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Massachusetts
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February 29, 2024
Mass. High Court Revises 'Complex' Anti-SLAPP Guidance
The Massachusetts anti-SLAPP statute can't shield a company from being sued over years of litigation allegedly aimed solely at thwarting a potential competitor, the state's highest court said Thursday as it issued new guidance intended to make it easier for judges to resolve such disputes.
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February 29, 2024
Biden Floats 3 Nominees To Return FERC To Full Strength
President Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a trio of nominees to fill vacant commissioner slots at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including the solicitor general of West Virginia and a former Massachusetts energy official.
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February 29, 2024
Insurance Co. Settles Mass. Worker's Long COVID Suit
Lincoln Life Assurance has agreed to resolve a suit alleging it wrongly cut off disability payments to a worker who was recovering from over a year of debilitating long-term symptoms caused by COVID-19, according to a Thursday order in Massachusetts federal court.
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February 29, 2024
Harvard Faces Appeal Of Ruling Over Alleged Body Part Sales
Families suing Harvard University over the alleged theft and sale of body parts donated to the institution's medical school on Thursday appealed a ruling that found the university was immune from all claims across a dozen related lawsuits.
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February 29, 2024
Amazon Seller Thrasio Seeks $360M DIP Facility In Ch. 11
Thrasio Holdings Inc., which aggregates third-party brands for sale on Amazon, has urged a New Jersey bankruptcy court to sign off on an agreement the company struck with lenders to finance the consumer goods business' Chapter 11 case to the tune of $360 million.
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February 29, 2024
Hub Hires: Proskauer, Hogan Lovells, The SJC
The shortest month of the year was a day longer this year and featured some significant Boston legal market moves, including a new member of the top court, a new finance attorney at Proskauer, and Hogan Lovells adding a longtime Foley Hoag partner.
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February 28, 2024
Au Pair Agency Can't Arbitrate Wage Claims, Judge Says
Au pair agency Cultural Care has waived any claimed right to pursue arbitration in a proposed collective wage complaint by extensively litigating the case for several years, including a trip to the First Circuit, a Massachusetts federal judge concluded Wednesday.
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February 28, 2024
Green Groups Back Mass. Lobstering Closure To Save Whales
Conservation groups told a Massachusetts federal court that an offshore seasonal fishing closure is critical to stop gear entanglements threatening nearly extinct North Atlantic right whales, urging the court to reject the lobster industry's move to block the restrictions.
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February 28, 2024
Construction Co. Boss Gets 9 Mos. For $1M Payroll Tax Fraud
A Boston federal judge has sentenced the owner of two Massachusetts construction companies to nine months in prison for failing to pay more than $1 million in employment taxes over a decade.
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February 28, 2024
Equinox And Trainer Ignored Struggling Before Injury, Suit Says
An Equinox personal trainer ignored a client whose struggle to complete a bench press led to a ruptured pectoral muscle, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Massachusetts.
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February 28, 2024
Mass. High Court Nominee Who Dated Gov. Confirmed 6-1
A Massachusetts Appeals Court justice and former WilmerHale partner whose past relationship with Gov. Maura Healey raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest was confirmed 6-1 to a seat on the state's highest court on Wednesday, with several members of the Governor's Council dismissing those concerns.
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February 28, 2024
NuVasive Can Pierce Co. To Collect From Ex-Rep, Judge Says
NuVasive Inc. can pierce the corporate veil to collect a $617,000-plus arbitration judgment it won against a company operated by one of its former sales representatives who improperly cut ties with the medical device company and violated his noncompete agreement, a Boston federal judge has ruled.
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February 28, 2024
Major Amazon Seller Thrasio Enters Ch. 11 To Cut $500M Debt
Thrasio Holdings Inc., a consumer goods company that is one of Amazon's largest third-party sellers, announced Wednesday that it entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New Jersey with the aim of cutting nearly $500 million in debt while bringing in more capital.
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February 27, 2024
TV Station Can't Kill Verizon Counterclaims In Carriage Fight
A Rhode Island television station can't dodge counterclaims that it was the one responsible for letting Verizon know that it had been paying retransmission fees to the wrong company, the Massachusetts federal judge overseeing the TV station's lawsuit against Verizon and Nexstar has ruled.
