Appellate

  • August 06, 2026

    NC House OKs Unpaid Suspensions For Judges Under Inquiry

    Republicans in the North Carolina House of Representatives have given the green light to a legislative proposal empowering the chief justice of the state Supreme Court to suspend trial court judges without pay if they're under investigation by the state Judicial Standards Commission.

  • August 06, 2026

    4th Circ. Says Mom Was Denied Fair Shot At Removal Relief

    A split Fourth Circuit panel said an immigration judge denied a Guinean woman's application for cancellation of removal without an adequate chance to show her removal would cause exceptional hardship for her two U.S. citizen daughters.

  • August 06, 2026

    11th Circ. Erases Worker's $800K Win In Dreadlock Bias Suit

    The Eleventh Circuit scrapped an $800,000 verdict in favor of a Black worker who claimed she was let go after complaining that she'd been racially targeted for wearing dreadlocks, ruling faulty jury instructions meant the security company she worked for should get a new trial.

  • August 06, 2026

    Ute Tribe Says Ex-Energy Manager Can't Evade Tribal Review

    A tribe in Utah is asking the Tenth Circuit to deny a former energy manager's bid to have a 13-year breach of contract dispute heard before a federal court, arguing that because of his "delay tactics," a trial in Ute Indian Tribal Courts has not concluded.

  • August 05, 2026

    3rd Circ. Backs Arbitrators' Change To Investment Fee Award

    The Third Circuit has upheld a doctrine under which arbitrators are barred from revisiting their prior decisions, in a dispute over the distribution of certain fees that resulted in a revised award expanding an asset manager's liability from $300,000 to nearly $7 million.

  • August 05, 2026

    Senate Dems Grill Trump's Judge Picks For 5th Circ., Alabama

    Senate Democrats on Wednesday dug into two judges nominated by the president to serve in Alabama district court and on the Fifth Circuit over their careful answers about who won the 2020 election and one's history of advocating against a ban on forced arbitration for workplace sexual harassment and assault claims.

  • August 05, 2026

    Unread Arbitration Emails Are Unenforceable, 9th Circ. Rules

    Arbitration agreements sent to workers aren't arbitration agreements assented to by workers, the Ninth Circuit held Wednesday, rejecting assertions from medical supplies giant Thermo Fisher Scientific that its arbitration-related emails — even if never read — sufficed to keep an ex-employee's proposed class action out of court.

  • August 05, 2026

    5th Circ. Wary Again Of FCC's Control Over Subsidy Program

    A panel of Fifth Circuit judges on Wednesday raised new questions about the Federal Communications Commission's oversight of the country's $9 billion annual telecom subsidy program after a U.S. Supreme Court decision kept the fund intact last summer.

  • August 05, 2026

    Texas Panel Cuts China Golf Cart-Maker From Fatal Crash Suit

    Litigation concerning a fatal golf cart rollover at a San Antonio country club that killed a passenger and severely injured another will have to proceed without the Chinese manufacturer as a defendant, a state appeals court ruled on Monday after finding Texas courts didn't have jurisdiction.

  • August 05, 2026

    Incumbent Wash. Justices On Top In Early Primary Results

    Three incumbent Washington State Supreme Court justices — including two governor appointees — led their respective primary races Wednesday, as a state trial judge edged ahead in the race for another open seat on the high court, according to preliminary election results.

  • August 05, 2026

    CREXi Wants 9th Circ. To Undo Quinn Emanuel CoStar Row DQ

    Commercial Real Estate Exchange Inc. doesn't want to replace Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP after a California federal judge disqualified the firm from defending a copyright infringement suit by CoStar, seeking Ninth Circuit intervention and a pause on the district court case.

  • August 05, 2026

    Stewart Says Patent System 'Crisis' Fueled USPTO Changes

    Coke Morgan Stewart, the deputy director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office who left the agency last week, said in an interview with Law360 this week that new limits on patent challenges and other policy changes she helped lead were driven by a sense that the patent system was in "a pretty significant crisis."

  • August 05, 2026

    Panel Rejects BMS Investor's Bid To 'Camouflage A Wolf'

    A New Jersey state appeals court said an investor's amended complaint over Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s $74 billion acquisition of Celgene Corp. was a wolf camouflaged in sheep's clothing, finding that the investor's claims of disclosure requirement shortfalls sounded more in fraud than negligence and failed to satisfy the heightened pleading standard required.

