Justices Say 'Last-Mile' Drivers Can Skip Arbitration

By Max Kutner

An exemption to federal arbitration requirements for workers engaged in interstate commerce can extend to what are known as last-mile drivers who locally deliver goods that travel interstate, the U.S. Supreme Court held Thursday, resolving an issue that lingered after previous high court decisions.

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High Court Says First Step Act Can't Inform Early Releases

By Matthew Santoni

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that changes in mandatory minimum sentences cannot be considered retroactively when weighing if a federal prisoner should be granted early release.

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Justices Say First Step Act Not 'Vehicle' For Innocence Claim

By Phillip Bantz

The U.S. Supreme Court held Thursday that judges lack wide discretion to pare down sentences for criminal defendants under the First Step Act based on questions about the validity of a conviction, shutting the door on a potential wave of postconviction relief petitions, experts said.

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Justices Revive Mississippi Death Row Inmate's Batson Claim

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Black Mississippi death row prisoner who argued racial discrimination tainted his jury selection is entitled to habeas corpus relief, finding that Mississippi's courts improperly rejected his challenge to the prosecutor's juror strikes.

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4th Circ. Rules IRS 'Cooperation' Doesn't Sink Tax Convictions

By Hayley Fowler

The Fourth Circuit on Thursday affirmed the convictions of two software executives found guilty at trial of failing to pay employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, rejecting the notion that their alleged cooperation with the IRS somehow undermined the charges.

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Goldstein Says Bad Jury Instructions Warrant New Trial

By Jared Foretek

SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein said that the prosecutors who convicted him on 12 tax and mortgage fraud charges in February are now contradicting arguments they made at the end of his trial in their attempt to deny him a bench acquittal or new trial.

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Florida High Court Adopts AI Policy For Lawyers

By Madison Arnold

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday amended the state's rules to require those filing court documents to check any artificial intelligence-generated content for accuracy, and allow for sanctions if the content contains errors.

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Fla. Court Refers Atty To Bar Over Bogus Case Citations

By Madison Arnold

A Florida state appeals court has referred an appellant's attorney to the state's bar for disciplinary proceedings after filing a petition that appears to be generated by artificial intelligence and "raises frivolous arguments, misstates the law, and cites non-existent case law."

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Roundup

Injury Law Roundup: Freight Brokers, Uber Lose Key Cases

By Y. Peter Kang

The U.S. Supreme Court's green light of negligent hiring claims against freight brokers in highway crash cases and an adverse verdict against Uber in the sexual assault multidistrict litigation lead Law360's Injury Law Roundup.

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Justices Urged To Probe Post-Mallory Forum-Shopping Flood

By Linda Chiem

Legal advocates said Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 Mallory ruling unleashed a wave of forum-shopping by plaintiffs lawyers using states' business-registration laws to sue out-of-state companies, and that the justices should take up the case again to stop litigants from unconstitutionally interfering with interstate commerce.

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FCA Seeks High Court Review Of 9th Circ. Arbitration Loss

By Caroline Simson

Fiat Chrysler will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit decision refusing to send a class action over allegedly defective Jeep and Dodge headrests to arbitration, saying the justices must resolve whether a court or an arbitrator determines if a nonsignatory can enforce an arbitration clause.

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Analysis

3 Federal Circuit Clashes To Watch In June

By Ryan Davis

The Federal Circuit's argument calendar next month includes a dispute between Micron and Netlist over Idaho's law against "bad faith" patent suits, and appeals of multimillion-dollar verdicts against Boston Scientific on a stent patent and TP-Link on Wi-Fi patents.

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Split Fed. Circ. Says $452M Trade Secret Case Was Untimely

By Ivan Moreno

A split Federal Circuit panel on Thursday erased Insulet Corp.'s trade secret victory against EOFlow Co. Ltd., holding that the medical device maker filed its claims too late and reversing a $452 million jury verdict that was later reduced to $59.4 million.

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Fed. Circ. Reinstates PTAB Challenge To E-Learning Patent

By Adam Lidgett

Employee training platform Go1 won its bid to revive its challenge to a cloud learning patent it has been accused of infringing, after the Federal Circuit on Thursday threw out the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's finding that the company failed to show the patent was invalid.

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States Say Fed. Circ. Should Keep Tariff Block During Appeal

By Jack McLoone

The Federal Circuit shouldn't stay an injunction blocking the collection of Section 122 tariffs from two businesses and Washington state while the federal government appeals the trade court ruling because the appeal is likely to fail, the businesses and 24 states said Thursday.

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Nearmap, Eagleview Reach Roof Measurement Patent Deal

By Adam Lidgett

The owner of a series of patents covering a system for measuring and identifying attributes in a roof by using aerial imagery has settled its yearslong infringement allegations against Nearmap in Utah federal court.

