Appellate

  • May 28, 2025

    2nd Circ. Backs Credit One Win In FCRA Investigation Suit

    The Second Circuit on Wednesday declined to revive a New York woman's lawsuit against Credit One Bank for allegedly failing to investigate identity theft claims against her mother, with a panel agreeing with the lower court that no reasonable investigation required under federal law conducted by the bank would have yielded different results.

  • May 28, 2025

    Smartmatic Says Fox Is Trying To 'Bury Proof' In Defamation Row

    Voting technology company Smartmatic has asked a New York state court to lift the "veil of secrecy" on evidence it alleges Fox News is trying to keep hidden from the public as it faces allegations of defamation related to conspiracy theories it aired about a stolen election in 2020.

  • May 28, 2025

    4th Circ. Finds Towers Watson's Merger Deals Not Covered

    Towers Watson's insurers have no obligation to pay out their remaining directors and officers coverage to help fund settlements resolving shareholder litigation over the company's merger with Willis, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Wednesday, saying the deals fall plainly within the scope of a so-called bump-up exclusion.

  • May 28, 2025

    Alex Jones Is 'Defending Journalists,' Texas Court Hears

    A Texas appeals court seemed taken aback after counsel for conspiracist Alex Jones claimed a $45 million default judgment relating to Jones' defamatory Sandy Hook statements should be thrown out, suggesting during oral arguments Jones was "thumbing [his] nose" at the trial court.

  • May 28, 2025

    Harvard To Give Slave Photos To Museum, Ending Legal Battle

    Harvard University on Wednesday settled a suit over the ownership of photographs of enslaved people taken for a racist 1850 study, agreeing to transfer the images to a museum and to pay an undisclosed sum to a woman who says she is a descendant of the subjects.

  • May 28, 2025

    DC Circ. Denies Steve Bannon's Bid For En Banc Rehearing

    Right-wing media figure Steve Bannon, who was a chief strategist during the first Trump administration, has been rebuffed in his bid for an en banc rehearing at the D.C. Circuit on his contempt of Congress conviction, a move his legal team deemed "overriding politicalization."

  • May 28, 2025

    Ga. Bank Wins Appellate Review Of Claim Against Law Firm

    The Georgia Court of Appeals has agreed to review a dismissed portion of a bank's suit against law firm Stanley Esrey & Buckley LLP, after the bank argued it had sufficiently explained that it loaned millions of dollars to a woman who was later convicted of fraud based on the firm's "false assurances."

  • May 28, 2025

    Ex-Benghazi Investigator Sworn In As Interim NorCal US Atty

    A longtime Los Angeles attorney and former investigator into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans was appointed on Tuesday as interim U.S. attorney in California's Northern District, where he'll be allowed to serve up to 120 days pending Senate confirmation.

  • May 28, 2025

    Ga. Lawyer Disbarred After Contract Forgery Probe

    A Georgia attorney was disbarred Wednesday for altering a contract at the heart of a commercial dispute in a failed attempt to deceive a trial court, as the state supreme court rejected his defenses for his "dishonesty, fraud, and deceit."

  • May 28, 2025

    Wash. Court Blocks Atty From Sharing Nonparty Client's File

    A Washington appeals court says an Evergreen State attorney may not disclose a client's confidential file for in-camera review to support his defense in an estate's legal malpractice case, finding the disclosure would go against the state's professional conduct rules.

  • May 28, 2025

    Trump Nominates Ex-Personal Atty Emil Bove For 3rd Circ.

    President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday he is nominating Emil Bove, his former criminal defense attorney who served as acting deputy attorney general, for the Third Circuit.

  • May 27, 2025

    1st Circ. Won't Revive Challenge To Federal Cannabis Ban

    The First Circuit on Tuesday refused to resurrect a suit challenging the long-standing federal prohibition of cannabis, rejecting the argument that the circumstances underlying a U.S. Supreme Court decision on cannabis policy had changed so much in the last 20 years that the precedent was no longer relevant.

