Appellate

  • July 31, 2026

    9th Circ. Seeks Nev. High Court Input In Live Nation Class Suit

    The Ninth Circuit Friday sought the Nevada Supreme Court's input on a proposed class action against Live Nation, certifying a question about whether an arbitration agreement is void under Nevada law if "the drafter reserves the unilateral right to modify the entire agreement 'at any time' without notice."

  • July 31, 2026

    3rd Circ. Issues Warning Against Vague Sentencing Factors

    The Third Circuit on Friday upheld the conviction of a man accused of smuggling marijuana into the Virgin Islands, finding in a precedential opinion that a federal court in the territory did not incorrectly rely on his previous arrest record when determining his sentencing length.

  • July 31, 2026

    Calif. Supreme Court Reverses Strike Of 'Less Attentive' Juror

    The California Supreme Court held that a prosecutor's claim that a prospective juror was "less attentive" than others is not enough to support a peremptory strike, saying a 2022 California law aimed at prohibiting bias in juror removals requires more than a behavioral reason.

  • July 31, 2026

    Case Challenging Ban On 'Conversion Therapy' Reopened

    A Washington federal judge has partly revived a family therapist's constitutional challenge of the state's prohibition on a practice commonly known as conversion therapy in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's March decision finding that a similar Colorado ban amounted to viewpoint discrimination against a Christian counselor.

  • July 31, 2026

    3rd Circ. Backs Trust In Pa. Game Commission Title Dispute

    The Pennsylvania Game Commission constitutes a Pennsylvania citizen, the Third Circuit ruled Friday in a land title dispute between the commission and a trust, rejecting the commission's "Hail Mary" change in position that it's instead an "arm" of Pennsylvania, which would erase the court's diversity jurisdiction.

  • July 31, 2026

    Del. Supreme Court Ends J&J Bid To Preserve Asbestos Data

    The Delaware Supreme Court on Friday reversed a Chancery Court ruling that had allowed Johnson & Johnson, Dow Chemical and other major asbestos defendants to pursue a novel effort to stop bankruptcy trusts from deleting decades of asbestos claims records, holding that the companies failed to satisfy the requirements for an equitable bill of discovery.

  • July 31, 2026

    11th Circ. Backs Nurse's 20-Year Term In $111M Medicare Case

    The Eleventh Circuit on Friday agreed with a nurse practitioner that a trial court erred in giving prosecutors more time in closing arguments at her $111 million Medicare fraud trial, but upheld her conviction and 20-year sentence after finding the evidence against her was "overwhelming."

  • July 31, 2026

    Ariz. Justices Clarify Clergy Minor Abuse Reporting Laws

    Arizona's highest court has unanimously determined that under the state's child abuse statute, clergy members who learn about an abuse of a minor are not required to report it if the clergy learned about the abuse through confession, or if reporting it would violate their religion.

  • July 31, 2026

    Fla. Panel Affirms $103M Award Over Ford Mustang Explosion

    A Florida appellate court on Friday upheld a $103 million award against Ford Motor Co. in a lawsuit alleging responsibility for a Mustang explosion that severely injured its driver, saying the automaker couldn't sufficiently explain why the case should not have gone to a jury. 

  • July 31, 2026

    DC Circ. Backs Ex-Steward CEO's Contempt Charge

    The D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld a U.S. Senate committee's criminal and civil contempt finding against former Steward Health Care System LLC Chief Executive Ralph de la Torre after he refused to appear before lawmakers despite a subpoena, calling his appellate arguments "wholly meritless."

  • July 31, 2026

    11th Circ. Revives TVA Claims In Alabama Boat Collision Suit

    An Eleventh Circuit panel has reinstated claims from fishermen against the Tennessee Valley Authority alleging the TVA negligently failed to mark or remove a duck blind they collided with in their boat, finding that the agency is not immune under its governing statute.

  • July 31, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Says Leica's Filtered Light Skirts U. Mich. Patent

    In a dispute centered on how laser light is used in fluorescence technology, a unanimous Federal Circuit panel said on Friday that Leica Microsystems did not infringe on a University of Michigan patent, affirming the decision of a federal court in California.