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1st Circ. Rejects Bid To Halt Deportation Over Teens' Health

By Elaine Briseño

The First Circuit let stand deportation orders for a Guatemalan man hoping concerns over his daughters' health would earn him a reprieve, finding an immigration judge correctly found his removal would not result in exceptional hardship for the teens.

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2nd Circ. Cites Macquarie Case In Tossing Gap Investor Suit

By Jessica Corso

The Second Circuit on Thursday upheld the dismissal of a proposed class action accusing The Gap Inc. of misleading investors about demand for its Old Navy brand's plus-size clothing line, ruling that the plaintiffs couldn't overcome a test imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024's Macquarie decision.

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4th Circ. Wipes Out NC Man's Sentence For Gun Possession

By Parker Quinlan

The Fourth Circuit vacated a North Carolina man's seven-year prison sentence for a firearm conviction, finding there was not an adequate factual connection between his gun possession and an underlying state homicide charge.

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5th Circ. Won't Rehear Deepwater Prostate Cancer Suit

By Mike Curley

The Fifth Circuit has denied an en banc rehearing of a worker's toxic tort suit against BP Exploration & Production over prostate cancer he alleges he developed because of exposure to crude oil during cleanup of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

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6th Circ. Nixes Aircraft Co.'s $39M Excise Tax

By Kat Lucero

A fractional jet company is not liable for a $39 million air transportation excise tax because the levy applies only to its usage charges for each flight, not the fixed costs for management and operations, the Sixth Circuit ruled.

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6th Circ. Revives P-Funk Keyboardist's Copyright Royalty Suit

By Melanie Dorsey

The Sixth Circuit revived part of the estate of late Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist George "Bernie" Worrell's copyright suit against group co-founder George Clinton and his company Thang Inc., ruling that a jury must decide whether Worrell partly owned the recordings he helped create. 

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9th Circ. Won't Revisit FCA Ruling Over Drug Price Program

By Ganesh Setty

The Ninth Circuit has said it will not disturb its March ruling allowing a hospital chain to pursue a False Claims Act lawsuit against various pharmaceutical companies for allegedly causing the government to overpay for drugs under a discount program.

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Wash. Tribes, River Group Fight FERC Hydro License

By Joyce Hanson

The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper have each sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the Ninth Circuit over the agency's issuance of a license for a hydroelectric project license.

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9th Circ. Warned Of Market Forces In Nexstar-Tegna Case

By Matthew Perlman

The National Association of Broadcasters told the Ninth Circuit that a lower court's view of the market in a case challenging the $6.2 billion merger between Nexstar and Tegna is inconsistent with its members' experience and contradicts industry data recently submitted to regulators.

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Osage Nation Asks 10th Circ. To Revisit Boundary Ruling

By Joyce Hanson

The Osage Nation is appealing to the Tenth Circuit an Oklahoma federal judge's decision that declined to vacate a 16-year-old circuit decision saying the tribe's reservation boundaries had been disestablished, arguing that no congressional language explicitly changed those boundaries.

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11th Circ. Says Damages Caps Misconstrued In Bias Verdict

By Cara Salvatore

The Eleventh Circuit ruled on Thursday that a discrimination verdict against a Miami car dealership was slashed too far when a judge chose between federal and state damages caps, saying the caps should be added together.

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EEOC Urges 11th Circ. To Restore Sex Harassment Verdict

By Patrick Hoff

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the Eleventh Circuit should reinstate a jury win for a female former host of a Georgia restaurant who claimed that managers failed to stop male coworkers' lewd behavior toward her, faulting the trial court for minimizing the men's conduct.

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Grammy Winner Danny Elfman Must Face Woman's Libel Suit

By Bonnie Eslinger

"The Simpsons" theme song composer and former Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman can't toss a defamation suit brought by a woman after Rolling Stone published statements he made about her sexual misconduct claims against him, a California state appellate court ruled Wednesday.

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Texas Panel Tosses Med Mal Suit Over Flawed Expert Report

By Y. Peter Kang

A Texas appellate court has dismissed a medical malpractice suit against a physician accused of leaving a catheter wire in a patient's leg, ruling that the plaintiff's expert report failure to properly identify the applicable standard of care didn't pass muster under the state's healthcare liability law.

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'Socioeconomic' Remark At Atty's Homicide Trial Vexes Judge

By Brian Steele

A prosecutor's "socioeconomic" description of the man shot to death by a former Cramer & Anderson LLP partner may have been improper, a Connecticut appellate judge said Thursday, casting some doubt on the integrity of Robert L. Fisher Jr.'s manslaughter conviction.

