Analysis

Wheeling & Appealing: The Latest Must-Know Appellate Action

By Jeff Overley

What happened to a GOP donor's $250,000 Swiss watch? Can cigarette warnings show jarring medical images? Will a circuit split of "far-reaching importance" for arbitration get even wider? That's a taste of the oral argument menu we'll help you digest in this preview of February's top appellate action.

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6th Circ. Clears Judge Boasberg In DOJ Ethics Complaint

By Courtney Bublé

The complaint the U.S. Department of Justice filed against Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia has been dismissed.

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3rd Circ. Affirms Fee Awards For Immigration Habeas Actions

By Tom Lotshaw

A Third Circuit panel ruled federal law authorizes attorney fee awards for immigrants who successfully challenge their detention through habeas actions, affirming awards made to two noncitizens who were detained for over a year and denied bond hearings.

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2nd Circ. Partially Revives Suit Over NY Foster Care Rules

By Elizabeth Daley

A group of New York City children who were taken from their parents and placed into foster care have standing to challenge the legality of state rules preventing them from being placed with relatives with criminal histories, a Second Circuit panel determined on Monday.

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First Woman Justice Elected To Wash. High Court To Retire

By Rachel Riley

Washington State Supreme Court Justice Barbara A. Madsen, the first woman to be voted onto the court and the second-longest serving justice in state history, said Monday she plans to retire this spring after 33 years on the bench.

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Brief

Judiciary Open As Usual Until Thursday Despite Shutdown

By Courtney Bublé

The federal judiciary has enough funding to sustain normal operations until Thursday, following the partial government shutdown that started at midnight on Saturday.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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Advocates Urge Justices To Overturn Cannabis Gun Ban

By Sam Reisman

Cannabis consumer advocates, guns rights activists and libertarian think tanks have all filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to find that a law disarming marijuana users runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

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DC Circ. Gets History Lesson As Tribe Fights For Utah Land

By Joyce Hanson

The D.C. Circuit got a lesson in tribal history dating back to the 19th century as lawyers for the federal government and a Native American tribe argued Monday whether a congressional act gives the tribe compensable title to 1.5 million acres of Utah land where an oilfield lies.

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Split Fed. Circ. Won't Revive Massager Design Patent Case

By Dani Kass

A Maine federal judge properly found Armaid Co. Inc. didn't infringe Range of Motion Products LLC's design patent covering a personal massage device, a divided Federal Circuit held Monday.

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Fed. Circ. Backs CIT's Objection To ITC Wholesale Redactions

By Jack McLoone

A Federal Circuit panel on Monday affirmed a U.S. Court of International Trade ruling finding the U.S. International Trade Commission was out of line in automatically making all questionnaire responses confidential, saying the CIT "struck the appropriate balance" between confidentiality and public access concerns.

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Fed. Circ. Grapples With AI Patent Eligibility In Amazon Case

By Ryan Davis

A Federal Circuit panel on Monday expressed skepticism about Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's argument that an artificial intelligence-related patent it sued Amazon over was wrongly invalidated as abstract, though the court seemed wary of issuing a ruling that could render all AI unpatentable.

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Judge Clears Apple Of Some Haptic Patent Claims

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge has allowed Apple to escape some patent claims brought by a company that accused the tech giant of infringing the business's vibration technology patents, letting Apple escape literal infringement allegations related to its "monolithic products."

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1st Circ. Judge Wary Of Boston Bid To Revive PBM Opioid Suit

By Carolyn Muyskens

The city of Boston faced pushback from a First Circuit judge on Monday as it argued it didn't miss its window to sue pharmacy benefit managers for their alleged role in the opioid epidemic.

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Oil Trader Wants Prison Date Delayed Over $1.7M Forfeiture

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut oil trader convicted of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has asked to postpone his date to report to prison by two months, saying he "needs additional time to put his financial affairs in order" so he can pay a $1.7 million forfeiture plus an additional $300,000 fine.

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IT Exec Can't Shake False Billing Conviction, 4th Circ. Rules

By Hayley Fowler

The Fourth Circuit on Monday said there was more than enough evidence for a Maryland jury to convict the CEO of an IT company for lying about the hours she worked on a project for the National Security Agency, rejecting her claims that the trial was tainted by a misleading exhibit and prosecutorial misconduct.

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5th Circ. Panel Blushes At Starbucks Worker's Snapchat Notes

By Spencer Brewer

A Fifth Circuit panel pressed the National Labor Relations Board to explain why Starbucks lacks the ability to fire a union organizer who used excessively colorful language in private messages to co-workers, saying Monday the language used would "make any of us blush."

