Appellate

  • April 25, 2024

    Objector Takes $125M PACER Overcharge Deal To Fed. Circ.

    An objector to a $125 million deal resolving class action claims that the federal judiciary overcharges users of its PACER court records system is taking his challenge to the settlement to the Federal Circuit.

  • April 25, 2024

    Mich. Drops Detroit Gerrymandering Appeal In $2M Fee Deal

    The Michigan commission tasked with drawing the state's legislative maps voted Thursday to forgo a U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a ruling that it unconstitutionally used race to craft Detroit voting districts.

  • April 25, 2024

    Texas Doc Can't Avoid Woman's Suit Over Son's Brain Injury

    A Texas appeals court on Thursday declined to throw out a woman's suit alleging an anesthesiologist wrongly administered an epidural during delivery and caused her son to suffer a brain injury, finding the judge did not find the woman's expert report deficient despite giving her a month to amend it.

  • April 25, 2024

    Wash. Large-Magazine Ban Stays As Court Official Fears Tragedy

    The Washington Supreme Court commissioner said Thursday the state can maintain its ban on the sale of large-capacity magazines for now, saying in his ruling he was kept awake at night over the potential that lifting the ban would allow an especially "awful" mass shooting.

  • April 25, 2024

    South African's Old Convictions Cost Him Deportation Relief

    The Seventh Circuit ruled that an immigration judge appropriately considered two criminal convictions in 2000 and 2002 to deny a South African man's 2015 efforts to stay in the country.

  • April 25, 2024

    1st Circ. Tosses Second Vineyard Wind Challenge

    The First Circuit on Thursday rejected a legal challenge to the federal government's approval of a wind energy project off the coast of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, the second such ruling in as many days.

  • April 25, 2024

    Wash. Appeals Court Rejects Seattle High-Rise Permit Dispute

    A Washington state appeals court sided with a developer on Thursday in a challenge to its plan for a 17-story apartment building on Seattle's waterfront, concluding that the project's opponents missed their chance to contest the city's decision not to hold the proposal to certain shoreline regulations.

  • April 25, 2024

    Fla. High Court Says PIP Law Doesn't Mandate 100% Payment

    The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Allstate Insurance Co. is not required to pay 100% of a chiropractic provider's charges under a personal injury protection policy, saying to enact such a requirement would misread both Florida's PIP law and Allstate's policy.

  • April 25, 2024

    3rd Circ. Lets Mallinckrodt Off Sanofi's Royalty Hook

    A Third Circuit panel said Thursday that Mallinckrodt PLC's Chapter 11 bankruptcy could sever its obligation to pay Sanofi-Aventis US LLC royalties on sales of an autoimmune disease drug, finding that Sanofi's contract to sell Mallinckrodt the rights to the drug created a claim ripe to be extinguished.

  • April 25, 2024

    US Says Seizure Power Erodes Landowner's Border Wall Suit

    The federal government told the Fifth Circuit that its eminent domain authority should defeat a landowner's claims that she owns a $6.5 million section of border wall that was allegedly built on her farm without authorization in 2008.

  • April 25, 2024

    Split Take On NJ 'Fake' Sale Case Disrupts Biz-Friendly Pattern

    A recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision rejecting "fake discounts" as a source of consumer fraud was a boon for the class action defense bar, but the takes of three dissenting judges and Attorney General Matt Platkin show that the state's largely business-friendly jurisprudence on what qualifies as an ascertainable loss isn't quite settled.

  • April 25, 2024

    SEC, Trade Group Ask DC Circ. To Revive Proxy Advisory Rule

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a leading trade group called on the D.C. Circuit Thursday to revive a rule imposing heightened disclosure requirements on proxy advisory firms, appealing a lower court decision that threw out the requirements.

  • April 25, 2024

    Mich. Justices Reject Park Ranger's Disability Benefits Appeal

    Two Michigan Supreme Court justices on Thursday agreed with the rest of the bench not to rule on a park ranger's claims that state retirement law unconstitutionally prevents him from challenging his disability benefit denial, but called out a lower court's "circular" reasoning for finding him ineligible.

