revel at Calibrate Consulting.

  • How Consumer Product Cos. Can Keep Up With Class Actions

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    Recent cases show California's federal courts and the Ninth Circuit remain the preferred arena for consumers pursuing false advertising and trade deception claims against companies — so manufacturers, distributors and retailers of consumer products should continue to watch these courts for guidance on how to fight class actions, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Series

    Competing In Triathlons Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While practicing law and competing in long-distance triathlons can make work and life feel unbalanced at times, participating in the sport has revealed important lessons about versatility, self-care and perseverance that apply to the office as much as they do the racecourse, says Laura Heusel at Butler Snow.

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