  • August 05, 2026

    NYC's Food Apps Data Law Goes Too Far, 2nd Circ. Says

    A New York City law that would require DoorDash, GrubHub and other delivery apps to share customer data with the restaurants fulfilling food orders violates the First Amendment, the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday.

  • August 05, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Backs Another Lululemon Win On Nike Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Wednesday refused to revive claims in a Nike fitness tracker patent challenged by Lululemon, affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that the claims were invalid.

  • August 05, 2026

    Backing Penalty For 1st Misquote, Panel 'Stunned' By Another

    A solo practitioner in North Carolina sanctioned for misleading a trial court judge with a misquote in his pleadings "stunned" an appellate panel when he made yet another quotation blunder in his brief on appeal, according to a published opinion Wednesday affirming his punishment.

  • August 05, 2026

    Pa. Panel Says Screenshots Not Hearsay In Stolen Money Case

    A juvenile who was sentenced to be placed in a secure detention facility after stealing money electronically from his guardian cannot have his conviction overturned after a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled that screenshots showing money transfers in a banking app were not hearsay.

  • August 05, 2026

    9th Circ. Urged To Revisit Klamath Project ESA Ruling

    A water association is asking the Ninth Circuit to rethink a ruling that held the Endangered Species Act applies to the operation and management of an Oregon irrigation project, arguing that the appellate court left "an unworkable" framework to determine a threshold question over nondiscretionary federal agency actions.

  • August 05, 2026

    No Coverage For Assisted Living Death, Fla. Panel Says

    A Florida appellate court on Wednesday reversed a judgment that required National Assisted Living Risk Retention Group to provide coverage for a wrongful death suit from a resident's 2012 death, finding no claim was made during the relevant policy period.

  • August 05, 2026

    Ga. Panel Weighs Damages Law In $950K Walmart Fall Case

    The Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday considered if a new trial is warranted in a woman's slip-and-fall case against Walmart, grappling with whether her attorney's arguments to obtain a $975,000 verdict were improper under a state law amended in 2025.

  • August 05, 2026

    Netlist, Samsung Enter 5-Year Deal To End Extensive IP Feud

    Netlist and Samsung have resolved their multipronged patent fight after reaching a deal in which the South Korean electronics giant agreed to make multimillion-dollar payments to get access to a portfolio of Netlist's patents.

  • August 05, 2026

    Murdaugh Loses Jury Tampering Suit Against Ex-Court Clerk

    A South Carolina federal judge on Wednesday dismissed disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh's jury tampering suit against a former court clerk who was found to have interfered in his murder trial, ruling there was no connection between his alleged damages and the ex-clerk's misconduct.

  • August 05, 2026

    Pa. Court Wipes Out $19M Verdict In Nursing Home Death Suit

    A Pennsylvania appeals court has vacated $19 million in damages, including $15 million in punitive damages, in a suit against nursing home operators and managers over the death of a resident, finding the trial court should have reconsidered damages after negating liability against two of the four defendants.

  • August 05, 2026

    Atty Scolded Over Bogus Cases In San Antonio School Fight

    A Texas state appellate panel on Wednesday admonished counsel for submitting a brief with four bogus case citations likely generated by artificial intelligence in defending a parent's lawsuit against a school district for suspending her fifth-grade son.

  • August 05, 2026

    High Court To Hear Intel 401(k) Suit Arguments In October

    The U.S. Supreme Court has set an October date for oral arguments in an appeal from Intel workers who argued the Ninth Circuit imposed too strict a standard when it upheld the dismissal of their lawsuit alleging their retirement savings were dragged down by underperforming investment options.

Expert Analysis

  • 9th Circ. Rule Block Unlikely To Deter FinCEN Cartel Focus

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    The Ninth Circuit recently blocked the Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit's border cash reporting rule, interpreting it as an impermissible use of an emergency anti-money laundering tool, but regulators are more likely to see the opinion as a road map for building a more defensible rule, say attorneys at Bradley Arant.

