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PHILADELPHIA — Shareholders filed a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc in the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after a panel affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of their class action alleging that a real estate investment trust’s (REIT) failure to stop a tenant’s fraud against it made certain statements false or misleading; the shareholders argued that the panel improperly excluded critical information supporting the falsity of the defendants’ due diligence statements.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to reply to a group of environmental nonprofit organizations’ opposition to a motion to partially dismiss and transfer a lawsuit filed in District of Columbia federal court over the implementation of cleanup activities that allegedly violated requirements of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 and other federal directives is stayed until restoration of appropriations for U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) operations that expired due to the government shutdown.
PHOENIX — Bad faith, breach of contract and reformation claims survived a dismissal bid in a putative class case over whether certain individual long-term disability (LTD) benefits must be paid through eligible insureds’ 65th birthdays, and an Arizona federal judge allowed limited leave to amend as to claims he dismissed in the Oct. 30 order.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Oct. 30 terminated sanctions against the Republic of Iraq and two government entities and vacated sanctions of $15,000 per day accruing for several months, after a Cypriot construction company filed notice that the entities had satisfied the court’s judgment against them reflecting a confirmed international arbitration award worth more than $120 million.
BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Oct. 30 lifted the government shutdown-related stay of a lawsuit by several physicians’ professional groups and three Jane Does against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several other federal officials and agencies seeking to set aside the HHS’s removal of the COVID-19 vaccination from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended immunization schedules for healthy children and pregnant women.
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel has denied 3M Co.’s motion for leave to appeal a lower court order that remanded to state court the state of Texas’ per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) lawsuit against 3M and several affiliates of E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. The one-sentence order did not elaborate on the reason for denying the motion.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it held that a prior publication about a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug created through a collaboration involving a company that eventually merged into Merck Serono SA was prior art created “by another” for the purpose of showing that certain claims of more recent Merck patents were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Oct. 30 in a pair of opinions stemming from separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings.
SAN FRANCISCO — A class settlement including an $8.75 million payment and other relief has been granted final approval in a suit over allegedly imprudent management of a 401(k), with a California federal judge also awarding slightly trimmed attorney fees of $2,179,000.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — A divided Washington Supreme Court on Oct. 30 reversed a lower court’s decision, reinstated a $185 million verdict against Monsanto Co. and ruled that a new trial is not warranted in a polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) injury lawsuit brought by teachers at a Seattle area school, ruling that the jury’s finding of liability under Washington substantive product law is sufficient to sustain the punitive damages award.
DETROIT — A Michigan federal judge on Oct. 29 denied a motion to compel discovery by a physician and medical practices in a suit accusing them of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Michigan’s No-Fault Act by participating in a scheme to defraud Allstate by submitting fraudulent bills for treatments that were not medically necessary, finding that Allstate correctly showed that the documents at issue were privileged.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Florida, 21 other states and the Arizona legislature filed the final amicus curiae brief on Oct. 29 in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting an application by President Donald J. Trump and others who seek a stay after Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa D. Cook was granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) in her case challenging her purported removal in August.