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RALEIGH, N.C. — A split North Carolina Supreme Court on Aug. 22 vacated class certification in a long-running case by a consumer who alleges that an illegal sales promotion under North Carolina law was used when he purchased his home water treatment system; the majority ruled that while consumers from both North and South Carolina were included in the class, the claims by the residents of South Carolina would arise under that state’s law where inducement is an element, unlike in North Carolina, and inducement creates “individualized fact questions.”
PHILADELPHIA — In a divided opinion on rehearing, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Aug. 22 held that the bankruptcy court overseeing the decades-old Chapter 11 case of asbestos debtor Congoleum Corp. correctly reopened the case and found that a former affiliate of the debtor is not liable to pay for cleanup at a polluted site in New Jersey.
AMARILLO, Texas — Texas and Florida say the three states that intervened in a case originated by a group of antiabortion advocates challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone can no longer represent their interests and on Aug. 22 moved in a Texas federal court for permission to intervene.
ATLANTA — Affirming dismissal on two alternate grounds without deciding whether the appellant exhausted his administrative remedies, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a per curiam Aug. 22 opinion declined to revive a former NFL player’s suit over total and permanent (T&P) disability benefits that he argued he should have been awarded under a 2006 application.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court granted the federal government’s application for a stay of a Massachusetts federal district court order that voided the termination by the National Institutes of Health of several public health grants, including funding for COVID-related research, but left in place for now that part of the lower court order invalidating several policies that spurred the terminations.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its Aug. 21 merits brief, a nonprofit, faith-based pregnancy center asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the center’s constitutional challenge of a government investigative subpoena seeking donors’ personal information is not ripe because a state court had not ruled on the matter.
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 21 affirmed a lower court’s rulings dismissing some claims and after discovery granting summary judgment for cancer centers and related parties in a former employee’s suit accusing the centers and related parties of violating the False Claims Act (FCA) by falsely representing that services were supervised or performed by qualified physicians and fraudulently billing Medicare and other federal insurance programs, finding in part that the lower court correctly dismissed the FCA claims regarding radiation services.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A New York federal judge was correct to refuse to hold the United States Tennis Association Inc. (USTA) in contempt of a temporary restraining order (TRO) in a patent dispute involving let detection systems used at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held Aug. 21.
ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed denial of a motion for attorney fees and costs, finding that an air traveler who had $8,500 confiscated by federal agents “substantially prevailed” in his effort to claim the money after the government voluntarily dismissed the case.
ATLANTA — A Georgia trial court erred in refusing to grant summary judgment to Norfolk Southern Railway Co. because its employee, who claims that strenuous work on the railroad caused his injuries, lacked expert testimony to prove medical causation, the state appeals court held in reversing.
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge erred in finding that a publishing agreement related to the music from the band Supertramp was terminable, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held Aug. 20; the panel remanded for a judgment in favor of the plaintiff former band members who claimed that the band’s main songwriters suddenly stopped paying royalties in 2018.