  • May 27, 2025

    'Gone In 60 Seconds' IP Appeal 'Stalls At Starting Line'

    A Ninth Circuit panel held Tuesday that the customized Ford Mustangs called "Eleanor" that were featured in four films — most recently in the 2000 Nicolas Cage film "Gone in 60 Seconds" — is not a copyrightable character.

  • May 27, 2025

    Philly Children's Hospital Can't Undo $11.6M Med Mal Award

    A Pennsylvania appeals court panel on Tuesday affirmed an $11.6 million award in a suit accusing the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia of partially causing the death of a 4-year-old boy, saying there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict.

  • May 27, 2025

    11th Circ. Says Producer's Defamation Claims Came Too Late

    The Eleventh Circuit refused Friday to revive a movie producer's defamation suit against The Hollywood Reporter over its article on his feud with a former business partner, ruling that a district court correctly applied California's statute of limitations, rather than Florida's, to dismiss the suit.

  • May 27, 2025

    2nd Circ. Revives Girl Scouts Race Bias Claim, Rejects Others

    The Second Circuit on Tuesday declined to revive claims from former officers for a New York Girl Scouts chapter who said they suffered retaliation after complaining that the group misused pandemic relief loans, but held that one plaintiff can pursue racial bias allegations.

  • May 27, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Backs Engineering Co. Win In Patent Fight

    The Federal Circuit on Tuesday refused to revive allegations that a Texas-based engineering services company infringed a half dozen patents related to oil and gas industry pipeline integrity testing, finding a lower court judge's interpretation of key patent terms was correct.

  • May 27, 2025

    Abbott, Paxton Escape Texas Vision Insurance Bill Dispute

    The Fifth Circuit has freed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton from a First Amendment challenge to a bill governing certain disclosures between vision insurers and optometrists.

  • May 27, 2025

    Colo. Justices Won't Hear Atty's Challenge To Law Firm NDA

    The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that it will not consider an attorney's petition fighting her nondisclosure agreement with a prominent local law firm, ending her argument that the agreement violated a professional rule prohibiting firms from limiting an attorney's ability to practice law after ending an employment relationship.

  • May 27, 2025

    1st Circ. Axes NLRB's Northeastern Police Bargaining Order

    The First Circuit quashed a National Labor Relations Board decision ordering Northeastern University in Boston to negotiate with a union representing campus police department employees, determining the board strayed from precedent when finding sergeants are not supervisors under federal labor law.

  • May 27, 2025

    Gorsuch Says Oak Flat Ruling Will Harm Native Generations

    The Supreme Court's decision to deny an Apache nonprofit's petition that looked to save a centuries-old Arizona Indigenous worship site from destruction to make way for a multibillion-dollar copper mine is a grievous mistake with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations, Justice Neil Gorsuch said in a Tuesday dissent.

  • May 27, 2025

    Bayer, Monsanto On Hook For $611M Roundup Cancer Awards

    A Missouri appellate panel Tuesday affirmed a trial court's $611 million award reduced from a jury's $1.56 billion verdict for three people who claimed their cancer was caused by Bayer unit Monsanto Co.'s Roundup weedkiller, saying a law professor's testimony about a Ninth Circuit decision was not prejudicial.

  • May 27, 2025

    11th Circ. Won't Revisit FCC Ownership Ruling

    The Eleventh Circuit won't take a second whack at its order upholding a Federal Communications Commission finding that Gray Television had broken agency ownership consolidation rules by owning one too many stations in Anchorage, Alaska.

  • May 27, 2025

    Feds Tell 11th Circ. 'No Error' In Ga. Bid-Rigging Conviction

    Federal prosecutors urged the Eleventh Circuit Friday to uphold the bid-rigging and price-fixing convictions of one of two brothers accused of manipulating the coastal Georgia concrete market, arguing his push for a new trial is a "virtual carbon copy" of one a district court already rejected.

  • May 27, 2025

    NC Justices Say Doc Is Employee, Not Official With Immunity

    The North Carolina Supreme Court has overturned an appeals court decision that a University of North Carolina professor had public-official immunity in a defamation suit over an investigation into a colleague's going-away party, holding he is an employee of a public agency, not a public official entitled to immunity.

