Appellate

  • March 04, 2026

    Club's Booze License Shouldn't Have Been Nixed, Court Says

    An Atlanta adult entertainment club's alcohol license should not have been revoked, a Georgia appeals court ruled, finding that the city didn't provide enough evidence of prior code violations to support that penalty.

  • March 04, 2026

    7th. Circ. Upholds Healthcare Co.'s Win In FMLA Suit

    The Seventh Circuit affirmed a healthcare company's win in a former human resources specialist's Family and Medical Leave Act suit, holding that the health system lawfully terminated her for failing to return to work once her approved leave expired.

  • March 04, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Backs PTAB Ax Of Coaxial Cable Patent Claims

    The Federal Circuit on Wednesday refused to revive numerous claims across four coaxial cable patents owned by PPC Broadband Inc., affirming competitor Amphenol Corp.'s successful challenge to the claims at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

  • March 04, 2026

    Mass. Justices Doubt New Suit Over Hot-Button Housing Law

    Massachusetts' top court on Wednesday seemed poised to knock down a challenge to a controversial law requiring multifamily housing near Boston-area transit facilities, hinting that a town challenging the new measure had made compliance more difficult and expensive than it needed to be.

  • March 04, 2026

    Justices Limit Courts' Purview Over Persecution Findings

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday restrained federal courts' ability to review determinations from the Board of Immigration Appeals over whether the past mistreatment of asylum seekers constitutes persecution, saying courts must apply a deferential substantial evidence review to the board's judgment.

  • March 04, 2026

    Supreme Court Rejects NJ Immunity Defense In NY, Pa. Suits

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that New Jersey cannot shield its public transit system from personal injury lawsuits by out-of-state plaintiffs under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

  • March 03, 2026

    ClearPlay, Dish Face Off At Fed. Circ. Over $469M Verdict

    The Federal Circuit is set to decide whether to reinstate a $469 million jury verdict that was wiped out by a Utah federal judge weeks after a jury awarded it to ClearPlay over claims Dish Network infringed the company's patents for technology that skips over sex and swearing in movies.

  • March 03, 2026

    6th Circ. Weighs If Special Ed Suit Must Exhaust IDEA

    The Sixth Circuit wrestled Tuesday with whether a proposed class action accusing a Michigan school district and state education officials of widespread special education failures can move forward in federal court or must go through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's administrative process.

  • March 03, 2026

    Trump Plan To Reopen Coal Plant Is Illegal, Wash. AG Says

    Washington state's attorney general and five environmental watchdogs are challenging the Trump administration's effort to reopen a decommissioned coal power plant in Chehalis, Washington, arguing that the U.S. Department of Energy lacks the authority to force the plant back into operation.

  • March 03, 2026

    Judge Lifts Stay After 9th Circ. Ruling In Gila River Dispute

    An Arizona federal judge has lifted a stay in a water rights lawsuit following a Ninth Circuit decision finding he prematurely sided with the Gila River Indian Community in a separate but similar suit when landowners appealed a summary judgment order favoring the tribal group.

  • March 03, 2026

    EPA Fights Fluoridated Water IQ Risk Finding At 9th Circ.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urged the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday to reverse a ruling that the EPA's current "optimal" level of fluoride in drinking water poses an unreasonable risk of lowering children's IQ, arguing that the trial judge improperly held his ruling in abeyance for years to await more scientific evidence.

  • March 03, 2026

    Split 9th Circ. Tells EPA To Review Cadmium's Species Impact

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must analyze how its revised water quality standards for cadmium would affect endangered species, a split Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday, upholding a conservation organization's victory in a lawsuit over the agency's guidance tripling the levels of the heavy metal allowed in U.S. waters.

  • March 03, 2026

    Tunnel Funding Freeze Fight Is In Wrong Court, 2nd Circ. Told

    New York and New Jersey's federal lawsuit challenging a freeze on Gateway Tunnel funding must be dismissed because it falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the U.S. Department of Transportation argued to the Second Circuit on Tuesday.

