Appellate

  • March 28, 2024

    11th Circ. Affirms SEC Denial Of Whistleblower Award

    An Eleventh Circuit panel has affirmed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's denial of a whistleblower award to John Meisel, who argued he was entitled to one after providing the commission with information used to obtain $18 million in judgments against the perpetrators of a Ponzi scheme.

  • March 28, 2024

    Pillsbury Ducks Malpractice Suit At 3rd Circ. Over Bankruptcy

    A Third Circuit panel on Thursday shot down a bid from a group of hotel investors to sue Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP for malpractice, finding a Delaware bankruptcy court was right in denying the request sought months after a Chapter 11 plan had been finalized.

  • March 28, 2024

    Investors Strike $42.5M Deal In Brookfield-GGP Merger Suit

    Brookfield Property Partners LP has reached a tentative $42.5 million deal to bring an end to a yearslong battle with stockholders who alleged they were given misleading information about the global real estate company's 2018 acquisition of U.S. mall operator GGP Inc.

  • March 28, 2024

    Career Public Defender To Lead Federal Defenders Of NY

    The Federal Defenders of New York named longtime public defender Tamara Giwa as the group's next executive director starting Monday.

  • March 28, 2024

    Trucking Co. Can't Undo $20M Verdict In Crash Death Suit

    A Missouri appeals court won't let Great Plains Trucking Inc. upend a $20 million verdict against it in a wrongful death suit, finding the trial court didn't abuse its discretion by excluding testimony about one of the plaintiff's cannabis usage or allowing the mother and father of the deceased to use separate counsel at trial.

  • March 28, 2024

    SC Can Use Challenged Elections Map Amid Justices' Review

    A federal judicial panel ruled Thursday that South Carolina can conduct its 2024 elections under a congressional map it found unconstitutionally discriminates against Black voters, and which the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing, saying it's now too late in the election cycle to make changes to the map.

  • March 28, 2024

    3rd Circ. Says Missing Dates Can DQ Pa. Mail-In Votes

    A split Third Circuit panel ruled late Wednesday that Pennsylvania mail-in ballots returned with missing or incorrect dates on their outer envelope can be discarded, with the majority finding a Civil Rights Act prohibition on disqualifying voters based on "immaterial" paperwork errors applied only to voter registration, not the act of voting itself.

  • March 28, 2024

    Va. Landowners Return To Supreme Court In FERC Challenge

    Virginia residents with property being condemned for the Mountain Valley Pipeline are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a D.C. Circuit decision dismissing their suit challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's eminent domain authority, and its ability to delegate that authority to private companies.

  • March 28, 2024

    Mass. Justices Say 2019 Sunday-Wage Ruling Is Retroactive

    Massachusetts' highest court on Thursday affirmed a finding that a furniture retailer violated the state's wage laws by paying salespeople overtime and a Sunday premium out of their own earned commissions, keeping intact a nearly $10 million damages award.

  • March 28, 2024

    Ex-Paralegal's Jobless Pay Ruling Correct, Del. Justices Told

    Delaware opposes a former Morris James LLP paralegal's bid for the state's Supreme Court to revive his attempt to collect a year's worth of unemployment benefits, arguing a lower court correctly upheld denial of pay after he settled whistleblower claims against the firm.

  • March 28, 2024

    Another Senate Dem. Comes Out Against 3rd Circ. Nominee

    A third Senate Democrat, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, has come out against Third Circuit nominee Adeel Mangi, who would be the first Muslim federal appellate judge if confirmed, thus putting his nomination in further peril.

  • March 27, 2024

    9th Circ. Revives Claims Against Apple In Crypto Theft Row

    The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday partially reinstated a putative class action accusing Apple of misrepresenting the safety of its App Store after users' cryptocurrency was stolen from an app, finding that while a federal tech immunity law shielded Apple from an array of fraud and wiretapping claims, three consumer protection claims could move forward. 

  • March 27, 2024

    History Confirms Ruling In ND Tribes' VRA Win, Feds Say

    The federal government is urging the Eighth Circuit to uphold a ruling confirming that a North Dakota redistricting effort violated the Voting Rights Act, arguing that if the appellate court were to reverse course it could strike a grievous blow that could affect seven states and thousands of political subdivisions within its circuit.

  • March 27, 2024

    Justices Poised To Expand Repeat Offenders' Jury Trial Rights

    The U.S. Supreme Court appeared likely Wednesday to agree with the Biden administration and the criminal defense bar that repeat offenders have a constitutional right to let a jury decide if past offenses were sufficiently distinct to trigger lengthy prison terms under a prominent sentencing enhancement.