Expert Analysis

  • The Post-Macquarie Securities Fraud-By-Omission Landscape

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 opinion in Macquarie v. Moab distinguished inactionable "pure omissions" from actionable "half-truths," the line between the two concepts in practice is still unclear, presenting challenges for lower courts parsing statements that often fall within the gray area of "misleading by omission," say attorneys at Katten.

  • AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

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    Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

  • When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law

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    In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • The Future Of ALJs At NLRB And DOL Post-Jarkesy

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    In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Jarkesy ruling, several ongoing challenges to the constitutionality of the U.S. Department of Labor's and the National Labor Relations Board's administrative law judges have the potential to significantly shape the future of administrative tribunals, say attorneys at Wiley Rein.

  • The Tides Are Changing For Fair Access Banking Laws

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    The landscape of fair access banking laws, which seek to prevent banks from denying services based on individuals' ideological beliefs, has shifted in the last few years, but a new presidential administration provides renewed momentum for advancing such legislation against the backdrop of state efforts, say attorneys at Latham.

  • Imagine The Possibilities Of Openly Autistic Lawyering

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    Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law, who was diagnosed with autism about midway through her career, discusses how the legal profession can create inclusive workplaces that empower openly autistic lawyers and enhance innovation, and how neurodivergent attorneys can navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with disclosing one’s diagnosis.

  • Top 10 Healthcare And Life Sciences Issues To Watch In 2025

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    Under the new Trump administration, this coming year may benefit some healthcare and life sciences stakeholders, while creating new challenges for others amid an increasingly complex regulatory environment, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Disciplinary Rule Updates Every Texas Lawyer Needs To Know

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    Sweeping amendments to the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct that recently went into effect provide essential clarity and modernity to rules governing conflicts of interest, client confidentiality and duties to prospective clients, says Robert Tobey at Johnston Tobey.

  • Parsing 3rd Circ. Ruling On Cannabis, Employee Private Suits

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    The Third Circuit recently upheld a decision that individuals don't have a private right of action for alleged violations of New Jersey's Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance and Marketplace Modernization Act, but employers should stay informed as the court encouraged the state Legislature to amend the law, say attorneys at Mandelbaum Barrett.

  • Perspectives

    How High Court May Rule In First Step Act Resentencing Case

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    U.S. Supreme Court justices grappled with verb tenses and statutory intent in recent oral arguments in Hewitt v. U.S., a case involving an anomalous resentencing issue under the First Step Act, and though they may hold that the statute is unambiguous, they could also decide the case on narrow, practical grounds, say attorneys at Bracewell.

  • Series

    Documentary Filmmaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Becoming a documentary filmmaker has allowed me to merge my legal expertise with my passion for storytelling, and has helped me to hone negotiation, critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are important to both endeavors, says Robert Darwell at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Litigation Funding Disclosure Debate: Strategy Considerations

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    In the ongoing debate over whether courts should require disclosure of litigation funding, funders and plaintiffs tend to argue against such mandates, but voluntarily disclosing limited details about a funding arrangement can actually confer certain benefits to plaintiffs in some scenarios, say Andrew Stulce and Marc Cavan at Longford Capital.

  • Discretionary Compensation Lessons From 7th Circ. Ruling

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    The Seventh Circuit’s recent ruling in Das v. Tata established that contract disclaimers don't automatically bar claims under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, underscoring the limits of compensation systems that purport to grant employers unilateral discretion, say attorneys at Schoenberg Finkel.

  • Gas Contract Fight Holds Lessons On Force Majeure Clauses

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    Ongoing litigation over gas deliveries during Winter Storm Uri underscores the need for precision and foresight when negotiating force majeure clauses in contracts — particularly in the energy sector, where climate-related disruptions and market volatility are inevitable, but often unpredictable, say attorneys at Spencer Fane.

  • Justices Likely To Stay In ERISA's Bounds On Pleadings

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    The arguments in Cunningham v. Cornell showed the U.S. Supreme Court's willingness to resolve a circuit split regarding Employee Retirement Income Security Act pleading standards by staying within ERISA's confines, while instructing courts regarding what must be pled to survive a motion to dismiss, says Ryan Curtis at Fennemore Craig.

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