  • 5 Financial Statement Fraud Red Flags To Spot Post-Sripetch

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    The U.S. Supreme Court recently held in Sripetch v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that disgorgement exists to strip a wrongdoer of unjust enrichment, not merely to compensate victims for what they lost, shifting the work at the center of securities fraud cases in five ways, says Rand Manasse at Green Lane Partners.

  • QVC Ch. 11 Confirmation Shows Independent Directors' Value

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    QVC's recently confirmed Chapter 11 plan joins a growing body of restructuring precedent demonstrating that well-functioning independent director frameworks can create the evidentiary and governance foundation necessary to resolve complex intercompany disputes, preserve value and secure judicial approval of contested transactions, say attorneys at Choate.

  • Series

    Being A Sommelier Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a sommelier has quietly shaped how I practice law by changing the way I think, communicate and connect with people, and offers a constant reminder that expertise is about making your knowledge useful and accessible to others, says Kara Du at Sheppard.

  • MF Doom IP Suit Highlights Hurdles For Trademark Claims

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    A recent lawsuit involving unauthorized merchandise bearing MF Doom's name and likeness is likely a preview of how infringement and counterfeit cases against online marketplaces will be defended going forward, shedding light on how intellectual property counsel can avoid dismissal of their claims, say Purdue Global Law School professor Scott Mortman and Southwestern Law School student Eden Burkow.

  • Calif. Drug Ruling Affirms Defect-Centric Liability Framework

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    The California Supreme Court's decision in Gilead Tenofovir Cases this week rejects a novel duty-to-innovate theory of negligence that could have reshaped product liability exposure well beyond the pharmaceutical industry, instead signaling that negligence claims premised on nondefective products are unlikely to succeed, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Navigating Court Divergence On Method Claims And Venue

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Hikma v. Amarin decision putting a spotlight on the pleading standard for inducement, patent litigants must adapt to courts' differing approaches to how separate method steps affect the determination of patent venue validity, say attorneys at Weil.

  • AI, Prediction Markets Lead Securities Developments In 2026

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    Securities class actions tied to artificial intelligence and the battle over prediction market regulation both raise novel questions that courts are only beginning to address and that will continue to resonate throughout the second half of the year, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • Where Is The Line On Actionable Comms In Securities Cases?

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    Recent securities cases demonstrate the difficulty in discerning a clear difference between statements made in connection with the purchase or sale of securities and those that aren't, with that line more likely attributable to individualized factual situations than to any doctrinal differences of opinion between various courts, says Samuel Groner at Fried Frank.

  • NJ Supreme Court Ruling Exposes D&O Gaps For PE Boards

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    The New Jersey Supreme Court's recent decision in Mist Pharmaceuticals v. Berkley Insurance, barring directors and officers coverage, serves as a cautionary tale for private equity executives serving in overlapping roles at sponsor and portfolio companies, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Post-Ismael Bias Cases Reinforce Familiar Employer Lessons

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    Despite the Eleventh Circuit's 2025 decision in Ismael v. Roundtree sparking concern that summary judgment could become more difficult for employers in discrimination and retaliation cases, courts continue to examine whether the employer's explanation, decision-making process and contemporaneous record tell a consistent story, say attorneys at Krevolin Horst.

  • Fed. Circ. In June: When Courts Can't Correct Patent Errors

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Enanta v. Pfizer explores and clarifies the limits of what can be corrected in a patent application, even if the error is obvious, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • Challenging Detention After 5th Circ. Ends Bond Clocks

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    After the vacatur of the Fifth Circuit’s holding that the U.S. Constitution requires bond hearings for detained noncriminal noncitizens, practitioners should go back to filing habeas petitions, pending the court's en banc rehearing, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • Patent Eligibility Bulletin: New USPTO Guidance And AI Risks

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    In the second quarter of 2026, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office updated its subject matter eligibility declarations in line with its increasingly permissive patent eligibility stance, while the Federal Circuit rigorously applied the Alice framework in a decision that highlighted risks facing patent claims that utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning, say attorneys at Banner Witcoff.

  • State Of Insurance: Q2 Notes From Illinois

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    The second quarter of 2026 featured a trio of auto insurance opinions from Illinois' appellate courts, addressing a notice requirement, narrowing insurers' exposure for delayed payment of underinsured motorist claims, and creating a district split on coverage for employee-drivers under employers' policies, says Matthew Fortin at BatesCarey.

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