  • March 03, 2026

    11th Circ. Backs Dismissal Of Fee Dispute From BCBS MDL

    The Eleventh Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of an attorney fee dispute between two lawyers on the plaintiffs' side of a $2.8 billion Blue Cross Blue Shield multidistrict litigation, ruling Tuesday that neither an oral deal nor a letter between the two lawyers was binding on their payouts.

  • March 03, 2026

    7th Circ. Expedites Bank Appeal Of Ill. Swipe-Fee Law

    The Seventh Circuit granted banking and credit union trade groups' bid to fast-track their appeal over the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act after they asked to schedule the case for a decision before the law banning swipe fees on tax and tip payments takes effect July 1.

  • March 03, 2026

    7th Circ. Wary Of Bid For Counterfeiting Damages Explainer

    The Seventh Circuit seemed skeptical Tuesday of an online clothing retailer's challenge to its minimal damages award against an alleged counterfeiter, while suggesting the retailer also seemingly tried to "run away from" its district court judge.

  • March 03, 2026

    Terminix Wins Coverage For $8M Pesticide Exposure Award

    An excess insurer must cover part of an $8 million judgment entered against Terminix in a pesticide exposure suit, the Ninth Circuit said Tuesday, affirming that the underlying injury arose out of Terminix's product for the purposes of the policy's "products-completed operations hazard" coverage.

  • March 03, 2026

    9th Circ. Backs Captain's Conviction In Dive Boat Fire Tragedy

    The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday upheld a seaman's manslaughter conviction for the captain of a boat that caught fire killing 34 people, citing "overwhelming evidence" of his gross negligence including failure to train staff on fire safety, not enlisting a roving patrol and being the first to abandon the burning ship.

  • March 03, 2026

    Justices Skeptical That Appeal Waivers Shield Bad Sentences

    Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court grilled a U.S. Department of Justice attorney Tuesday over arguments that defendants who take plea deals with appeal waivers cannot fight even extreme and unconstitutional sentences in appellate courts.

  • March 03, 2026

    Inova Defeats Nurses' COVID Vax Bias Suits At 4th Circ.

    The Fourth Circuit refused Tuesday to revive suits from nurse anesthetists who said they faced religious and disability discrimination when they were fired for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, ruling that nonprofit healthcare provider Inova wasn't their employer.

  • March 03, 2026

    Apple Asks 9th Circ. To Rethink Part Of App Store Injunction

    Apple asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider part of a panel decision that largely affirmed an injunction in the case being brought by Epic Games Inc. that blocked the tech giant from charging developers "prohibitive" commissions on iPhone app purchases made outside its payment systems.

  • March 03, 2026

    Ex-SEC Attys Back Disgorgement Limits Before High Court

    Nearly two dozen former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorneys are among those urging the U.S. Supreme Court to put an end to the agency collecting disgorgement from those accused of wrongdoing without first identifying victims of the alleged fraud at hand. 

  • March 03, 2026

    Ex-FDA Leaders Rebut Contraception Rollbacks At 3rd Circ.

    Former FDA commissioners argued that Trump-era religious exemptions for birth control coverage jeopardize public health and distort medical science, in an animus brief filed Monday with the Third Circuit.

  • March 03, 2026

    Wash. Panel Reverses $11M Tax Award To Insurance Co.

    A Washington state appeals panel handed a win to Washington's Department of Revenue on Tuesday, reversing a lower court's order that the department owed a $10.9 million tax refund to a title insurance and settlement services company.

  • March 03, 2026

    NC Doctor's Bid For New Trial Is Too Late, Judge Says

    A North Carolina federal judge has refused to order a new trial for a doctor convicted of participating in an $11 million Medicare fraud scheme, finding that because the motion did not contain new evidence, the deadline to request another trial has passed.

Expert Analysis

  • 2nd Circ. Peloton Ruling Emphasizes Disclosure Context

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    The Second Circuit’s recent decision to revive shareholders’ suit alleging that Peloton made materially misleading statements makes clear that public companies must continually review risk disclosures to determine if previous hypotheticals have materialized, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • Series

    Mindfulness Meditation Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Mindful meditation enables me to drop the ego, and in helping me to keep sight of what’s important, permits me to learn from the other side and become a reliable counselor, says Roy Wyman at Bass Berry.

