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Appellate
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June 13, 2024
Michigan Supreme Court Curbs Voter Interference Law
The Michigan Supreme Court narrowed the reach of a law criminalizing voter intimidation Thursday due to fears it could be used to chill political speech, sending prosecutions for robocalls that aimed to suppress Black voter turnout back to an appellate panel for more review.
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June 13, 2024
4th Circ. Revives Bacardi Fight Over Expired TM Renewal
The Fourth Circuit on Thursday revived Bacardi's lawsuit challenging the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision to renew an expired trademark registration for Havana Club rum, finding such registration renewals can be reviewed by the courts.
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June 13, 2024
Green Groups Challenge EPA Approval Of La. Well Authority
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to give Louisiana authority over some underground injection wells, which can be used for carbon capture and sequestration, violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, green groups said in a new lawsuit.
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June 13, 2024
Ford Asks To Defend EPA's Heavy-Duty Truck Emissions Rule
Ford Motor Co. has urged the D.C. Circuit to let it intervene in defense of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's final rule establishing greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles such as delivery trucks, dump trucks, public utility trucks and buses.
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June 13, 2024
Immigrant Bond Co. Says Sale Complied With $811M Order
An immigrant bond company staring down an $811 million judgment for predatory lending practices is urging a Virginia federal court not to sanction it over its recent sale, saying the transaction complied with the judgment's restrictions on its operations.
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June 13, 2024
Pennsylvania Gov. Sued For More Public Defense Funding
Defendants facing charges in Pennsylvania sued Gov. Josh Shapiro and the state Legislature Thursday over their alleged failure to ensure that people who can't afford an attorney in their criminal cases receive effective and free representation.
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June 13, 2024
Mass. Court Blesses Broad Liability In BMW Dealer Wage Suit
An intermediate Massachusetts appellate panel on Thursday ruled that a BMW dealership employee can sue not only her direct employer for wage law violations, but also a separate company that manages the dealership.
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June 13, 2024
Georgia DA Willis Moves To Ax Trump Appeal In DQ Fight
A prosecutor from Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis' office wants a Georgia appellate court to nix an appeal that seeks to disqualify Willis from her election interference case against former President Donald Trump, claiming the appeal rests on flimsy evidence.
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June 13, 2024
Contentious Del. Corporate Law Changes Sail Through Senate
After triggering rare public dissent, a multipart Delaware General Corporation Law amendment that would let boards cede some governance rights to big stockholders whisked through the state's Senate on Thursday without debate or an opposing vote, with a House vote expected as early as next week.
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June 13, 2024
Justice Thomas Failed To Disclose More Trips, Dems Say
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose more private jet trips gifted by billionaire and Republican donor Harlan Crow, according to new information released Thursday by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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June 13, 2024
New State Judge, UT Austin Prof Headed To Biz Court
In his latest round of business court appointments, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that a recently appointed state court judge and the owner of Sharp Appellate PLLC are his two picks for the new venue's San Antonio-area seats.
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June 13, 2024
Senate Panel OKs Fix For Federal Courts' 'Genuine Crisis'
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted out unanimously on Thursday a bipartisan bill to create 66 new and temporary judgeships to alleviate the federal courts' workload.
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June 13, 2024
Conn. Justices Side With Ritzy Borough In Legal Notice Case
The borough of Fenwick, Connecticut, provided adequate legal notice of zoning changes that would allow for short-term home rentals, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting arguments that officials published their decision in a newspaper that does not substantially circulate in the affluent community.
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June 13, 2024
Trade Groups Join EPA Vehicle Emissions Rule Fight
A coalition of trade associations and auto dealers on Thursday called for the D.C. Circuit to vacate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's final rule requiring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and vans.
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June 13, 2024
6th Circ. Skeptical Of Takings Theory In Mich. Dam Collapse
Property owners whose homes were damaged in flooding caused by a hydroelectric dam collapse met pushback from Sixth Circuit judges Thursday, in their case arguing local governments must compensate them for their losses under a Fifth Amendment takings theory.
