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Trials
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September 23, 2024
USC Lies Fueled 'Varsity Blues' Case, Exec Says In $75M Suit
A private equity executive who beat most charges in the "Varsity Blues" college admissions case hit the University of Southern California with a $75 million California state court suit, claiming he was duped into making a donation that ensnared him in the scandal.
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September 23, 2024
Jury Finds MGA Owes T.I. $71.4M For Ripping Off IP With Dolls
A California federal jury handed rapper T.I. a victory Monday in the third trial over his claims against MGA Entertainment, awarding his side more than $71.4 million in compensatory and punitive damages for infringing the trade dress and publicity rights of the OMG Girlz pop group he co-owns with seven of MGA's O.M.G. dolls.
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September 23, 2024
NC Man Gets 100 Mos. For Fleecing Attys In 'Collection' Scam
A North Carolina man has been sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison after a Pennsylvania jury found him guilty on charges of mail, bank and wire fraud stemming from an international scheme to bilk attorneys out of millions of dollars.
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September 23, 2024
New Managing Atty At Firm That Helped In George Floyd Case
A small Chicago law firm that helped win a $27 million settlement on behalf of the family of George Floyd has named a personal injury lawyer and former teacher as its new managing attorney.
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September 23, 2024
Autism Played Role In Bankman-Fried Case, 2nd Circ. Told
A group of experts on neurodiversity told the Second Circuit that Sam Bankman-Fried, who has said he has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, may have been hurt at trial by a "cognitive and communication style" that at times frustrated the trial judge.
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September 23, 2024
California City Worker Loses Bias Suit Over Racist Nickname
A federal jury sided with a California city in a race bias lawsuit filed by a Black maintenance worker who alleged that a supervisor and colleagues violated federal and state law by repeatedly referring to him by the name of a Mexican comic book character.
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September 23, 2024
Julie Chrisley Fights For Sentence Cut After 11th Circ. Ruling
Former reality TV star Julie Chrisley asked a Georgia federal judge on Friday to resentence her to no more than five years for her role in a $36 million tax evasion and fraud scheme, arguing against prosecutors' insistence that the seven-year sentence she was previously given be kept intact.
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September 23, 2024
5th Circ. Refuses Texas A Jury Trial For Border Buoy Case
The Fifth Circuit refused Texas' request for jurors to decide the legality of barriers installed in the Rio Grande to deter migrants, saying the Seventh Amendment's right to a jury trial doesn't apply to the case.
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September 23, 2024
Letterman Enjoys Jury Service, But Not Picked For Fraud Trial
David Letterman was excused from a Manhattan federal jury pool Monday ahead of the trial of a businessman accused of defrauding NBA athletes including former Los Angeles Laker Dwight Howard, after a lawyer said his son had interacted with the late-night television legend.
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September 20, 2024
RV Co. Wins $5.5M Enhanced TM Damages, $1.3M Atty Fees
Forest River can collect enhanced damages after a jury determined inTech Trailers infringed its mountain design trademarks on recreational vehicles, an Indiana federal judge ruled Thursday, increasing the award from $2 million to more than $5.5 million to make sure inTech does not profit from its infringement.
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September 20, 2024
Baby Biz Can't Get Fees After Beating Shampoo Pitcher IP Suit
A Louisiana federal judge said a 7-year-old fight over baby products "was a hard-fought patent case," rejecting efforts from a Louisiana company to obtain nearly $2 million in legal fees from a Kansas inventor of a pitcher for rinsing out shampoo.
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September 20, 2024
T.I.'s Fight With MGA Over Pop Group IP Goes To Jury Again
An attorney for hip hop moguls T.I. and Tiny Harris told a California federal jury during closing arguments Friday that "common sense" should lead them to find that MGA Entertainment's line of O.M.G. dolls infringed the trade dress and misappropriated the name, likeness and identity of the OMG Girlz pop group.
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September 20, 2024
Family Of NY Helicopter Crash Victim Wins $116M Verdict
A Manhattan jury has held that three aviation companies must pay a total of more than $116 million for negligence and design defects that contributed to a 26-year-old man's death during a sightseeing helicopter crash in New York's East River.