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February 27, 2024
Ex-NESN Exec Gets 3½ Years In Fraud Scheme
A former executive at the Massachusetts cable network that broadcasts Red Sox and Bruins games was sentenced Tuesday to 3½ years in prison for embezzling nearly $600,000 from his employer through an elaborate invoicing scheme, crimes a judge called both "deliberate" and "insidious" and the government called "brazen."
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February 27, 2024
Architect May Be Negligent, But He's No Liar, Court Rules
An intermediate Massachusetts appellate panel ruled Tuesday that a home contractor could not show an architect acted with deception or dishonesty when he repeatedly questioned the company's billing during a $2.5 million home renovation project.
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February 27, 2024
PTAB Takes Up Challenge To Dyson Hair Dryer Patent
An administrative patent board has decided to look into a petition from a Massachusetts home appliance brand that makes the case that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should never have issued a patent to Dyson covering a kind of hair dryer.
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February 27, 2024
Mass. AG Sues Boston Suburb For Flouting Housing Law
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell is seeking an injunction, fines or possibly the appointment of a special master to force the Boston suburb of Milton to comply with a state housing law requiring multifamily zoning that the town's voters rejected in a referendum earlier this month, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
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February 27, 2024
Cybersecurity Firm Says Reseller Stiffed It To Pay Other Bills
Cybersecurity firm Acronis Inc. is accusing a reseller of using the proceeds from the sale of its products to pay off other financial obligations and ignoring its $1.5 million debt to Acronis, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Massachusetts state court.
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February 26, 2024
Clement, Prelogar Odd Bedfellows In Social Media Showdown
After GOP-led states targeted perceived stifling of conservative voices on social media, Monday's oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court could have featured predictable partisan fissures. But the case instead illustrated that legal ideology in the digital age is sometimes surprising.
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February 26, 2024
Justices Say Social Media Speech Laws Pose 'Land Mines'
The U.S. Supreme Court seemed skeptical Monday of the constitutionality of Florida and Texas laws prohibiting social media platforms from removing content or users based on viewpoint, but struggled with whether the still-developing records in the lawsuits challenging the regulations could support a meaningful ruling on platforms' First Amendment rights.
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February 26, 2024
'Pig Butchering' Victim Slaps Binance, Ex-CEO With RICO Suit
Binance and the cryptocurrency exchange's former CEO let criminal syndicates run fraud schemes through its platform by flouting laws against money laundering and money transmitting, according to an $8.1 million civil racketeering suit filed in Boston federal court.
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February 26, 2024
Boston Sued For Records Of White Supremacist Protest
The city of Boston and two law enforcement agencies are flouting the state's public records laws to avoid scrutiny over what one expert called an "intelligence failure of significant proportions" during a march by an avowed white supremacist group in 2022, a lawsuit filed Monday by the National Lawyers Guild alleges.
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February 26, 2024
Mass. Judge Won't Rethink SEC Win On Adviser Duty Breach
A Massachusetts federal judge has refused to reconsider a judgment against Commonwealth Financial Network that found it failed to disclose an arrangement with its clearing firm that favored certain mutual funds to investors, saying the company has not identified any new evidence or an error in the court's application of the law.
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February 26, 2024
Boston Moves To Settle Suit Over 2016 Police Shooting
The city of Boston has reached an agreement in principle to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the mother of a Black man who was shot to death by Boston police officers in 2016, according to a Monday filing.
Expert Analysis
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Do Videoconferences Establish Jurisdiction With Defendants?
What it means to have minimum contacts in a foreign jurisdiction is changing as people become more accustomed to meeting via video, and defendants’ participation in videoconferencing may be used as a sword or a shield in courts’ personal jurisdiction analysis, says Patrick Hickey at Moye White.
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Opinion
Humanism Should Replace Formalism In The Courts
The worrying tendency for judges to say "it's just the law talking, not me" in American decision writing has coincided with an historic decline in respect for the courts, but this trend can be reversed if courts develop understandable legal standards and justify them in human terms, says Connecticut Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher.