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Fla. Justices Say Ex-Power Co. Welder Didn't Prove Retaliation

By David Minsky

The Florida Supreme Court rejected a welder's appeal alleging that a power company terminated him in retaliation for blowing the whistle on unsafe work conditions, ruling Thursday he didn't prove beyond a subjective belief that his former employer violated the law. 

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Ex-Fla. Chief Justice Fred Lewis Dies At 78

By Carolina Bolado

Former Florida Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis, who spent two decades on the bench of the Florida Supreme Court, has died at 78, the court announced Thursday.

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Pa. Panel Orders Judge Replaced In Sex Abuse Retrial

By Elizabeth Daley

A county judge must step aside for the retrial of an accused child sex offender, a Pennsylvania appeals court said Thursday, finding that, because the judge repeatedly declared that the man was innocent of the crimes in a prior proceeding, his impartiality was questionable.

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Pa. Justices Order Return Of Gun After Charges Dismissed

By Elizabeth Daley

A Philadelphia woman who has been trying to get her gun back from the state for years is entitled to it, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled, finding that since the complaint against her was dismissed and prosecutors couldn't show why they needed to keep her property, it should be returned.

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NJ Comptroller Asked If It's Auditing Or Investigating Vendor

By George Woolston

A New Jersey appeals court on Thursday questioned whether the state comptroller's office exceeded its authority when it subpoenaed a private company that provides services to charter schools, asking whether the agency was conducting an audit of or an investigation into the company.

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NC AG Can't Litigate Environmental Case, Biz Groups Say

By Abigail Harrison

The North Carolina Supreme Court should step in to prevent Attorney General Jeff Jackson from enacting his own policy vision — and subordinating agency regulation — through his ill-conceived environmental lawsuit, according to an amicus brief.

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Wash. Justices Float AI Hypotheticals In Hospital Pixel Case

By Rachel Riley

As the Washington Supreme Court considered a group of parents' bid to revive their proposed privacy class action over a Seattle hospital's use of the Meta Pixel browser tracking tool on its website, the justices questioned Thursday whether the rise of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots carried implications for the case.

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Colo. Panel Says Insanity Verdict Supports Sealed Records

By Parker Quinlan

A Colorado state appeals court on Thursday ruled that a man declared not guilty by reason of insanity in three cases over 20 years ago should have his records sealed because the criminal insanity finding is functionally an acquittal under state law.

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Akerman Says Colo. Roofing Co. Owes $650K From IP Suit

By Zach Dupont

Akerman LLP claimed in Colorado state court on Wednesday that a roofing company has not paid nearly $650,000 in attorney fees and costs related to a trademark infringement lawsuit from a competing business in Nevada.

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Opinion

High Court's Abortion Pill Stay Reinforces Appellate Principles

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent order in Danco Laboratories v. Louisiana, staying a Fifth Circuit ruling that reinstated an in-person requirement for dispensing the abortion medicine mifepristone, should be seen not as a definitive ruling on reproductive rights, but as an affirmation of a more disciplined jurisdictional reality, says Daniel Nardo at Nardo & Associates.

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Series

Studying Foreign Languages Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Studying Italian and Japanese has shown me that learning a new language can benefit a legal career in several ways, including by demonstrating the importance of approaching problems from a fresh perspective and the value of practicing patience with colleagues and clients, says Anna King at Genworth Financial.

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King & Spalding Blocked From Exiting $300M Fraud Lawsuit

By Brian Steele

King & Spalding LLP and Lennon Murphy & Phillips LLC can't withdraw from representing clients in consolidated litigation over an alleged $300 million stock swindle, a Connecticut state court judge has ruled, saying the firms' motions ahead of a June trial lack good cause.

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Parents Demand 'Bad Faith' Sanctions In Camp Mystic Case

By Lynn LaRowe

Camp Mystic in Texas' Hill Country should be sanctioned over "bad faith" conduct in litigation over flooding deaths last summer, including purported misrepresentations to courts and regulators and an alleged remark by one of its attorneys to a plaintiffs' lawyer that he would "burn in hell," a state court has been told.

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Trump Considers Tech Entrepreneur For DOJ Grants Post

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump appears poised to nominate a real estate attorney turned tech entrepreneur for a top U.S. Department of Justice post that oversees grants and criminal justice programs.

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Dem Sens. Ask DOJ To Preserve Trump-IRS Settlement Docs

By Jack McLoone

Two Democratic Senate leaders asked the U.S. Department of Justice to preserve any records related to the settlement of President Donald Trump's suit against the IRS in a letter published Thursday, signaling that further investigations may be coming.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Gupta Wessler's Deepak Gupta

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

In the decade and a half since starting his own firm, Deepak Gupta has argued seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, has won matters in state high courts from coast to coast, and has become a mainstay in federal appellate courts while building his plaintiff-side litigation boutique into a sought-after juggernaut.

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