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6th Circ. Upholds Stiffer Gun Sentence In Youth Offender Case

By Parker Quinlan

The Sixth Circuit upheld assigning an increased offense level against a man who was participating in a youth diversion program for a separate criminal case, finding that because he was still under indictment, he should face an increased punishment under federal law.

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7th Circ. Hands Dead Packaging Worker's 401(k) To Ex-Wife

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Seventh Circuit awarded the 401(k) account balance of a dead Packaging Corp. of America worker to his ex-wife Monday, concluding that a lower court erred in determining she wasn't entitled to benefits based on a fax requesting a beneficiary designation change that he transmitted after a divorce.

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Tracy Anderson Workouts Are Copyrightable, 9th Circ. Told

By Dorothy Atkins

Celebrity fitness trainer Tracy Anderson urged the Ninth Circuit on Monday to reverse a ruling that invalidated copyrights to her "Tracy Anderson Method" workout routines, arguing that her routines are expressive protectable works distinct from yoga poses at issue in the Ninth Circuit's Bikram ruling.

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Calif. Justices Revive 'Unreadable' Arbitration Agreement Suit

By Hailey Konnath

In a 6-1 decision, the California Supreme Court clarified on Monday that courts must "closely scrutinize the terms of difficult-to-read contracts for unfairness or one-sidedness," but the "illegibility" — font size, placement, prominence, etc. — of agreements do not themselves indicate that it is unconscionable.

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Ex-UCLA Gynecologist Secures Sex Abuse Retrial On Appeal

By Lauren Berg

A California appellate court Monday tossed sexual assault convictions against a University of California, Los Angeles, gynecologist and ordered a new trial, saying the trial court judge failed to tell defense counsel about a jury note detailing concerns that one of their peers didn't understand English well enough to deliberate.

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Zipcar Can't Be Liable For Renting To Drunk Driver, Panel Says

By Y. Peter Kang

A California appeals court has tossed claims against Zipcar in a suit accusing the online car rental platform of causing a passenger's catastrophic injuries by renting out a vehicle to a drunk customer, saying certain duties of care owed by traditional rental agencies don't apply to car-sharing companies.

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Conn. Justice Says Police Messed Up Warrant In Murder Case

By Brian Steele

When police investigating a 2017 murder in Connecticut drafted a warrant for the suspect's cellphone data, they "messed it up" by failing to specify the relevant time zone, a state Supreme Court justice said Monday as the defense sought to shield the information under an expanded constitutional privacy right.

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Staffing Agencies Beat Ill. Workers' BIPA Revival Bid

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois Third District Appellate Court panel has refused to reverse two staffing agencies' pre-trial win over manufacturing workers' claim that the agencies illegally collected their time-clock fingerprint data, saying simply helping another entity obtain such data cannot trigger liability under a statutory provision requiring informed consent to collect it.

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Panel Backs Pa. In Widow's 'Line Of Duty' Benefits Bid

By P.J. D'Annunzio

While a doctor's opinion that a firefighter's fatal cancer was likely caused by job-related hazards counted to entitle his widow to worker's compensation benefits, it fell short of the higher causation requirements for "line of duty death" benefits, a Pennsylvania appellate court said Monday.

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NJ Panel Backs Dismissal Of Longtime Redevelopment Feud

By Isaac Monterose

A New Jersey appellate court on Monday upheld the dismissal of multiple claims involving two Jersey City parcels that were related to a long-running redevelopment dispute between business partners.

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Custodians Tell NJ Justices COVID Law Doesn't Preempt CBA

By George Woolston

School custodians urged the New Jersey Supreme Court on Monday to reinstate an award of extra money for their in-person work during the pandemic, arguing an arbitrator had a reasonably plausible interpretation of a state statute when he determined it didn't preempt the custodians' collective bargaining agreement.

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Del. Justices Won't Revive Suit Over Twitter Stock Sale Loss

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's Supreme Court rejected on Monday a Washington state software engineer's late-filed, pro se attempt to resurrect a suit seeking damages after his sale of Twitter shares when Elon Musk briefly balked at a $44 billion closing on his company in 2024.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jeff Montgomery

A pair of new high-dollar suits in Delaware's Court of Chancery showed last week that post-deal stock appraisal suits still have legs, despite some efforts to reduce potential from deal-price gains challenges. The week ended with Delaware's justices nipping $100 million from the attorney fees owed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk from $176.2 million to roughly $70.9 million, rejecting part of a Court of Chancery fee calculation.

