Analysis

DOJ Charges Bring More Complications For Key Bridge Ship

By Linda Chiem

Recent federal criminal charges over Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster have created new risks for operators of the cargo ship at the center of the wreck, potentially upending a civil trial that's set to start next month to determine the scope of damages for victims' families and other injured claimants.

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Analysis

Half The Nation's Bar Apps Could Remove Rape Questions

By Cara Bayles

By next year, it's possible that about half of U.S. jurisdictions will have amended character and fitness questions to avoid dredging up aspiring lawyers' sexual trauma. But while advocates hail the reforms as progress, concerns linger about the patchwork this could create across the country.

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Analysis

Madigan Ruling May Offer High Court New Bribery Test

By Celeste Bott

The Seventh Circuit found enough "overwhelming" evidence last month to sustain the conviction of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, but a U.S. Supreme Court that's spent years narrowing the reach of public corruption laws may be interested in whether prosecutors proved a sufficiently specific quid pro quo.

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OpenAI Beats Musk Suit Over For-Profit Restructuring

By Dorothy Atkins

In an advisory decision Monday, a California federal jury cleared OpenAI and executives Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of allegations they breached the nonprofit's charitable trust by converting to a for-profit, handing billionaire Elon Musk a defeat in a closely watched three-week trial that threatened to shake up the artificial intelligence industry.

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Justices Won't Decide If Contractor Fees Are Payroll Costs

By George Woolston

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won't review an information technology company's bid for full forgiveness of a $7.2 million Paycheck Protection Program loan, letting stand the Third Circuit's decision that the Small Business Administration rightfully denied the request because the company's payments to independent contractors did not count as "payroll costs."

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Trump Seeks Circuit Seats For 2 Judges He Appointed

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump's recent picks for the Eighth and Tenth Circuits mark the first time in his second administration that he's seeking to elevate judges he appointed in his first term.

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5th Circ. Revives Stabbing Victim's Suit Over Officer's Delay

By Parker Quinlan

The Fifth Circuit, in a published opinion issued Monday, revived a civil lawsuit from a Texas woman claiming a federal probation officer did not take steps necessary to protect her from her ex-boyfriend who ultimately stabbed her, leaving her with near full-body paralysis.

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Wyoming Prosecutor Confirmed Despite Misconduct Rebuke

By Courtney Bublé

Just a few days ago, federal judges tossed nine criminal indictments after President Donald Trump's pick to lead the U.S. attorney's office of Wyoming was accused of prosecutorial misconduct. On Monday evening, he was confirmed to permanently lead the office.

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NC Says Open-Court Gun Review Didn't Prevent Fair Trial

By Elizabeth Daley

A North Carolina trial court did not violate state rules when it allowed jurors, at their request, to view in open court a weapon in connection with a case against a man accused of gun and drug charges, state lawyers have told the North Carolina Supreme Court.

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Ex-Detainees Say NC Sheriff Withholding Data In ECourts Row

By Abigail Harrison

Counsel for a putative class of individuals who allege they were wrongfully arrested or detained due to glitches in the state's electronic court system told a North Carolina federal court during a Monday hearing that a county sheriff's office is delaying the release of its own records.

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House Ag Leaders Urge Trump To Fill Bipartisan CFTC Seats

By Aislinn Keely

Leaders of the House agriculture committee are jointly urging President Donald Trump to nominate bipartisan candidates to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to serve alongside lone Republican Chairman Michael Selig.

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EPA Plans To Repeal Biden-Era 'Forever Chemicals' Rules

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday officially unveiled plans to roll back limits for certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, aka forever chemicals, in drinking water systems and to delay compliance requirements, a move environmentalists said "needlessly" exposes Americans to dangerous chemicals and could be illegal.

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Volvo Inks $197M Emissions Deal With Calif. Regulators

By Hailey Konnath

Volvo Group North America has agreed to pay roughly $197 million to resolve allegations the automaker violated California's emissions and certification standards, according to an announcement made Monday by the California Air Resources Board.

