FORT MYERS, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida on Jan. 26 granted an insurer’s motion to dismiss an insured’s suit seeking coverage under her Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) as untimely, holding that the insured missed the government’s one-year deadline to file her breach of contract complaint “by a wide margin.”

DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 26 affirmed a lower court’s award of more than $17.3 million in attorney fees as part of a $52 million oil and gas royalty settlement on grounds that the trial court assessed the award’s reasonableness by weighing it using Oklahoma’s statutory factors and conducting a lodestar cross-check and there was no abuse of discretion.

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 vacated a preliminary injunction and remanded a putative class action filed against a county attorney by a Kentucky registered sex offender seeking to prevent enforcement of a Kentucky law requiring certain registered sex offenders to display their full legal name on their social media accounts, finding in part that the law at issue may cover conduct to which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not apply.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A federal judge in Michigan on Jan. 24 ruled in granting a motion to dismiss that the United States failed to establish ripeness and lacked subject matter jurisdiction to sue the state over claims that it violated the U.S. Constitution by threatening litigation against fossil fuel companies over their alleged liability in contributing to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.

RICHMOND, Va. — A North Carolina federal judge was wrong to reopen a videographer’s complaint against North Carolina and multiple elected officials, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Jan. 23; the panel said the judge failed to justify the reasons for applying a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 2021 decision that revived copyright infringement claims centering around images depicting the sunken remains of the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship.

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Supreme Court on Jan. 23 affirmed a lower court order denying a motion by TikTok to dismiss for lack of specific personal jurisdiction a consumer fraud suit against it by Iowa for purported deceptive age rating on the TikTok platform, finding in part that TikTok “purposely availed” itself of doing business in Iowa.

PHILADELPHIA — Ruling that survivors of former nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 failed to show that New Jersey’s governor and public health commissioner were on notice that their actions in handling the pandemic with respect to nursing homes would violate the residents’ statutory or constitutional rights, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 23 affirmed a New Jersey federal court’s dismissal of the survivors’ lawsuit on the basis of qualified immunity.

PHILADELPHIA — A district court properly entered summary judgment in favor of an auto insurer because the insurer met its burden of showing that the addition of a named driver exclusion was valid and enforceable under Pennsylvania law and the insured failed to show that the auto insurer’s denial of coverage based on the exclusion was unreasonable, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Jan. 23.