  • March 27, 2024

    5th Circ. Reissues Arb. Decision In Hurricane Damage Case

    The Fifth Circuit has reissued its opinion allowing a group of domestic insurers to force arbitration of a dispute over coverage for hurricane damage under an international arbitration clause after the insurers argued that the unanimous decision applied circuit precedent in a new context.

  • March 27, 2024

    Texas Appeals Court Nixes Injunction In Bitcoin Mining Dispute

    A Texas state appeals court chucked a temporary injunction Wednesday that would have forced a property owner to keep providing electricity and access to a bitcoin mining company, ruling Thursday that the injunction was lacking in specifics and insufficient under Texas law.

  • March 27, 2024

    Vrbo Host Is Breaking Zoning Regs, Conn. High Court Told

    Some justices of the Connecticut Supreme Court signaled on Wednesday that a lower court may have failed to provide a workable definition of the word "residence" when deciding that a Branford-based zoning board's regulations allowed short-term rentals through services like Vrbo and Airbnb.

  • March 27, 2024

    9th Circ. Urged To Rethink Arbitration Of Cathay Pacific Feud

    A couple left stranded in the Philippines during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic are urging the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its decision ordering them to arbitrate their breach of contract dispute with Cathay Pacific Airways under their pact with a third-party booking site.

  • March 27, 2024

    Citing Warhol, 10th Circ. Undoes Netflix's 'Tiger King' Win

    The Tenth Circuit on Wednesday relied on last year's landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Warhol case to set aside a fair use win for Netflix Inc. in a copyright suit brought by a former zoo employee who livestreamed the funeral of the husband of "Tiger King" star Joe Exotic.

  • March 27, 2024

    Veterans Court Must Revisit Claim After Rejecting Evidence

    A veterans court must reconsider a request to backdate benefits for a veteran who survived a deadly plane crash while serving, after improperly rejecting evidence offered decades later potentially linking the experience to his PTSD, the Federal Circuit said Wednesday.

  • March 27, 2024

    Binance Says Fla. Suspension Order Violates Due Process

    Binance on Wednesday told a Florida appeals court that state regulators wrongly suspended its license to operate as a money transmitter, saying an emergency order issued earlier this year telling the cryptocurrency exchange to cease operations wasn't sufficiently justified and violates due process.

  • March 27, 2024

    DC Circuit Upholds NLRB Firing Decision Despite Legal Shift

    The D.C. Circuit upheld an NLRB ruling that a Cadillac dealer illegally fired a worker even though the board changed the applicable precedent during the appeal, saying Wednesday that the long-running case appears to shake out the same under either version of the shifting standard for worker outbursts.

  • March 27, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Says Faulty Jury Directions Warrant New IP Trial

    The Federal Circuit on Wednesday granted Inline Plastics Corp. another chance to convince a Massachusetts federal jury that its tamper-resistant plastic containers were too successful for the underlying patents to be invalidated as obvious.

  • March 27, 2024

    Malpractice Suit Against Texas Magnate's Atty Revived

    A Texas appeals court has revived claims that a longtime family attorney violated his duty as trustee to their fortune by using his position to enrich himself and undercut the heir to a Lone Star State business empire.

  • March 27, 2024

    Plastic Surgeon Must Face Sex Assault Suit, Texas Court Says

    A Houston-area plastic surgeon must face claims he sexually assaulted a patient while she was recovering from breast augmentation surgery, a Texas appeals court has ruled, holding that the patient doesn't need expert testimony to show that sexual assault falls outside the bounds of acceptable medical standards.

Expert Analysis

  • The Fed. Circ. In February: A Reminder On Procedure Rule 28

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    Because the Federal Circuit does not often issue a sua sponte precedential order emphasizing an important rule of practice, it is useful to look at how the court applied the restrictions of appellate procedure Rule 28 in Promptu v. Comcast last month, and in cases that preceded it, say Jeremiah Helm and Sean Murray at Knobbe Martens.

  • SC Ruling Reinforces All Sums Coverage Trend

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    A South Carolina state court's recent ruling in Covil v. Pennsylvania National is the latest in a series of decisions, dating back to the 2016 New York Court of Appeals ruling in Viking Pump, that reject insurers' pro rata allocation argument, further supporting that all sums coverage is required whenever a loss could be covered under a policy in any other year, say Raymond Mascia and Thomas Dupont at Anderson Kill.