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Don't Let Client Demands Erode Law Firm Autonomy
As clients increasingly impose requirements for attorney hiring and retention related to diversity and secondment, law firms must remember their ethical duties, as well as broader issues of lawyer development, culture and firm integrity, to maintain their independence while meaningfully responding to social changes, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.
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Distressed Cannabis Cos. Have A Few Options, With Caveats
As the cannabis industry falls on tough times and a potential recession looms, attorneys should understand the limited restructuring options available to distressed cannabis businesses, absent key bankruptcy protections — and the pitfalls these options may present, say Griffen Thorne and Ethan Minkin at Harris Bricken.
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Opinion
Federal Judge's Amici Invitation Is A Good Idea, With Caveats
An Arkansas federal judge’s recent order — inviting amicus briefs in every civil case before him — has merit, but its implementation may raise practical questions about the role of junior attorneys, economic considerations and other issues, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation.
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Fox Ex-Producer Case Is A Lesson In Joint Representation
A former Fox News producer's allegations that the network's lawyers pressured her to give misleading testimony in Fox's defamation battle with Dominion Voting Systems should remind lawyers representing a nonparty witness that the rules of joint representation apply, says Jared Marx at HWG.
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Opinion
Stanford Law Protest Highlights Rise Of Incivility In Discourse
The recent Stanford Law School incident, where students disrupted a speech by U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, should be a reminder to teach law students how to be effective advocates without endangering physical and mental health, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada.
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Opinion
Proposed Broadcast Ban On Sports Betting Ads Is Overbroad
The Betting on our Future Act, which proposes a total broadcast ban of advertising for sports betting, would violate commercial speech rights due to the heightened protection of advertising speech since the tobacco ban, and is unlikely to pass constitutional muster under a key U.S. Supreme Court test, says Mark Conrad at Fordham University.
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Dispute Prevention Strategies To Halt Strife Before It Starts
With geopolitical turbulence presenting increased risks of business disputes amid court backlogs and ballooning costs, companies should consider building mechanisms for dispute prevention into newly established partnerships to constructively resolve conflicts before they do costly damage, say Ellen Waldman and Allen Waxman at the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.
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Dormant Commerce Clause Issues Are Evolving In Cannabis
As federal courts across the country wrestle with how the Constitution’s dormant commerce clause applies to state-legal cannabis markets, industry stakeholders will need to watch how the issue evolves in several key contexts, including interstate compacts, say Tommy Tobin and Andrew Kline at Perkins Coie.
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Pollutant Insurance Case Holds Clues For Ohio Train Litigation
A recent Rhode Island Supreme Court decision in Regan Heating v. Arbella could mean that the wide-reaching impacts of the February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, will trigger the enforcement of any total pollution exclusion contained in Norfolk Southern's commercial general liability policy, says Kayla O’Connor at Saxe Doernberger.
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Practical Skills Young Attorneys Must Master To Be Happier
For young lawyers, finding happiness on the job — with its competitive nature and high expectations for billable hours — is complicated, but three skills can help them gain confidence, reduce stress and demonstrate their professional value in ways they never imagined, says career counselor Susan Smith Blakely.
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4 Ways State Oversight May Change Nationwide Health Deals
With California soon to become the most recent state to increase its oversight of health care mergers, acquisitions and investments, attorneys should consider how these updated state regulations may increase the costs, timelines and disclosure requirements for national deals, say John Saran and Jaclyn Freshman at Ropes & Gray.
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ABA Opinion Should Help Clarify Which Ethics Rules Apply
A recent American Bar Association opinion provides key guidance on interpreting ABA Model Rule 8.5's notoriously complex choice-of-law analysis — and should help lawyers authorized to practice in multiple jurisdictions determine which jurisdiction's ethics rules govern their conduct, say attorneys at HWG.
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4 Ways To Reboot Your Firm's Stalled Diversity Program
Law firms that have failed to see real progress despite years of diversity initiatives can move forward by committing to tackle four often-taboo obstacles that hinder diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, says Steph Maher at Jaffe.