  • July 31, 2026

    Mass. Seeks Exit From Undercover License Plate Policy Suit

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security hasn't shown that immigration enforcement has slowed because Massachusetts won't give its agents undercover vehicle plates, the state said in a bid to dismiss a federal government lawsuit.

  • July 31, 2026

    Conn. Justices Revive Lawsuit Over Killer's Hospital Release

    The Connecticut Supreme Court for the first time Friday said mental health providers must try to protect identifiable victims from dangerous patients, ordering a Hartford HealthCare subsidiary to face ordinary negligence claims from the estate of a woman slain by her former boyfriend, a dentist who then killed himself.

  • July 31, 2026

    DC Circ. Backs FERC's Revised Grid Hookup Policy

    The D.C. Circuit on Friday endorsed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's revised policy for hooking up new power projects to the grid, saying the agency clearly acted within its authority to address growing interconnection backlogs.

  • July 31, 2026

    End In Sight For Ovarian Cancer Patients With $5.5B+ J&J Deal

    The $5.5 billion global deal over talc ovarian cancer allows women to move past recent court setbacks requiring them to provide experts who can show a causal link between their disease and use of talc, and for defendant J&J to close a decade of litigation that included judicially criticized gambits to spin off liability through bankruptcy maneuvers.

  • July 31, 2026

    Defamation Litigation Roundup: Trump, Kash Patel, MSG

    In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 highlights developments in a handful of suits involving President Donald Trump, as well as the dismissal of a case by Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel over a man's social media posts accusing him of being a "Kremlin asset."

  • July 31, 2026

    Michigan Justices Nix Teen's 'Cruel' 50-Year Murder Sentence

    Michigan's highest court has ruled that a 50- to 75-year sentence for a teenager convicted of second-degree murder was unconstitutionally cruel or unusual, calling the prison term "grossly disproportionate" in its latest ruling limiting severe sentences for young offenders.

  • July 31, 2026

    DC Circ. Rules Ute Tribe Can't Reclaim 1.5M Utah Acres

    A D.C. Circuit panel on Friday rejected a Utah tribe's bid to undo a lower court's ruling that said it has no compensable title to 1.5 million acres in Utah, saying the lack of that title means the oil field lands are not eligible for restoration under the Indian Reorganization Act.

  • July 31, 2026

    Trump Appeals Judge's Block Of IRS Settlement To 11th Circ.

    President Donald Trump will ask the Eleventh Circuit to overturn a Florida federal judge's order blocking a settlement deal that would have given him and others broad protection from federal tax audits and investigations, according to a notice filed Friday.

  • July 31, 2026

    Mich. High Court Tosses Murder Conviction Over DNA Test

    A man convicted of first-degree murder will receive a new trial after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that police violated the state constitution by testing blood on his pants without a warrant or his consent. 

  • July 31, 2026

    J&J's $25M Talc Appeal Can Advance, Conn. Panel Rules

    A Connecticut appeals court has advanced Johnson & Johnson's challenge to a $25 million talc trial judgment, denying a Massachusetts real estate developer's attempt to dismiss the appeal based on what he argued was a late-filed brief.

  • July 31, 2026

    Teck Asks Justices To Ax Wash. Tribal Cultural Loss Claims

    A Canadian mining company is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a Ninth Circuit ruling that revived Washington tribes' natural resource damages claims for alleged pollution of the Columbia River, arguing the appellate court upended an environmental cleanup statute's tradeoff between broad liability and limited remedies.

  • July 31, 2026

    Ala. Localities Can't Tax Only Railroads, 11th Circ. Says

    A federal court correctly ruled that Alabama localities could not impose sales taxes on rail carriers' diesel fuel purchases, because a corresponding state-level tax was found to be discriminatory and the authority to tax at the local level is granted by the state, the Eleventh Circuit said Friday.

  • July 31, 2026

    Corporate Settlors Can Owe Inheritance Tax, UK Tribunal Says

    The U.K.'s inheritance tax can apply to a corporate settlor of a trust when the trustees aren't domestic residents, the Upper Tribunal said Friday in a decision involving a company challenging its liability for the tax in relation to a Jersey trust.

Expert Analysis

  • How Litigants Are Testing Conversion Therapy Ruling's Scope

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    Litigants are already using the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Chiles v. Salazar ruling, which applied strict scrutiny to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, to challenge laws limiting algorithmic rental pricing, artificial intelligence-based discrimination and anti-union employer speech, and courts must soon decide Chiles’ First Amendment limits, say attorneys at O'Melveny.