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Analysis

Med Mal Suits Offer Ga. Justices Path Back To Damages Caps

By Chart Riggall

The Supreme Court of Georgia will hear arguments Tuesday in two medical malpractice cases that give the state's justices a chance to impose a limit on damages in wrongful death suits, 15 years after the court declared such caps unconstitutional.

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Colo. Justices Strike Down Laws Governing County Appeals

By Zach Dupont

The Colorado Supreme Court found two sections of Colorado law unconstitutional Monday because they allowed final judgments in county court cases to be appealed directly to the Colorado Court of Appeals.

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Town's Northeastern Univ. Land Grab Divides Mass. Top Court

By Julie Manganis

Justices on Massachusetts' highest court appeared split Monday over whether a town's use of eminent domain to prevent Northeastern University from expanding a research center was a proper use of that power.

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Manatt Appellate Star Leaves To Join Duane Morris In LA

By Gina Kim

Benjamin G. Shatz has joined Duane Morris LLP as a partner at the firm's appellate division of the trial practice group in Los Angeles, after spending more than two decades at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP, according to an announcement issued Monday.

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How 2 Tech Statutes Are Being Applied To Agentic AI

The application of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act to agentic artificial intelligence is still developing, but recent case law, like Amazon's lawsuit against Perplexity in California federal court, provides some initial guidance for companies developing or deploying these technologies, say attorneys at Weil.

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Defense Strategy Takeaways From Recent TCPA Class Actions

Although recent Telephone Consumer Protection Act decisions do not establish any bright-line tests for defeating predominance based on an argument that class members provided consent for the calls, certain trends have emerged that should inform defense strategies at class certification, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

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State Of Insurance: Q4 Notes From Illinois

In 2025's last quarter, Illinois’ appellate courts weighed in on overlapping homeowners coverages for water-related damages, contractual suit limitation provisions in uninsured motorist policies, and protections for genetic health information in life insurance underwriting, while the Department of Insurance sought nationwide homeowners' insurance data from State Farm, says Matthew Fortin at BatesCarey.

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Series

The Biz Court Digest: Dispatches From Utah's Newest Court

While a robust body of law hasn't yet developed since the Utah Business and Chancery Court's founding in October 2024, the number of cases filed there has recently picked up, and its existence illustrates Utah's desire to be top of mind for businesses across the country, says Evan Strassberg at Michael Best.

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NYC Bar Opinion Warns Attys On Use Of AI Recording Tools

Attorneys who use artificial intelligence tools to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with clients should heed the New York City Bar Association’s recent opinion addressing the legal and ethical risks posed by such tools, and follow several best practices to avoid violating the Rules of Professional Conduct, say attorneys at Smith Gambrell.

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Paul Weiss Chair's Emails To Epstein Include Apollo Info

By Aebra Coe

Files released by the Department of Justice over the weekend belonging to the late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein show a yearslong relationship between Epstein and Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp, which included dinners, phone calls and meetings, as well as communication related to Paul Weiss client Apollo Global Management.

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Ex-Goldstein Employee Claims Accountants Made Mistakes

By Jared Foretek

Defense attorneys for SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein presented evidence Monday that his firm's tax accountants made serious mistakes in tax filings for Goldstein's wife, Amy Howe, in 2021.

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Fenwick Reaches Deal In FTX Crypto Scam Suit

By Madison Arnold

Fenwick & West LLP and victims of the infamous FTX Trading Ltd. cryptocurrency scam are working toward a settlement in a case over the firm's alleged role in the trading platform's collapse.

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Watchdog Renews Halligan Bar Complaint After Court Rulings

By Emily Sawicki

The nonprofit Campaign for Accountability on Monday once again launched a bar complaint against former interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in Virginia, after the Virginia State Bar declined to pursue an ethics investigation against the attorney last year, calling it a matter for the courts to determine.

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DOJ Defends NJ US Atty Office Funding Amid Scrutiny

By Matthew Santoni

Defending the three-person leadership structure of New Jersey's federal prosecution operations since the departure of Alina Habba, an administrator told a federal court that two of the attorneys running the office are paid through the office's budget and the third is funded through the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

U.S. enforcers reached three new merger settlements, while the Federal Trade Commission successfully blocked a $945 million heart valve deal and lodged an appeal for its case targeting Meta's past acquisitions.

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The Top In-House Hires Of January

By Sue Reisinger

Legal department hires over the first month of 2026 included high-profile appointments at SiriusXM, at a host of West Coast tech companies including Microsoft and Meta, and at Black & Decker. Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from January.

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