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Featured
Supreme Court Caseload Hits 160-Year Low
Not since the Civil War has the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in as few cases as it will this term — the latest milestone for the court's shrinking docket, and one attorneys say might have more to do with the high court's culture than its expanding emergency appeals caseload.
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February 18, 2026
8th Circ. Won't Review Bad Counsel Claim In Removal Case
An Eighth Circuit panel refused to fault the Board of Immigration Appeals for affirming the denial of a Honduran woman's attempt to reopen removal proceedings when it wasn't clear her ineffective counsel claim was shared with the appropriate disciplinary authority.
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February 18, 2026
Colo. County's Housing Impact Fee Unlawful, Panel Told
A Texas residential property developer asked a Colorado Court of Appeals panel to find that a Colorado county's employee housing impact fee methodology for new residential construction projects violates state law, arguing Wednesday that the methodology aims to cure existing deficiencies.
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February 18, 2026
'Flawed' Ruling Let SEC Hide Breach Records, DC Circ. Told
The New Civil Liberties Alliance has told the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should have to turn over documents related to an internal information breach, arguing a lower court improperly allowed the agency to exempt documents from a Freedom of Information Act request.
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February 18, 2026
Fla. Court Rejects Appeal Of 'Customary Use' Beach Ruling
A Florida state appeals court declined to review a 2024 judgment establishing public access to some Walton County beaches, finding that a June repeal of a law that prompted the litigation rendered the underlying judgment null.
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February 18, 2026
Trump Admin Doubles Down At DC Circ. In Fight Over CFPB
The Trump administration has pressed the D.C. Circuit to lift an injunction barring mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, slamming it as a "sweeping intrusion" on agency management that rests on incorrect speculation about what the end goal is.
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February 18, 2026
BMW Rips Onesta's Claim That Qualcomm Deal Ends Patent Row
Onesta IP has told the Federal Circuit that it reached a deal with Qualcomm that resolves its controversial patent suits against BMW in Germany over U.S. patents, but BMW fired back that Onesta doesn't have "any shred of evidence to back its grandiose assertions."
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February 18, 2026
Del. Justices Mull Genworth Liability Insurer Appeal
An attorney for AIG Financial urged a Delaware Supreme Court panel on Wednesday to consider whether a Superior Court judge misapplied policy language and misconstrued related litigation involving "one of the most sophisticated purchasers of insurance imaginable," in dismissing a policyholder class suit challenging long-term care premium hikes.
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February 18, 2026
DOJ Allowed To Dictate Pay, Term Of Google Search Watchers
A D.C. federal judge sided with the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday regarding the key terms of service for the five-member technical committee tasked with observing Google's compliance with mandates to prop up rival search engines with search results and data.
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February 18, 2026
Will Jurors Penalize AI? Study Examines Trade Secrets Impact
A forthcoming academic study suggests juries may treat AI-enabled actions more harshly than human conduct in trade secrets disputes, resulting in what the authors call an “AI penalty.” Attorneys say reality is more complicated.
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February 18, 2026
Judge Rejects FTC's Emergency Bid To Spare Merger Rule
The Federal Trade Commission has just until Thursday to obtain Fifth Circuit intervention after a Texas federal judge refused Wednesday to extend his seven-day pause on the order scrapping the agency's premerger reporting overhaul.
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February 18, 2026
Conn. Justice Tackles Precedent, AI In Renomination Hearing
Answering a question about abortion rights during a renomination hearing Wednesday, a cautious Connecticut Supreme Court justice said courts must be mindful when overruling past decisions, questioning whether the doctrine of stare decisis, or allowing past opinions to stand, could become "not much of a doctrine at all."
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February 18, 2026
State Law Matters More For Bankruptcy Tolling, NC Justices Told
A real estate rental agency told North Carolina's high court Wednesday that it didn't miss its chance to collect a $507,000 debt because a decade-long statute of limitations period for judgment renewal was tolled by the debtor's bankruptcy.
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February 18, 2026
2nd Circ. Says No Pension Bill For Bus Co. After Union Switch
The Second Circuit on Wednesday backed a ruling that cut a school bus company's pension withdrawal liability to zero, siding with the company's interpretation that federal benefits law entitled it to a discount on what was owed when its employees switched from one union to another.
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February 18, 2026
Insurer Must Cover $5.5M Crash Settlement, 4th Circ. Says
A highway construction company is entitled to coverage under a subcontractor's policy for a $5.5 million settlement over two motorcycle crashes, the Fourth Circuit held Wednesday, finding that the company's liability to the victims was causally connected to the subcontractor's placement of work zone signage.