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June 13, 2024
Mass. High Court Approves Tipped Wage Ballot Measure
Massachusetts' highest court on Thursday gave its blessing to a November ballot question asking voters to increase the state's minimum wage for tipped workers, finding that pairing the measure with a provision to allow tip pooling is part of an overall public policy goal to boost wages for all service industry employees.
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June 13, 2024
Supreme Court Tightens NLRB Injunction Test
The U.S. Supreme Court made it tougher for the National Labor Relations Board to win injunctions against employers Thursday in a case involving Starbucks, directing courts to strictly apply a four-factor test when the board sues to stem alleged unfair labor practices.
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June 13, 2024
Justices Say 'Trump Too Small' TM Denial No Speech Violation
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday concluded "Trump Too Small" cannot be a registered trademark because it would violate a federal prohibition on using a living person's name without their consent, ruling against a California attorney who said using the phrase should be considered protected political speech.
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June 13, 2024
Abortion Medication Case Ends 'With A Whimper' At High Court
A case that threatened to cut off access to a widely used abortion medication while disrupting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's authority over drugs and medical devices ended Thursday at the U.S. Supreme Court with a decision concerned solely with challengers' right to sue.
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June 12, 2024
Oklahoma Justices Toss Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors' Suit
The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre in the affluent Black community of Greenwood in 1921, acknowledging as legitimate their "grievance with the social and economic inequities" created by the decimation, but finding that it falls outside public nuisance doctrine.
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June 12, 2024
Hytera Tried 'End Run' Around Court's Power, Motorola Says
Hytera Communications should not be able to get around an antisuit injunction that forced it to end Chinese litigation addressing mobile radio trade secrets, Motorola Solutions told the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday, arguing that Hytera must be stopped from doing an "end run" around the American case against it.
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June 12, 2024
Senate Dems Admonish Roberts As Ethics Reform Stalls
Several senior Democratic senators chided Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday for failing to take responsibility for or address the U.S. Supreme Court's ethics issues, vowing to continue fighting Republican opposition and to pass court reform legislation unless the chief justice makes improvements.
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June 12, 2024
FTC Tells DC Circ. It Can Modify $5B Meta Privacy Deal
The Federal Trade Commission told the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday that it has the authority to reopen its in-house proceedings in order to revise a $5 billion privacy settlement with Meta Platforms, saying the courts do not have oversight of the agency's administrative order.
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June 12, 2024
Fla. Court Revives Student Pilots' Deceptive Claims Suit
A Florida appeals court on Wednesday revived a deceptive and unfair practices claim against the owner of a flight school contractor after finding that the former students suing him had presented enough evidence to support their claim.
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June 12, 2024
DeSantis Doesn't Have To Turn Over Judicial Advisers' Info
A Florida appeals court on Wednesday affirmed the dismissal of a petition to force Gov. Ron DeSantis to turn over information about the conservative advisers he consults to vet judicial nominees, but refused to affirm the lower court's conclusion that executive privilege shielded the governor from producing the documents.
Expert Analysis
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9th Circ. Ruling Puts Teeth Into Mental Health Parity Claims
In its recent finding that UnitedHealth applied an excessively strict review process for substance use disorder treatment claims, the Ninth Circuit provided guidance on how to plead a Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act violation and took a step toward achieving mental health parity in healthcare, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.
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Using Rule 23(f) To Review Class Certification Orders
Since plaintiffs on average are prevailing in certifying a class more often than not, the best-positioned class action defendants are those prepared to pursue relief under Rule 23(f) well before the district court issues its certification decision, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Perspectives
Justices' Forfeiture Ruling Resolves Nonexistent Split
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McIntosh v. U.S., holding that a trial court’s failure to enter a preliminary criminal forfeiture order prior to sentencing doesn’t bar its entry later, is unusual in that it settles an issue on which the lower courts were not divided — but it may apply in certain forfeiture disputes, says Stefan Cassella at Asset Forfeiture Law.