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September 20, 2024
Telemarketing Scheme Ringleader Convicted In $4M Scam
A North Carolina federal jury on Friday convicted a man of perpetuating a phone scam that ripped off more than $4 million from victims, many elderly, by using fake U.S. government official identities and offering fraudulent sweepstakes prizes that required up-front payments to obtain, according to prosecutors.
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September 20, 2024
Getting Around ITC Was 'Sneaky,' Judge Tells Caterpillar
A Delaware court has held that Caterpillar owes about $19.5 million in a patent case, citing in part the company's "sneaky" decision to domesticate manufacturing after a setback in a related infringement case at the U.S. International Trade Commission, while also finding that Caterpillar is subject to a rare injunction blocking the sale of some of its road construction machines.
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September 20, 2024
Northwestern Scores $6.6M Verdict On 'Cobot' Patents
A Delaware federal jury has awarded $6.6 million to Northwestern University after finding that Universal Robots infringed claims in three patents on collaborative robot, or "cobot," systems.
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September 20, 2024
'Free Karen Read' Protest Case Is Moot, 1st Circ. Says
The First Circuit has bowed out of hearing a First Amendment challenge brought by protesters who gathered outside a business run by a witness in Karen Read's first trial for the alleged murder of her boyfriend, ruling that the dispute centering on the Massachusetts witness intimidation law was moot.
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September 20, 2024
Avenatti Seeks Top Court Review Of Daniels ID Theft Verdict
Incarcerated celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his conviction for misappropriating money from ex-client Stormy Daniels, claiming the Second Circuit's decision upholding the verdict runs afoul of precedent for identity-theft cases.
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September 20, 2024
Trump Again Asks To Delay Evidence In DC Election Suit
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump again asked the Washington, D.C., federal judge overseeing his election interference case to push back a highly anticipated evidentiary filing from prosecutors, saying special counsel Jack Smith's office shouldn't be allowed to publicly lay out evidence until the court addresses Trump's concerns about the scope of discovery.
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September 19, 2024
Publishers 'Did Not Trust Google,' Former Ad Tech Exec Says
A former Google executive acknowledged Thursday that at least some website publishers sought a workaround to the search giant's advertising placement technology because they didn't trust the company's consolidated control, which the Justice Department has challenged in a Virginia federal courtroom.
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September 19, 2024
Mistrial Avoided In MGA's 3rd Round With T.I. In IP Saga
A California federal judge declined to order a mistrial Thursday in the intellectual property dispute between MGA Entertainment and hip-hop moguls Clifford "T.I." Harris and Tameka "Tiny" Harris, but he issued a curative instruction to jurors after MGA objected to statements made by an attorney for the Harrises.
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September 19, 2024
Ill. Justices Affirm $2.1M Verdict In Blood Clot Death Suit
The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday declined to overturn a jury's $2.1 million verdict in a medical malpractice suit accusing a doctor of causing a patient's death, saying the widower's award for "material services" was recoverable even though he remarried about a year after his wife's death.
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September 19, 2024
4th Circ. Won't Flip Fraud Convictions Over Unseen Jury
The Fourth Circuit has refused to overturn two men's investment-fraud convictions over complaints that COVID safety protocols made the jury invisible to the public, but vacated part of one sentence because probation conditions weren't adequately spelled out.
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September 19, 2024
Feds Can't Order $31M To Refill Class Funds, 3rd Circ. Told
A New Jersey man convicted for stealing $40 million from settlements in stockholder class actions told a Third Circuit panel Thursday the multimillion-dollar restitution ordered at his sentencing is unlawful and should be vacated, arguing that the settlements weren't harmed.
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September 19, 2024
Mich. Atty Gets 1 Year For Inflating Apartment Values
A Michigan attorney and real estate executive was sentenced Thursday to one year and a day in prison for inflating how profitable his company's apartments were, allowing him to sell them for more than $500 million.
Expert Analysis
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Perspectives
Compassionate Release Grants Needed Now More Than Ever
After the U.S. Sentencing Commission's recent expansion of the criteria for determining compassionate release eligibility, courts should grant such motions more frequently in light of the inherently dangerous conditions presented by increasingly understaffed and overpopulated federal prisons, say Alan Ellis and Mark Allenbaugh at the Law Offices of Alan Ellis.