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February 18, 2026
4th Circ. Backs Military Policy Banning HIV-Positive Enlistees
The Fourth Circuit on Wednesday upheld a U.S. Department of Defense policy that bans HIV-positive Americans from enlisting, deferring to the military's judgment that it must have healthy and fit service members who do not require consistent treatment for chronic medical conditions.
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February 18, 2026
Ga. Railroad Defends Land Seizures In Eminent Domain Fight
A small Georgia railroad operation urged a state appellate court Wednesday to uphold successive rulings by the state's utility commission and a trial court to allow condemnation of landowners' property to build a new spur in its network and to lift the stay that's currently holding up construction.
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February 18, 2026
Trump Opposes Stay In Mar-A-Lago Case During Appeal
President Donald Trump and his former co-defendants in the criminal case over his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago registered their opposition Wednesday in Florida federal court to pausing the case while two nonprofit groups appeal the denial of their request to release the final report from former special counsel Jack Smith.
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February 18, 2026
Florida Court Revives Homeowner Suit Against Insurer
A Florida appeals court on Wednesday revived a suit by two homeowners against their insurer after finding that the lawsuit was wrongly tossed because the homeowners' counsel failed to appear at trial.
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February 18, 2026
5th Circ. Affirms Staffing Co.'s Pay Plan Doesn't Exempt OT
A staffing company's retainer pay plan guaranteeing a set amount of pay if workers performed any work in a workweek did not represent a salary under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Fifth Circuit ruled Wednesday, affirming a Texas federal court's decision.
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February 18, 2026
Pa. Court Permits Officers' Biased Remarks In Murder Case
Pennsylvania's highest court affirmed a life sentence for murder on Wednesday, finding that police interrogation video shown to a jury in which detectives made accusatory statements and opined on the suspect's guilt was admissible.
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February 18, 2026
11th Circ. Says No Sanctions In Capitol Riot Defamation Case
An American Airlines flight attendant won't face sanctions for suing a co-worker for defamation after he posted statements online about her participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.
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February 18, 2026
State High Court Chiefs To Review Law School Accreditation
State supreme court leaders said Wednesday they will conduct a thorough review of law school accreditation practices this year, a move that comes after state justices in Texas and Florida recently ended the American Bar Association's longstanding accreditation monopoly in those states.
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February 18, 2026
9th Circ. Affirms Tracy Anderson's Workout Copyright Loss
The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a ruling that invalidated copyrights to celebrity fitness trainer Tracy Anderson's "Tracy Anderson Method" workout routines in 19 DVDs, finding that the routines are unprotectable methods designed to improve health, similar to yoga poses at issue in the Ninth Circuit's Bikram ruling.
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February 18, 2026
Fed. Circ. Backs More Samsung PTAB Wins Over Audio Tech
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday backed most of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decisions to invalidate claims in a duo of earpiece technology patents challenged by Samsung, though it agreed to revive two claims the electronics giant didn't ask the board to ax.
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February 18, 2026
Feds Ask High Court To Reject Chinook Tribe Recognition
The U.S. Department of the Interior is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a petition by the Chinook Indian Nation that looks to undo a Ninth Circuit order that denied it federal recognition, arguing that the case is a poor vehicle for resolving questions under the 1994 List Act.
Editor's Picks
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The Topics Appellate Attys Are Tracking Most Closely In 2026
A few far-reaching topics will dominate the appellate practice in 2026, attorneys predict, as appeals courts navigate an ever-growing thicket of Trump administration litigation and thorny questions involving artificial intelligence.
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4 High Court Cases To Watch This Spring
The U.S. Supreme Court justices will return from the winter holidays to tackle several constitutional disputes that range from who is entitled to birthright citizenship to whether transgender individuals are entitled to heightened levels of protection from discrimination.
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Circuit-By-Circuit Guide To 2025's Most Memorable Moments
Federal circuit courts in 2025 strained under a crush of Trump administration lawsuits, as judges directed animated language at litigants and even their fellow judges. And while the president only added a handful of appellate jurists, they had outsize impacts on circuit benches as they joined the cadre of conservatives seated in his first term.
Expert Analysis
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An Instructive Reminder On Appealing ITC Determinations
A recent Federal Circuit decision, partially dismissing Crocs' appeal of a U.S. International Trade Commission verdict as untimely, offers a powerful reminder that the ITC is a creature of statute and that practitioners would do well to interpret those statutes conservatively, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.
