3rd Circ. Says No Contract Fees After Unripe Dismissal

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The Third Circuit held in a precedential opinion Tuesday that a district judge lacked the authority to decide a fee request stemming from a dispute between an oil and gas company and a landowner over the terms of their lease agreement.

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Del. Chancery Rejects Saama Founder's $68M Earnout Bid

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has rejected a bid from Saama Technologies founder Suresh Katta for a $67.5 million earnout tied to Carlyle Group's 2021 investment in the clinical data company and ordered him to pay Saama about $7.3 million, finding that he acted in bad faith by pushing contracts that damaged the business to maximize the payout.

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Cloud Fails To Upend Revvity's $4.5M Fee, Contract Win

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts intermediate appellate court on Tuesday affirmed a lower court's finding that Cloud Software Group LLC wrongly used a "sham audit" to justify terminating a long-term partnership with another software company in order to poach its customers.

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NJ Panel Questions Atty's Authority In $600K Injury Settlement

By George Woolston

A New Jersey appellate panel Tuesday vacated a trial court's orders enforcing a $600,000 settlement in a personal injury case, sending the case back for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether counsel for one of the settling defendants had the authority to settle.

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Ohio Law Firm Beats $10M Loan Fraud Malpractice Suit Again

By Elaine Briseño

An Ohio law firm has escaped a legal malpractice suit, with an Ohio federal judge ruling that a real estate firm offered no evidence that it could have collected damages for a failed $10 million loan absent counsel's alleged negligence.

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Prejudice Question Bars Quick End To Negligence Deal Suit

By Hope Patti

A Washington federal court said it cannot definitively say whether an insurer must cover a healthcare management company's settlement with a nursing home resident, saying there is a genuine dispute about whether the carrier was prejudiced by its insured's decision to settle an underlying negligence suit without consent.

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Texas Biz Court Pares Southwest Union's Boeing Suit

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas Business Court judge pared back the scope of claims brought by the pilots union for Southwest Airlines against The Boeing Co. after regulators grounded the 737 Max aircraft, saying Monday that the pilots can recover only direct damages, not damages from secondary injuries.

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Call Center Claims No Ties To NC In ADT Wrong-Number Suit

By Hayley Fowler

The operator of a third-party call center asked Tuesday for an early exit from ADT Security Corp.'s lawsuit alleging the operator helped facilitate a predatory telemarketing scheme, saying it lacks sufficient ties to be dragged into court in North Carolina.

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X Corp. Says Crypto Gambling Company Bribed X Employees

By Spencer Brewer

X Corp. told a Texas federal court that a company behind two controversial crypto gambling websites, which allegedly bribed X employees, cannot arbitrate claims that X unfairly removed their access to its website.

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Del. Chancery Freezes 32.1M Talkdesk Shares In Viking Fight

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court on Tuesday temporarily barred Talkdesk Inc. from disposing of roughly 32.1 million shares it received through a disputed foreclosure involving founder and CEO Tiago Paiva, while ordering expedited proceedings on a claim from investors of Viking Global that the deal violated their contractual consent rights.

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Housing Agency Says Indicted Ex-Boss Can't Use Home For Bond

By Brian Steele

The former executive director of two Connecticut housing authorities cannot use his home to secure a $500,000 bond in his federal wire fraud case, the Groton Housing Authority and related entities told the state court judge overseeing a civil case arising from his alleged theft.

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Surgical Robot Co. Says 9th Circ. 'Expands' Antitrust Law

By Bryan Koenig

Intuitive Surgical asked the full Ninth Circuit to reconsider a decision reviving a surgical repair company's claims that it blocked third parties from refurbishing components for its popular da Vinci surgery robot, arguing the panel created a whole new pathway to alleging monopolization of secondary markets.

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Construction Equipment Rental Antitrust Case Moves Ahead

By Matthew Perlman

An Illinois federal court refused to toss a case accusing construction equipment rental companies including United Rentals, Herc and The Home Depot of using benchmarking software to inflate rental rates.

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Brief

Disney's Antitrust Case Against InterDigital Paused

By Nadia Dreid

InterDigital has convinced a Delaware federal judge to press pause on a lawsuit brought by Disney accusing the technology development company of refusing to offer reasonable licenses on patents for video streaming.

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Commodities Firm Looks To Nix $22M Soybean Award Suits

By Joyce Hanson

A Swiss commodities firm has asked a Florida federal court to toss litigation filed by a U.S. logistics company to enforce a $22 million arbitral award stemming from a soybean meal purchase dispute, calling the suit improper in light of ongoing litigation in England.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: September Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses six recent rulings involving pecuniary loss in false price comparison advertising, privity in an insurance fee class, antitrust standing, immigration class representatives, retirement beneficiary class commonality, and Rule 23(f) appeals in Fair Labor Standards Act claims.

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3rd Circ. Affirms Thomson Reuters' Westlaw AI Copyright Win

By Ivan Moreno

The Third Circuit on Tuesday upheld Thomson Reuters' victory against Ross Intelligence Inc. in the first U.S. appellate ruling to address whether artificial intelligence training can be fair use of copyrighted material, upholding a Delaware federal court's decision that the startup infringed Westlaw headnotes by using material derived from them to develop an AI-powered legal search tool.

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11th Circ. Won't Pause Sanctions Against Trump In IRS Case

By Jack McLoone

An Eleventh Circuit panel refused Tuesday to pause a district court's sanctions order barring President Donald Trump and others from citing the agreement he made to settle his $10 billion suit against the Internal Revenue Service while they appeal the order.

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DC Circ. Weighs Limits On Boasberg's Contempt Inquiry

By Jared Foretek

A top Justice Department official told an en banc D.C. Circuit panel that a district judge should refer former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for contempt over the 2025 deportation flights to El Salvador and move on, saying the judge had no authority to wrap others into his inquiry.

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Jack Smith Says He Won't Be Intimidated By Trump Threats

By Courtney Bublé

Former special counsel Jack Smith testified on Tuesday he "will not be silenced" by threats of prosecution by the president or others.

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Baker Botts Atty Disputes Inventor's Claim Of Defamation Deal

By Madison Arnold

A Baker Botts LLP patent attorney is pushing back on an inventor's claim that they reached a settlement agreement in the inventor's defamation suit in Florida federal court.

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Richards Layton Atty's Chancery Nomination Advanced

By Rose Krebs

A Delaware senate committee Tuesday advanced the nomination for a Richards Layton & Finger PA director to serve as a vice chancellor on the nationally important Chancery Court, with him vowing to continue the court's esteemed legacy for corporate law jurisprudence.

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