  • Lessons From 7th Circ. Decision Affirming $183M FCA Verdict

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    The Seventh Circuit's decision to uphold a $183 million False Claims Act award against Eli Lilly engages substantively with recurring materiality and scienter questions and provides insights into appellate review of complex trial court judgments, say Ellen London at London & Naor, Li Yu at Bernstein Litowitz and Kimberly Friday at Osborn Maledon.

  • How Calif. High Court Is Rethinking Forum Selection Clauses

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    Two recent cases before the California Supreme Court show that the state is shifting toward greater enforcement of freely negotiated forum selection clauses between sophisticated parties, so litigators need to revisit old assumptions about the breadth of California's public policy exception, says Josh Patashnik at Perkins Coie.

  • AI Litigation Tools Can Enhance Case Assessment, Strategy

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    Civil litigators can use artificial intelligence tools to strengthen case assessment and aid in early strategy development, as long as they address the risks and ethical considerations that accompany these uses, say attorneys at Barnes & Thornburg.

  • Attys Beware: Generative AI Can Also Hallucinate Metadata

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    In addition to the well-known problem of AI-generated hallucinations in legal documents, AI tools can also hallucinate metadata — threatening the integrity of discovery, the reliability of evidence and the ability to definitively identify the provenance of electronic documents, say attorneys at Law & Forensics.

  • How 9th Circ. Ruling Deepens SEC Disgorgement Circuit Split

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    The Ninth Circuit's recent decision in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Sripetch creates opposing disgorgement rules in the two circuits where the SEC brings a large proportion of enforcement actions — the Second and Ninth — and increases the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will step in, say attorneys at Cahill Gordon.

  • Calif. Justices Continued Anti-Arbitration Trend This Term

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    In the 2024-2025 term, the California Supreme Court justices continued to narrow arbitration's reach under state law, despite state courts' extreme caseload backlog and even as they embraced contractual autonomy in other contexts, says Josephine Petrick at The Norton Law Firm.

  • DC Circuit Charts Path On FERC Orders In Loper Bright Era

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    The D.C. Circuit's recent decision in Solar Energy Industries Association v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, upholding the agency's assessment of a power production facility's output, laid out an approach for addressing statutory interpretation in FERC appeals in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's game-changing Loper Bright decision, say attorneys at Bracewell.

  • Lessons From Fed. Circ. On Expert Testimony In Patent Cases

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    Several recent decisions from the Federal Circuit are notable for their treatment of expert testimony, with relevance to the three pillars of every patent case — infringement, invalidity and damages — and offer lessons on ensuring that expert testimony is both admissible and sufficient to support the jury's verdict, say attorneys at Honigman.

  • When Atty Ethics Violations Give Rise To Causes Of Action

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    Though the Model Rules of Professional Conduct make clear that a violation of the rules does not automatically create a cause of action, attorneys should beware of a few scenarios in which they could face lawsuits for ethical lapses, says Brian Faughnan at Faughnan Law.

  • Fed. Circ. In September: The Printed Matter Doctrine Expands

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Bayer v. Mylan represents an extension of the doctrine that adding new words to an existing product or method will not support patentability unless there is a functional relationship, bringing new considerations for both patent holders and challengers, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • Justices' LabCorp Punt Leaves Deeper Class Cert. Circuit Split

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    In its ruling in LabCorp v. Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court left unresolved a standing-related class certification issue that has plagued class action jurisprudence for years — and subsequent conflicting decisions among federal circuit courts have left district courts and litigants struggling with conflicting and uncertain standards, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.

  • State Of Insurance: Q3 Notes From Pennsylvania

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    Todd Leon at Marshall Dennehey discusses three notable Pennsylvania auto insurance developments from the third quarter, including the Third Circuit weighing in on actual cash value, a state appellate court opining on the regular use exclusion and state legislators introducing a bill to increase property damage minimums.

  • Opinion

    Courts Must Continue Protecting Plaintiffs In Mass Arbitration

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    In recent years, many companies have imposed onerous protocols that function to frustrate plaintiffs' ability to seek justice through mass arbitration, but a series of welcome court decisions in recent months indicate that the pendulum might be swinging back toward plaintiffs, say Raphael Janove and Sasha Jones at Janove Law.

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