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EPA Rejects Hawaii's Haze Plan, Keeping Oil-Fired Plants Open

By Keith Goldberg

The Trump administration has rejected Hawaii's plan to comply with national emission standards to limit regional haze, repeating a novel argument that the closure of a fossil fuel-fired power plant as part of the plan appears to be unconstitutional.

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EPA, Flint Plaintiffs Clash Over Facts After Bellwether Trial

By Melanie Dorsey

Residents of Flint, Michigan, and the federal government have offered sharply different accounts of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's role in the city's water crisis in hundreds of pages of proposed findings submitted after a bellwether bench trial that lasted more than a month and ended in March. 

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Native, Enviro Groups Challenge Calif. Oil Pipeline Waiver

By Zak Kostro

California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection granted safety regulation waivers without proper review, allowing Sable Offshore Corp. to restart operations of a Santa Barbara oil pipeline system a decade after a catastrophic oil spill, environmental and Native American organizations said in a suit removed to federal court.

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Brief

DOE's Wright Extends Mich. Coal Plant's Life Into 2nd Year

By Keith Goldberg

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on Monday extended into a second year the life of a Michigan coal-fired power plant slated for closure, just days after the D.C. Circuit considered whether such moves are a lawful use of Wright's emergency authority.

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Colo. Justices Tell Hospital To Resume Gender-Affirming Care

By Rachel Konieczny

The Colorado Supreme Court ordered Children's Hospital Colorado on Monday to resume its provision of gender-affirming care for transgender youth patients, finding the patients demonstrated actual harm from the denial of care.

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High Court Spurns Pharma Challenges To IRA Drug Price Talks

By Dan McKay

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected six petitions Monday from pharmaceutical giants seeking to bring down the Medicare drug price negotiations established as part of the Inflation Reduction Act three years ago.

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ADA Suit Can't Seek Rewrite Of Psilocybin Law, Ore. Says

By Sam Reisman

Oregon's health regulator has urged a federal judge to reject a bid to expand access to regulated psilocybin services to homebound patients, saying the relief sought by plaintiffs would mark a "fundamental alteration" of the program.

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USPTO Data Error Kept Patent Assignment Files From Public

By Ryan Davis

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data indicates the office mistakenly kept hundreds of thousands of records of patent ownership transfers from becoming public for years, according to researchers who analyzed the files, an error that experts say could cause complications for anyone who relied on the incomplete data.

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Former USPTO Directors Diverge On Patent Injunctions

By Adam Lidgett

The debate over the role of injunctions in patent cases remains active in the U.S., and European leaders shouldn't think that there is a "consensus" in the country, said former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal.

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Squires, Stewart Zero In On PTAB's Burden Of Proof At Panel

By Theresa Schliep

The leaders of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Monday asked intellectual property experts to wade into debates over the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, focusing in part on whether switching to a stricter burden of proof would address disparate outcomes between the board and district court.

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NYT Attacks Pentagon's Media Escort Policy In New Suit

By Gina Kim

The New York Times filed a second lawsuit in D.C. federal court on Monday challenging the Department of Defense's interim policy requiring reporters to be accompanied by an official escort while on Pentagon premises, arguing that it revives vacated prohibitions on newsgathering that were already found to be unconstitutional.

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Calif. Kicks Off Rulemaking For Social Media Addiction Law

By Allison Grande

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is seeking public comment on a new set of proposed regulations for complying with the age determination and parental consent aspects of a looming law that restricts social media platforms from using algorithms to deliver addictive feeds to children.

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FCC Told It's Obligated To Answer Petition On Fox Philly

By Nadia Dreid

The D.C. Circuit recently said that the Federal Communications Commission has a "non-discretionary obligation" to respond to applications for review, and an advocacy group that's spent almost three years pushing to strip a Fox affiliate station of its license on allegations it aired election conspiracy theories says that obligation applies to it as well.

