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BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In a suit alleging Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) violations against multiple diagnostic imaging providers and related parties, a New York federal judge on May 19 granted GEICO’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stay pending no-fault collection arbitration and state court suits and enjoin the filing of similar actions against GEICO by those providers, finding that pursuant to a recent ruling by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, district courts can enjoin state court proceedings.
SANTA FE, N.M. — The applications for two types of nonimmigrant visas that are available for crime victims are privileged, the New Mexico Supreme Court held, deeming them not susceptible to production by defendants’ subpoenas and motions to compel.
SAN FRANCISCO — An artist failed to show that his semi-nude Instagram photo posts were reasonably likely to have been accessed by singer and rapper Lil Nas X, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, upholding a California federal judge’s dismissal of the artist’s copyright infringement suit brought over the rapper’s own posts.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 19 held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) should have gone further in its findings that challenged claims in patents related to a device to be used with a stylus were unpatentable as obvious, reversing the PTAB’s findings related to one patent claim and affirming regarding multiple others.
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on May 19 denied a motion for attorney fees filed by a conservative activist and his organization against whom Hunter Biden had brought claims for violation of computer fraud laws and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) after they posted data from Biden’s laptop online, finding after the voluntary dismissal of Biden’s claims that fees were not warranted.
NEW YORK — Two union members were granted final approval of class negligence and breach of contract claims against a labor union over a 2023 data breach, with a New York federal judge deeming the $6 million settlement to be preferable to the expenses and “uncertainties of continued litigation.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 19 granted two petitions for writ of certiorari filed by federal employees challenging denials of their requests for differential pay when they were called to military service, vacated the judgments in the two cases and remanded to the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of the April decision in Feliciano v. Department of Transportation.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 19 affirmed a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision to uphold a judge’s rejection of a pro se author’s copyright claims against a host of entities; the high court noted in an order list that the affirmation was the result of a lack of quorum of justices.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Rhode Island federal judge on May 16 granted a motion by several states for a preliminary injunction preventing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from implementing or enforcing a March 24 decision that terminated $11 billion in federal financial assistance used by states for public health emergency preparedness and other public health purposes as no longer necessary because the COVID-19 pandemic had ended.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority on May 16 stayed pending appeal a trial court’s preliminary injunction ruling in a lawsuit by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) seeking to halt the impact of a March executive order (EO) that the union says eliminates collective bargaining for approximately two-thirds of the federal workforce.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Calling the Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit “the first and only case to reach settlement on this novel theory of recovery,” a plaintiff whose key claims regarding the use of forfeited nonvested retirement plan contributions to offset the plan sponsor’s future matching contributions survived dismissal asked a California federal court on May 16 for preliminary approval of a $1,995,000 class settlement.