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Mitigating Whistleblower Risks After High Court UBS Ruling
While it is always good practice for companies to periodically review whistleblower trainings, policies and procedures, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent whistleblower-friendly ruling in Murray v. UBS Securities helps demonstrate their importance in reducing litigation risk, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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Perspectives
Justices' Double Jeopardy Ruling Preserves Acquittal Sanctity
The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision last week in McElrath v. Georgia, barring the state from retrying a man acquitted of murder after a so-called repugnant verdict, is significant in the tangled web of double jeopardy jurisprudence for its brief and unequivocal protection of an acquittal’s finality, says Lissa Griffin at Pace Law School.
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High Court Forfeiture Case Again Pits Text Against Purpose
In oral arguments Tuesday in McIntosh v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether a federal court can impose asset forfeiture on a defendant even if it doesn’t comply with timing rules, which may affect the broader interpretation of procedural deadlines — and tees up the latest battle between textualism and purposivism, say Anden Chow and Christian Bale at MoloLamken.
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6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media
In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.
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More Than Drugs At Stake In High Court's 'Blind Mule' Case
The U.S. Supreme Court's eventual decision in Diaz v. U.S., evaluating whether expert witnesses may testify that most defendants caught with drugs at the border know they are transporting drugs, could have implications for prosecuting everything from complex financial crimes to gun and drug cases, says Kenneth Notter at MoloLamken.
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Why Fla. High Court Adopting Apex Doctrine Is Monumental
The Florida Supreme Court recently solidified the apex doctrine in the Sunshine State, an important development that extends the scope of the doctrine in the state to include both corporate and government officials, and formalizes the requirements for a high-level corporate official to challenge a request for a deposition, says Laura Renstrom at Holland & Knight.
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A Refresher On Witness Testimony In 3 Key Settings
The recent controversy over congressional testimony from university presidents about antisemitism on campus serves as a reminder to attorneys about what to emphasize and avoid when preparing witnesses to testify before Congress, and how this venue differs from grand jury and trial proceedings, say Jack Sharman and Tyler Yarbrough at Lightfoot Franklin.
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A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise
After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.
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Preparing For DOJ's Data Analytics Push In FCPA Cases
After the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent announcement that it will leverage data analytics in Foreign Corrupt Practice Act investigations and prosecutions, companies will need to develop a compliance strategy that likewise implements data analytics to get ahead of enforcement risks, say attorneys at Cozen O'Connor.
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Considering The Logical Extremes Of Your Legal Argument
Recent oral arguments in the federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump highlighted the age-old technique of extending an argument to its logical limit — a principle that is still important for attorneys to consider in preparing their cases, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Storytelling Strategies To Defuse Courtroom Conspiracies
Misinformation continues to proliferate in all sectors of society, including in the courtroom, as jurors try to fill in the gaps of incomplete trial narratives — underscoring the need for attorneys to tell a complete, consistent and credible story before and during trial, says David Metz at IMS Legal Strategies.
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Lessons From Rare Post-Verdict Healthcare Fraud Acquittal
A Maryland federal court recently overturned a jury verdict that found a doctor guilty of healthcare fraud related to billing levels for COVID-19 tests, providing defense attorneys with potential strategies for obtaining acquittals in similar prosecutions, says attorney Andrew Feldman.
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Calif. Disclosure Update Adds To Employer Trial Prep Burden
Though California’s recently updated litigation disclosure procedures may streamline some aspects of employment suits filed in the state, plaintiffs' new ability to demand a wider range of information on a tighter timeline will burden companies with the need to invest more resources into investigating cases much earlier in the process, says Jeffrey Horton Thomas at Fox Rothschild.
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EDNY Ruling Charts 99 Problems In Rap Lyric Admissibility
A New York federal court’s recent ruling in U.S. v. Jordan powerfully captures courts’ increasing skepticism about the admissibility of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials, particularly at a time when artists face economic incentives to embrace fictional, hyperbolic narratives, say attorneys at Sher Tremonte.