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Calif. AG Previews Live Nation Remedies At Democratic Forum

By Courtney Bublé

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of the state attorneys general of a coalition of states that recently won a jury verdict finding Live Nation illegally established a monopoly over the live music industry, said Monday the next step is a structural overhaul of the conglomerate.

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Pa. High Court Snapshot: Wegmans, PennDot Top May Lineup

By Matthew Santoni

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's May session begins Tuesday with an argument whether the state's Department of Transportation can be sued over a tree branch that fell onto a state road, even though the tree itself was growing from Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority property.

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Iowa Aligns With Boosted Fed. Tax Gambling Reporting Level

By Zak Kostro

Iowa aligned with a higher threshold under federal tax law for determining when state income tax must be withheld on gambling winnings as part of a bill signed by the governor.

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Seattle YMCA Biased Against Workers Of Color, Suit Claims

By Ben Adlin

Three former YMCA of Greater Seattle employees sued the nonprofit in Washington state court Friday, claiming the organization's leadership "treated workers of color differently and more harshly than white employees with respect to discipline, leave use, scrutiny, and termination."

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Texas AG Joins DOJ In Investigating Beef Antitrust Claims

By Hailey Konnath

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched his own investigation into potential anticompetitive conduct among the country's meatpackers, a probe that will take place alongside the U.S. Department of Justice's ongoing investigation into the same allegations.

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Fla. Court Tosses Pricing Suit Against Textbook Publishers

By David Minsky

A Florida court tossed a qui tam action alleging that McGraw Hill and another educational publisher billed Sunshine State schools for educational materials at disparate costs in violation of the "best pricing" statute, ruling that the law only applies to interstate sales. 

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Online Directory Wrongfully Listed Cell Numbers, Suit Says

By MJ Koo

An online directory operator published thousands of residents' cellphone numbers without their consent, exposing them to scams, harassment and identity theft, according to a proposed class action filed in Colorado state court Monday.

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Feds Say BIA Ruling Doesn't Undercut Quick Removal Policies

By Ganesh Setty

The Trump administration told the D.C. Circuit that a recent precedential Board of Immigration Appeals ruling interpreting the meaning of "arrival" and "arrived" should have no bearing on its policies seeking to increase the number of expedited removals.

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Live Nation, Club Hit With $50M Suit Over Wrong-Way Death

By Julie Manganis

Employees of the House of Blues Boston over-served alcohol to a patron who subsequently hit and killed another driver in a wrong-way crash, a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit filed Monday in Massachusetts state court alleges.

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Boeing Owed Duty To Worker's Future Kid, Wash. Panel Says

By Rachel Riley

Boeing must face claims that a factory worker's on-the-job chemical exposure caused birth defects in his child, a Washington Court of Appeals panel said in a published ruling Monday, finding that an employer "may be liable for negligence towards an employee's not-yet-conceived offspring."

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Exxon Tells 9th Circ. Calif.'s Plastic Suit Belongs In Fed. Court

By Bonnie Eslinger

The state of California's claim that Exxon Mobil Corp. is responsible for plastic pollution belongs in federal court, the petroleum giant told a Ninth Circuit panel during a hearing on Monday, arguing that federal courts have admiralty jurisdiction because the litigation targets pollution in navigable waters, among other alleged injuries.

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Marlboro Smoker Was Victim Of Ubiquitous Ads, Jury Hears

By Cara Salvatore

A Florida jury heard opening arguments Monday in a trial over the lung cancer death of a woman who started smoking at a time when Philip Morris was "wallpapering" the nation with pro-smoking messages, her family's lawyer said.

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Justices Deny Eli Lilly's Qui Tam Constitutional Challenge

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review Eli Lilly's $183 million trial loss to a whistleblower who claimed the drugmaker knowingly defrauded the government by underpaying Medicaid drug rebates.