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Opinion
SC's Courts Have It Wrong On Amazon Marketplace Sales Tax
The South Carolina Supreme Court should step in and correct the misguided change in tax law effectuated by lower court rulings that found Amazon owes state sales tax for marketplace sales made prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Wayfair v. South Dakota decision in 2018, says Hayes Holderness at the University of Richmond.
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What Have We Learned In The Year Since Warhol?
In the almost year since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, which was widely seen as potentially chilling to creative endeavors, seven subsequent decisions — while illuminating to some extent — do not indicate any trend toward a radical departure from prior precedents in fair use cases, says Jose Sariego at Bilzin Sumberg.
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The Practical Effects Of Justices' Arbitration Exemption Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries, that a transportation worker need not work in the transportation industry to be exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act, may negatively affect employers' efforts to mitigate class action risk via arbitration agreement enforcement, say Charles Schoenwetter and Eric Olson at Bowman and Brooke.
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Binance Ruling Spotlights Muddled Post-Morrison Landscape
The Second Circuit's recent decision in Williams v. Binance highlights the judiciary's struggle to apply the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison v. National Australia Bank ruling to digital assets, and illustrates how Morrison's territorial limits on the federal securities laws have become convoluted, say Andrew Rhys Davies and Jessica Lewis at WilmerHale.
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Practical Pointers After Fed. Circ. Double-Patenting Decision
With the Federal Circuit recently denying a full court review of In re: Cellect, a decision regarding obviousness-type double-patenting, affected patent family holders should evaluate their rights through both patent prosecution and future litigation lenses to minimize risks, say Austin Lorch and Jeff Wolfson at Haynes Boone.
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Sorting Circuit Split On Foreign Arbitration Treaty's Authority
A circuit court split over whether the New York Convention supersedes state law barring arbitration in certain disputes — a frequent issue in insurance matters — has left lower courts to rely on conflicting decisions, but the doctrine of self-executing treaties makes it clear that the convention overrules state law, says Gary Shaw at Pillsbury.
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Corp. Transparency Act Could Survive 11th Circ. Several Ways
If the Eleventh Circuit upholds an Alabama federal court’s injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act, the anti-money laundering law could persist as a narrower version that could moot some constitutional challenges, but these remedies would likely generate additional regulatory or statutory ambiguities that would result in further litigation, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
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Del. Match.com Ruling Maintains Precedent In Time Of Change
Despite speculation that the Delaware Supreme Court could drive away corporations if it lowered the bar for business judgment review in its Match.com stockholder ruling, the court broke its recent run of controversial precedent-busting decisions by upholding, and arguably strengthening, minority stockholder protections against controller coercion, say Renee Zaytsev and Marc Ayala at Boies Schiller.
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The Future Of BIPA Insurance Litigation After Visual Pak
A recent Illinois appellate court decision, National Fire Insurance v. Visual Pak, may have altered the future of insurance litigation under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act by diametrically opposing a prominent Seventh Circuit ruling that found insurance coverage for violations of the act, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
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Macquarie Ruling Raises The Bar For Securities Fraud Claims
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week in Macquarie Infrastructure v. Moab Partners — holding that a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule does not forbid omissions in company disclosures unless they render other statements false — is a major setback for plaintiffs pursuing securities fraud claims against corporations, say attorneys at Skadden.
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Patent Lessons From 8 Federal Circuit Reversals In March
A number of Federal Circuit patent decisions last month reversed or vacated underlying rulings, providing guidance regarding the definiteness of a claim that include multiple limitations of different scopes, the importance of adequate jury instruction, the proper scope of the precedent, and more, say Denise De Mory and Li Guo at Bunsow De Mory.
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NC Rulings Show Bankruptcy Isn't Only For Insolvent Debtors
Two recent rulings from a North Carolina bankruptcy court show that lack of financial distress is not a requirement for bankruptcy protection, particularly in the Fourth Circuit, but these types of cases can still be dismissed for other reasons, say Stuart Gordon and Alexandria Vath at Rivkin Radler.