  • April 25, 2024

    Judge Puts Texas Arrest Law Case On Ice During Appeal

    A Texas federal court has paused the Biden administration's lawsuit challenging Texas' controversial law allowing state officials to arrest and deport migrants crossing the border unlawfully until the state's appeal of the court's temporary block on the law concludes.

  • April 25, 2024

    Nursing Agency Urges 4th Circ. To Overturn $9M Wage Ruling

    A nurse staffing agency pressed the Fourth Circuit to overturn a lower court's decision ordering the agency to pay workers $9 million in a misclassification suit brought by the U.S. Department of Labor, saying the lower court should have made the government prove the nurses were employees.

  • April 25, 2024

    Atty Group Asks Justices To Review Judge's Non-Recusal

    The Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a D.C. Circuit judge's decision not to recuse himself from a former al-Qaida member's case, saying the judge's refusal undermined ethical standards for judges.

  • April 25, 2024

    EEOC Urges 3rd Circ. To Revive Fired Worker's Reprisal Suit

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged the Third Circuit to reinstate a former manager's lawsuit accusing a glass company of firing him because he refused to fire his plant's only two Black workers, saying a jury should hear the dispute.

  • April 25, 2024

    Emotional Damages Not Covered In OD Suit, Pa. Justices Rule

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reversed a lower court's ruling that a Nationwide unit had a duty to defend two homeowners in a suit over a man's fatal overdose under their roof, holding Thursday that underlying emotional distress damages don't fall within the policy's definition of bodily injury.

  • April 25, 2024

    Panel Backs Gas Station's Win In Drunken Driving Death Suit

    An Ohio state appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit over the deaths of two young men in a drunken driving crash, saying the alcohol seller can't be liable under Ohio's Dram Shop Act because the purchaser wasn't the driver.

  • April 25, 2024

    Ex-Defender Says Feds Can't Hide Other Harassment Reports

    A former assistant federal defender wants to make certain #MeToo evidence public following the trial in a case accusing the judiciary of botching its probe into her own sexual harassment complaint, saying the contents of similar allegations concerning the Federal Defender's Office have already been publicly revealed.

  • April 25, 2024

    Pa. Justices OK Teacher 'Character' Test For Suspended Atty

    The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on Thursday upheld a lower court's ruling that an ex-attorney's disciplinary records can be used by the state Department of Education when evaluating whether that attorney has the "good moral character" to get a teaching license.

  • April 25, 2024

    Justices Skeptical Of Trump's Absolute Immunity Bid

    A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared open Thursday to the idea of limited immunity for former presidents related to the office's core constitutional powers, but divisions emerged among the justices over how to determine when acts outside of that narrow category are potentially subject to criminal prosecution.

  • April 25, 2024

    Weinstein May Be Retried After NY Court Overturns Conviction

    Harvey Weinstein seems poised to go to trial again in New York and testify in his own defense after the state's highest court overturned the movie mogul's rape conviction Thursday in a contentious, split opinion that found his first jury proceeding was unfair.

  • April 24, 2024

    Whole Foods May Have Retaliated In BLM Case, 1st Circ. Says

    Whole Foods hasn't yet proven that its firing of a worker who wore a Black Lives Matter mask to work wasn't retaliatory, the First Circuit said in an opinion unsealed Wednesday, ruling that there is a "genuine dispute" as to whether she was terminated for protected conduct.

  • April 24, 2024

    High Court's Gender Divide Palpable At Latest Abortion Args

    As the U.S. Supreme Court pondered permissible limits on abortion in medical emergencies, justices Wednesday split discernibly along ideological lines yet unmistakably along gender lines, with liberal and conservative women questioning restrictions far more forcefully than their male colleagues.