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DOD Says Chipmaker Belongs On Chinese Military List

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Department of Defense has said it has "substantial" evidence to back labeling Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. a Chinese military company because its products have military applications, urging a D.C. federal judge to reject the chipmaker's lawsuit challenging the label.

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Brief

AT&T Seeks FCC's OK To Change Covered Routers

By Nadia Dreid

AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission to greenlight hardware changes to foreign-made routers, which the agency recently placed on the covered list, arguing the artificial intelligence boom has created a shortage that makes getting replacements difficult.

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CIT Says Commerce Must Better Explain Garlic Duty Evasion

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. Department of Commerce failed to explain why it found preserved and cut garlic chunks to be avoiding an antidumping duty placed on fresh garlic cloves imported from China, and it must provide more detail behind its decision on remand, according to an opinion issued by the U.S. Court of International Trade.

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Pullman & Comley Pans 'Absurd' Challenge To Tax Sale

By Aaron Keller

Pullman & Comley LLC has urged a Connecticut state judge to dismiss a challenge to its representation of the town of Woodstock's tax collector, saying a resident who owes money has pressed "the absurd claim that a municipality is forbidden from retaining counsel to assist in its collection of municipal taxes."

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Minn. Lawmakers OK Federal Conformity, Property Tax Relief

By Sanjay Talwani

Minnesota would conform with several changes to the federal tax code and extend its workaround of the cap on corporate deductions for state and local taxes under an omnibus tax package approved by lawmakers and heading to Gov. Tim Walz.

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Feds Say TerrAscend Owes Back $8M Tax Refund

By Sam Reisman

Multistate cannabis operator TerrAscend erroneously received more than $8 million in tax refunds that should never have been issued because of a federal law that bars traffickers in controlled substances from taking business deductions, the U.S. government said in a new lawsuit.

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NY Judge Largely Halts Manhattan Immigration Courts Arrests

By Rae Ann Varona

A New York federal judge Monday largely barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting arrests at three Manhattan immigration courthouses, finding there was no good reason why "unfettered discretion" by ICE officers was better than a policy with arrest limitations.

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Justices Seek SG's Input In GEO Group Immunity Case

By Irene Spezzamonte

The U.S. Supreme Court asked for the U.S. solicitor general's input Monday in a case that questions whether the GEO Group is covered by intergovernmental immunity and therefore able to pay immigrant detainees $1 a day for their work.

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Feds Want Research Coalition's Visa Censorship Suit Tossed

By Tom Lotshaw

The Trump administration told a D.C. federal judge that a technology research coalition's lack of injury should doom a suit challenging its new visa restriction policy targeting noncitizens who help foreign governments censor protected expression by American citizens and tech companies.

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Feds Move To Drop Adani Group Chair's Bribery Charges

By Sarah Jarvis

Federal prosecutors moved Monday to permanently dismiss criminal charges accusing Adani Group Chairman Gautam S. Adani and seven others of orchestrating a $250 million bribery scheme to secure lucrative Indian government renewable-energy contracts while misleading investors about the dealings of an Adani Group subsidiary.

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Fla. Agency Owed No Legal Duty In Fraud Probes, Court Says

By David Minsky

A Florida federal court rejected a roofer's claims that the state's Department of Financial Services caused him to be charged three times with insurance fraud, ruling the agency's job at large is to investigate alleged criminal misconduct.

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Aspiring Ga. Justices Flagged For Possible Ethics Violations

By Kelcey Caulder and Emily Johnson

A pair of plaintiffs attorneys running to unseat Republican-appointed justices on the Georgia Supreme Court in Tuesday's election may have violated state ethics rules, an oversight commission said Sunday in public statements after securing an Eleventh Circuit ruling.

