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Appellate
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August 19, 2025
West Texas A&M Can't Ban Drag Shows, 5th Circ. Says
A split Fifth Circuit has reversed a decision that allowed West Texas A&M University to ban drag shows on its campus, writing that art does not need to be like "works of Picasso, Schöenberg, and Carroll" to be protected by the First Amendment.
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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.
Expert Analysis
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Series
Playing Mah-Jongg Makes Me A Better Mediator
Mah-jongg rewards patience, pattern recognition, adaptability and keen observation, all skills that are invaluable to my role as a mediator, and to all mediating parties, says Marina Corodemus.
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How Latest High Court Rulings Refine Employment Law
The 2024-2025 U.S. Supreme Court term did not radically rewrite employment law, but sharpened focus on textual fidelity, procedural rigor and the boundaries of statutory relief, say attorneys at Krevolin & Horst.
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Calif. Air Waivers Fight Fuels Automakers', States' Uncertainty
The unprecedented attempt by Congress and the Trump administration to kill the Clean Air Act waivers supporting California's vehicle emissions standards will eventually end up in the U.S. Supreme Court — but meanwhile, vehicle manufacturers, and states following California's standards, are left in limbo, says John Watson at Spencer Fane.
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Diversity, Equity, Indictment? Contractor Risks After Kousisis
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Kousisis v. U.S. decision, holding that economic loss is not required to sustain wire fraud charges related to fraudulent inducement, may extend criminal liability to government contractors that make false diversity, equity and inclusion certifications, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.
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Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: Navigating Client Trauma
Law schools don't train students to handle repeated exposure to clients' traumatic experiences, but for litigators practicing in areas like civil rights and personal injury, success depends on the ability to view cases clinically and to recognize when you may need to seek help, says Katie Bennett at Robins Kaplan.
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9th Circ. Customs Ruling A Limited Win For FCA Plaintiffs
While the decision last month in Island Industries v. Sigma may be welcome news for False Claims Act relators, under binding precedent courts within the Ninth Circuit still do not have jurisdiction to adjudicate customs-based FCA claims pursued by the government, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Opinion
4 Former Justices Would Likely Frown On Litigation Funding
As courts increasingly confront cases involving hidden litigation finance contracts, the jurisprudence of four former U.S. Supreme Court justices establishes a constitutional framework that risks erosion by undisclosed financial interests, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
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Quantifying Trading-Based Damages Using Price Impact
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will likely increasingly rely on price impact analyses to demonstrate pecuniary harm from trading-related misconduct, meaning measuring price impact will be helpful in challenging SEC disgorgement, determining appropriate remedies, and assessing loss causation and damages in private litigation, says Vyacheslav Fos at Boston College and Erin Smith at Compass Lexecon.
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How Attys Can Use AI To Surface Narratives In E-Discovery
E-discovery has reached a turning point where document review is no longer just about procedural tasks like identifying relevance and redacting privilege — rather, generative artificial intelligence tools now allow attorneys to draw connections, extract meaning and tell a coherent story, says Rose Jones at Hilgers Graben.
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How McKesson Ruling Will Inform Interpretations Of The TCPA
Amid the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson, we can expect to see both plaintiffs and defendants utilizing the decision to revisit the Federal Communications Commission's past Telephone Consumer Protection Act interpretations and decisions they did not like, says Jason McElroy at Saul Ewing.
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Justices Rethink Minimum Contacts For Foreign Entities
Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Devas v. Antrix and Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, suggest that federal statutes may confer personal jurisdiction over foreign entities that have little to no contact with the U.S. — a significant departure from traditional due process principles, says Gary Shaw at Pillsbury.
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Opinion
High Court Must Overrule Outdated Patent Eligibility Doctrine
A certiorari petition should directly ask the U.S. Supreme Court to correct its 1972 patent decision in Gottschalk v. Benson, the critical point where patent eligibility law veered from the statutory text toward judicial policymaking, says Robert Greenspoon at Dunlap Bennett.
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Examining TCPA Jurisprudence A Year After Loper Bright
One year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, lower court decisions demonstrate that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act will continue to evolve as long-standing interpretations of the act are analyzed with a fresh lens, says Aaron Gallardo at Kilpatrick.
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Gauging The Risky Business Of Business Risk Disclosures
With the recent rise of securities fraud actions based on external events — like a data breach or environmental disaster — that drive down stock prices, risk disclosures have become more of a sword for the plaintiffs bar than a shield for public companies, now the subject of a growing circuit split, say attorneys at A&O Shearman.
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How Justices' Ruling Limits Options To Challenge DHS Orders
In Riley v. Bondi, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a 30-day deadline for challenging deportation orders begins when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issues a final administrative review order, opening the door for the government to effectively bar circuit court review in future similar cases, says Kevin Gregg at Kurzban Kurzban.