  • How Justices' TPS Ruling Affects Workforce Planning

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent holding in Mullin v. Doe that courts lack jurisdiction to review temporary protected status determinations greenlights the end of TPS for thousands of Syrian and Haitian nationals, and means employers must reevaluate TPS-designees' employability while avoiding discriminatory document practices, says attorney Richard Herman.

  • How Pfizer Won Fed. Circ. Patent Dispute By 1 Carbon Atom

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    The Federal Circuit's recent refusal to revive a patent in Enanta Pharmaceuticals v. Pfizer over an alleged typo creating a one-atom difference in a COVID-19 treatment application hands defendants a template for potentially converting a triable fact question into an early dispositive ruling, say attorneys at Polsinelli.

  • What To Know Before Justices Rule In Title IX Employee Case

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    The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether Title IX protections extend to employees alleging sex discrimination in Crowther v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, which could have significant implications for higher education institutions and their employees, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Fed. Circ. Ruling Highlights The Cost Of Incorrect Inventorship

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Fortress Iron v. Digger Specialties, affirming that a fencing company's patents were invalid due to a missing co-inventor, is a reminder that confirming correct inventorship should be a critical part of every patent invalidity workup, say attorneys at Neal Gerber.

  • Future Of Fed Independence Shaky After Justices' Ruling

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in Trump v. Cook preserved the Federal Reserve's formal independence but could invite the president to remove board members with just modest protections, leaving the central bank's autonomy uncertain and potentially setting up fresh clashes over other agencies, says Steven Schwinn at the University of Chicago.

  • Series

    Mich. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

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    The second quarter brought several notable financial services law developments to Michigan, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on state tax foreclosures, progress on a money transmission modernization bill package, and continued legislative momentum on cryptocurrency and mortgage lending, say attorneys at Dykema.

  • Justices' Ruling Alters Playing Field For State Subpoena Suits

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport will spark more federal court challenges to state subpoenas, but procedural defenses will block some merits decisions, so plaintiffs must carefully time and manage parallel federal and state proceedings, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • Looking At Drake's Diss Track Appeal Through An IP Lens

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    Though Drake's pending Second Circuit appeal over UMG's promotion of Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" is formally about defamation, it shows that IP considerations can help identify records showing how a work traveled, which may guide courts when deciding context, says attorney Abdul Abdullahi.

  • Series

    Bass Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Landing a trophy striped bass and closing a big deal both require cultivating the patience to finesse — not force — your way to desired outcomes, changing course when your old approach isn’t working and learning from the ones that got away, says Jon Ruiss at Alston & Bird.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

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    The year's second quarter brought several notable banking law developments to New York, including a proposal to align state stablecoin rules with the federal Genius Act, fresh fair lending and cybersecurity guidance from state regulators, and a significant Second Circuit holding on preemption, say attorneys at Ashurst Perkins Coie.

  • PacifiCorp Ruling Shows Limits Of Aggregate Wildfire Loss Models

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    An Oregon appeals court's recent decision in James v. PacifiCorp illustrates that in litigation involving multiple wildfires, materially different causation theories, and evidence tied to particular fires and locations, a single undifferentiated damages model is vulnerable to attack, say Paige Van Oosten and Jason Kim at Hunton and Kevin Cahill at FTI Consulting.

  • Roundup

    The Most Talked-About Supreme Court Decisions Of 2026

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    This term, 11 U.S. Supreme Court decisions quickly became hot topics among Law360's guest writers.

  • A New Defense For Medicaid Fraud Cases In Texas

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    The Texas Supreme Court decision in LabCorp v. Texas last month, finding that the state's False Claims Act requires proof that an omission is material, is among the first to establish that the government's lack of reaction to the defendant's disclosures rendered alleged omissions immaterial, say attorneys at Sheppard.

  • Fighting The Evidentiary Risks Of Deepfakes In Court

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    Though courts and federal rules are only slowly developing frameworks for assessing digital evidence that could have been created or generated by artificial intelligence, litigators should understand what steps they'll likely need to take to successfully challenge potentially deepfaked exhibits — and fight questions about the authenticity of their own, say attorneys at MoFo.

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