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Decoding Arbitral Disputes: US Cert Denial And EU Strategy
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied certiorari in Russia v. Hulley Enterprises, leaving in place the D.C. Circuit's opinion supporting jurisdiction in the $50 billion arbitration award challenge, and intensifying litigation exposure for the European Union's strategy of contesting the enforceability of intra-EU awards abroad, says Josep Galvez at 4-5 Gray's Inn.
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Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: What Cross-Selling Truly Takes
Early-career attorneys may struggle to introduce clients to practitioners in other specialties, but cross-selling becomes easier once they know why it’s vital to their first years of practice, which mistakes to avoid and how to anticipate clients' needs, say attorneys at Moses & Singer.
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OCC Mortgage Escrow Rules Add Fuel To Preemption Debate
Two rules proposed in December by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which would preempt state laws requiring national banks to pay interest on mortgage escrow accounts, are a bold new federal gambit in the debate over how much authority Congress intended to hand state regulators under the Dodd-Frank Act, says Christian Hancock at Bradley Arant.
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When Tokenized Real-World Assets Collide With Real World
The city of Detroit's ongoing case against Real Token, alleging building code and safety violations across over 400 Detroit residential properties, highlights the brave new world we face when real estate assets are tokenized via blockchain technology — and what happens to the human tenants caught in the middle, say Biying Cheng and Cornell law professor David Reiss.
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Mass. Ruling Raises Questions About Whistleblower Status
In Galvin v. Roxbury Community College, Massachusetts' top appellate court held that an individual was protected from retaliation as a whistleblower, even though he engaged in illegal activity, raising questions about whether whistleblowers who commit illegal acts are protected and whether trusted employees are doing their job or whistleblowing, say attorneys at Littler.
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Series
Judges On AI: Practical Use Cases In Chambers
U.S. Magistrate Judge Allison Goddard in the Southern District of California discusses how she uses generative artificial intelligence tools in chambers to make work more efficient and effective — from editing jury instructions for clarity to summarizing key documents.
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Notable Q4 Updates In Insurance Class Actions
Last quarter featured a novel class action theory about car rental reimbursement coverage, another win for insurers in total loss valuations, a potentially broad-reaching Idaho Supreme Court ruling about illusory underinsured motorist coverage, and homeowners blaming rising premiums on the fossil fuel industry, says Kevin Zimmerman at BakerHostetler.
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Opinion
Criminalizing Officials' Speech Erodes Trust In Justice System
Federal prosecutors reportedly investigating whether Minnesota officials’ public statements illegally impeded immigration enforcement is a dangerous overextension of obstruction law that would criminalize dissent and sow public distrust in law enforcement, say Marc Levin and Khalil Cumberbatch at the Council on Criminal Justice.
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Series
Trail Running Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Navigating the muddy, root-filled path of trail marathons and ultramarathons provides fertile training ground for my high-stakes fractional general counsel work, teaching me to slow down my mind when the terrain shifts, sharpen my focus and trust my training, says Eric Proos at Next Era Legal.
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Reflections From High Court Oral Args Over Fed Gov. Removal
In the oral arguments last month for Trump v. Cook, which asks the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the circumstances under which the president can remove a Federal Reserve Board governor, the justices appeared skeptical about ruling on the substantive issues in view of the limited record and analysis, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.
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Opinion
Justices' Monsanto Decision May Fix A Preemption Mistake
In Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, the U.S. Supreme Court will address whether federal law preempts states' label-based failure-to-warn claims when federal regulators have not required a warning — and its decision could correct a long-standing misinterpretation of a prior high court ruling, thus ending myriad meritless state law personal injury claims, says Lawrence Ebner at Capital Appellate.
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Tips From Del. Decision Nixing Major Earnout Damages Award
The Delaware Supreme Court recently vacated in part the largest earnout-related damages award in Delaware history, making clear that the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing cannot be used to rescue parties from drafting choices where the relevant regulatory risk was foreseeable at signing, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.
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What's At Stake In Possible Circuit Split On Medicaid Rule
A recent Eleventh Circuit decision, reviving Florida's lawsuit against a federal rule that reduces Medicaid funding based on agreements between hospitals, sets up a potential circuit split with the Fifth Circuit, with important ramifications for states looking to private administrators to run provider tax programs, say Liz Goodman, Karuna Seshasai and Rebecca Pitt at FTI Consulting.
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Takeaways From 8th Circ. Ruling On Worker's 'BLM' Display
The Eighth Circuit's recent decision in Home Depot v. National Labor Relations Board, finding that Home Depot legally prohibited an employee from displaying Black Lives Matter messaging on his uniform, reaffirms employers' right to restrict politically sensitive material, but should not be read as a blank check, say attorneys at Hunton.