Expert Analysis

  • NY Bond, Enforcement Options As Trump Judgment Looms

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    In light of former President Donald Trump's court filing this week indicating that he can't secure a bond for the New York attorney general's nearly $465 million judgment against him, Neil Pedersen of Pedersen & Sons Surety Bond Agency and Adam Pollock of Pollock Cohen explore New York state judgment enforcement options and the mechanics of securing and collateralizing an appellate bond.

  • What To Watch As Justices Consider Appeal Deadline Case

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    Next week, in Harrow v. U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider for the first time whether a statutory deadline for appealing from a federal agency to an Article III court is jurisdictional, setting the stage for a decision that could dramatically reshape the landscape for challenging agency decisions, say attorneys at MoloLamken.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: March Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four notable circuit court decisions on topics from consumer fraud to employment — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including coercive communications with putative class members and Article III standing at the class certification stage.

  • Opinion

    Justices' Trump Ballot Ruling May Spark Constitutional Crisis

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that former President Donald Trump must be reinstated to Colorado’s primary ballot endorses an unnecessarily broad legal theory of disqualification from federal office, raising constitutional questions that will only become more urgent as the next presidential election nears, says Devon Ombres at the Center for American Progress.

  • Rebuttal

    High Court Should Maintain Insurer Neutrality In Bankruptcy

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    While a recent Law360 guest article argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should endorse insurer standing in Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum, doing so would create a playground for mischief and delay, and the high court should instead uphold insurance neutrality, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents

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    Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.

  • The Future Of ERISA If High Court Ends Chevron Deference

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming decisions in two cases involving fishing company challenges to regulatory requirements could weaken or repeal Chevron deference, meaning U.S. Department of Labor regulations adopted under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act may be heavily scrutinized, modified or vacated by federal courts, say Naina Kamath and Julie Stapel at Morgan Lewis.

  • Assessing 2 Years Of High Court's Arbitration Waiver Ruling

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    In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Morgan v. Sundance, clarifying that no special rules apply to waiver of arbitration provisions, the ruling has had immediate ramifications in federal courts, but it may take some time for the effects to be felt on other federal issues and in state courts, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

  • Risks Of Nonmutual Offensive Collateral Estoppel In MDLs

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    After the Supreme Court declined to review the Sixth Circuit's ruling in the E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. personal injury litigation, nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel could show up in more MDLs, and transform the loss of a single MDL bellwether trial into a de facto classwide decision that binds thousands of other MDL cases, say Chantale Fiebig and Luke Sullivan at Weil Gotshal.

  • Infringement Policy Lessons From 4th Circ. Sony Music Ruling

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    The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Sony Music v. Cox Communications, which in part held that the internet service provider was liable for contributing to music copyright infringement, highlights the importance of reasonable policies to terminate repeat infringers, and provides guidance for litigating claims of secondary liability, say Benjamin Marks and Alexandra Blankman at Weil.

  • What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks

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    Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.

  • When Your Client Insists On Testifying In A Criminal Case

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    Speculation that former President Donald Trump could take the stand in any of the four criminal cases he faces serves as a reminder for counsel to consider their ethical obligations when a client insists on testifying, including the attorney’s duty of candor to the court and the depth of their discussions with clients, says Marissa Kingman at Fox Rothschild.

  • Tips On Numerical Range From Fed. Circ. Philip Morris Ruling

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    The Federal Circuit's recent RAI v. Philip Morris decision that a patent provided sufficient written description to support a claimed numerical range offers several takeaways for practitioners, including the need for a cautious approach to criticism of ranges, say attorneys at BCLP.

  • How Calif. Video Recording Ruling May Affect Insured Exams

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    A recent California appellate decision, Myasnyankin v. Nationwide, allowing policyholders to video record all parties to an insurance examination under oath, has changed the rules of the road for EUOs and potentially opened Pandora's box for future disputes, say John Edson and Preston Bennett at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Fed. Circ. Patent Lesson: No Contradiction, No Indefiniteness

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Maxwell v. Amperex Technology highlights the complexities of construing patent claims when seemingly contradictory limitations are present, and that when a narrowing limitation overrides a broader one, they do not necessarily contradict each other, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

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