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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. president controls all executive officers and has “the authority to remove at will the presidentially appointed heads of multimember administrative agencies, such as the FTC [Federal Trade Commission],” the federal government tells the U.S. Supreme Court in an Oct. 10 petitioner brief filed in a case over the president’s March 2025 purported removal of two FTC commissioners.
NEW YORK — A long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit over residual annuities would be resolved under a proposed $332 million settlement that a New York federal judge has granted preliminary approval.
NEW ORLEANS — A district court properly dismissed an excess liability insurer’s declaratory judgment suit because the insurer’s duty to indemnify its insured and the insured’s employee in an underlying negligence suit cannot be determined until after the underlying suit is resolved, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said.
SAN FRANCISCO — An en banc Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 9 dismissed for lack of jurisdiction an interlocutory appeal by a digital marketing agency and its owner of a lower court order denying a motion to strike under the California anti-SLAPP statute related to counterclaims for defamation and libel for online reviews in a suit alleging violations of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) related to a dispute over parking spaces, finding no jurisdiction because the order denying the motion to strike was not a final appealable order.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A Florida federal judge on Oct. 9 administratively closed a breach of contract lawsuit arising from property damage caused by Hurricane Ian the same day a write-your-own insurer and its insured announced that they reached a settlement.
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted final approval of a $150 million settlement between General Motors LLC and consumers who sued over allegedly defective engines, opining the “[a]greement resulted from extensive arm’s length, good faith negotiations.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Across three opinions issued Oct. 9, two panels in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a series of decisions by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated multiple claims in three patents related to hearing devices, with the panels agreeing with PTAB that prior art references rendered the patents’ claims obvious.
HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii on Oct. 9 ordered OpenAI Inc. to file a response after a woman who claims that ChatGPT poses a special risk to the state filed an amended complaint and asked the court to enjoin the use of artificial intelligence in the state.
NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc filed by the National Football League (NFL) and three teams after a panel ruled in August that rulings denying arbitration of a coach’s race bias claims against the Denver Broncos and NFL based on his employment agreement with the New England Patriots and denying reconsideration were proper.
NEW YORK — A panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that a lower court erred when it did not credit investors’ allegations from confidential witnesses and Spanish criminal proceedings in dismissing the investors’ action against a Spanish-headquartered engineering and construction company, its underwriters and several of the company’s officers for allegedly manipulating financial records to conceal its liquidity crisis; the panel said the plaintiffs’ allegations were detailed and independently corroborated.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida trial judge improperly “supplanted the jury’s role as factfinder” when he reweighed photographic evidence and granted an insurer’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) after a jury considered expert testimony and evidence to find that Hurricane Irma created a hole in a home’s roof, a state appeals court ruled Oct. 8.