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Judge Questions Bid To Halt Texas Mayor's Removal Process

By José Luis Martínez

A Texas federal judge on Monday considered whether he has the power to stop removal proceedings against the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas, and whether the city charter allows the potential ouster, pressing counsel on legal and factual questions surrounding the removal process.

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High Court Remands ND Tribes' Voting Rights Act Fight

By Crystal Owens

The U.S. Supreme Court vacated and remanded an Eighth Circuit challenge by two North Dakota tribes that looks to overturn a ruling prohibiting lawsuits against states for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a decision civil rights groups say could disenfranchise voters in seven states.

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Hawaiian Scholarship Suit Imperils $2.2M In Work, Court Told

By Crystal Owens

An Indigenous nonprofit is seeking to intervene as a defendant in a constitutional challenge to the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program, telling a federal district court that the litigation threatens $2.2 million of annual work that's central to its mission and will impede ongoing collaborations for the upcoming fiscal year.

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Ex-FCC Official Urges Agency To Bring USF Billing In-House

By Christopher Cole

A former top Federal Communications Commission official says it's time for an overhaul of how the agency runs the Universal Service Fund with reforms that should include bringing the program's billions of dollars in yearly revenue collections in-house.

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Debate Ramps Up Over Prison Cellphone Jamming

By Christopher Cole

Two GOP lawmakers say the Federal Communications Commission isn't moving fast enough to complete a rule that would effectively let state prisons and jails jam contraband cellphones, but industry pushback remains strong.

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Brief

FCC Commish Focuses On Spectrum In Trips Around Globe

By Christopher Cole

Commissioner Olivia Trusty of the Federal Communications Commission has kept global spectrum policy at top of mind, and her travel schedule shows it.

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Holland & Knight Taps Wiley Leader As Telecom Chair

By Jack Rodgers

Holland & Knight LLP announced Monday it has hired the former co-chair of Wiley's wireless practice in Washington to take the reins of the Tampa, Florida-headquartered firm's telecommunications, media and technology team as chair.

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Ch. 11 Ruling Raises Bar For Avoiding Default Interest

Following a New York bankruptcy court's recent decision in 33 Mako, solvent debtors may find it significantly harder to avoid paying contractual default interest to oversecured lenders under Section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, say attorneys at Benesch.

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'Skinny Label' Arguments Spotlight Induced Infringement Risk

Recent oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin Pharma highlight the uncertain boundary between lawful generic competition through so-called skinny labels and induced patent infringement, with potential implications for patent holders’ communication, enforcement and causation strategies across industries, says Anton Hopen at Trenam.

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Series

Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

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Murdaugh Sues Ex-Court Clerk Who Tried To Sway The Jury

By Jack Karp

Disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh is suing the court clerk whose attempt to influence the jury in his murder trial led the South Carolina Supreme Court to overturn his murder conviction.

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Morgan & Morgan Atty Barred From Harvard Suit Over AI Error

By Chris Villani

A Massachusetts judge on Monday said a Morgan & Morgan PA attorney may not appear before him in a suit against Harvard University over the theft of body parts donated to its medical school, saying the lawyer did not learn his lesson after signing off on briefs in another case with fake case law generated by artificial intelligence.

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Health Co. Wants Kirkland Off IP Case For 'Cardinal Sin'

By Elliot Weld

A healthcare company suing medical technology company Commure Inc. over alleged trade secret theft has said Kirkland & Ellis LLP should be disqualified from representing Commure because the healthcare company had tried to retain Kirkland prior to filing the suit and shared confidential information before anyone asked who the defendant was going to be.

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Ex-Willkie Atty Banned By SEC For Insider Trading

By Emily Sawicki

A former Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP mergers and acquisitions attorney who earlier this month admitted to taking part in a widespread BigLaw insider trading scheme will be barred from representing a client before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a minimum of four years, according to an order the agency issued Monday.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week handled a broad mix of celebrity estate litigation, merger disputes, investor suits, record demands, sanctions fights and questions over corporate moves away from Delaware.

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