  • A Defense Strategy For Addressing Copyright Fee-Shifting

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    Permissive fee-shifting under Section 505 of the Copyright Act poses unique challenges for copyright defendants, carrying an outsize impact on the economic incentive structure in copyright litigation, but relying on a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure may offer a potential solution by allowing defendants to recover attorney fees, say Hugh Marbury and Molly Shaffer at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Opinion

    Neb. Justices Should Weigh IRC Terms In Dividend Tax Case

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    Nebraska’s highest court, which will hear oral arguments in Precision CastParts v. Department of Revenue on April 1, should recognize that the Internal Revenue Code provides key clues to defining “dividends received or deemed to be received,” and therefore limits Nebraska’s tax on foreign-sourced corporate income, says Joseph Schmidt at Ryan.

  • Contract Disputes Recap: Facts Differ But Same Rules Apply

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    Zachary Jacobson and Sarah Barney at Seyfarth examine two decisions illustrating that reliance on a technicality may not save an otherwise untimely appeal, and that enforcement of commercial terms and conditions under a federal supply schedule contract may be possible.

  • Del. Supreme Court Insurance Ruling Aids In Defining 'Claim'

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    The recent Delaware Supreme Court decision in Zurich v. Syngenta, finding that a presuit letter did not constitute a claim for insurance purposes, sets out a three-factor test to help policyholders distinguish when a demand rises to the level of a claim, says Lara Langeneckert at Barnes & Thornburg.

  • Series

    Spray Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My experiences as an abstract spray paint artist have made me a better litigator, demonstrating — in more ways than one — how fluidity and flexibility are necessary parts of a successful legal practice, says Erick Sandlin at Bracewell.

  • Judge-Shopping Policy Revisal May Make Issue Worse

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    The Judicial Conference at its March meeting unveiled a revised policy with the stated goal of limiting litigants’ ability to judge-shop in patent cases, but the policy may actually exacerbate the problem by tying the issue to judge-shopping in polarizing political cases, making reform more difficult, say Robert Niemeier and William Milliken at Sterne Kessler.

  • 2nd Circ. Baby Food Ruling Disregards FDA's Expertise

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    The Second Circuit's recent decision in White v. Beech-Nut Nutrition, refusing to defer litigation over heavy metals in baby food until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration weighs in on the issue, provides no indication that courts will resolve the issue with greater efficiency than the FDA, say attorneys at Phillips Lytle.

  • Where 9th Circ. Lowe's Ruling Leaves PAGA Jurisprudence

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    Leah Kennedy and Carolyn Wheeler at Katz Banks discuss the legal landscape and controlling precedent around the Private Attorneys General Act that led to the Ninth Circuit's Johnson v. Lowe's decision last month on individual PAGA wage claims, and explore the open questions that it leaves.

  • Opinion

    5th Circ. NFL Disability Ruling Turns ERISA On Its Head

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    The Fifth Circuit's March 15 ruling in Cloud v. NFL Player Retirement Plan upheld the plan's finding that an NFL player was not entitled to reclassification because he couldn't show changed circumstances, which is contrary to the goal of accurate Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims processing, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.

  • How Fieldwood Ch. 11 Ruling Bolsters Section 363 Confidence

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    The Fifth Circuit’s recent ruling in Fieldwood Energy’s Chapter 11 cases, which clarified that challenges to integral aspects of a bankruptcy sale are statutorily moot under Section 363(m) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, should bolster the confidence of prospective purchasers in these sales, say attorneys at V&E.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Independence Is Imperative This Election Year

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    As the next election nears, the judges involved in the upcoming trials against former President Donald Trump increasingly face political pressures and threats of violence — revealing the urgent need to safeguard judicial independence and uphold the rule of law, says Benes Aldana at the National Judicial College.

  • 2nd Circ.'s Binance Locus Test Adds Risk For Blockchain Cos.

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    The Second Circuit’s recent use of the irrevocable liability test to rule a class action may proceed against decentralized crypto exchange Binance heightens the possibility that other blockchain-based businesses with domestic customers and digital infrastructure will find themselves subject to U.S. securities laws, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • Series

    Riding My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Using the Peloton platform for cycling, running, rowing and more taught me that fostering a mind-body connection will not only benefit you physically and emotionally, but also inspire stamina, focus, discipline and empathy in your legal career, says Christopher Ward at Polsinelli.

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