Trump Can't Revive $475M Libel Suit Against CNN At 11th Circ.

By Dorothy Atkins

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a ruling Tuesday tossing President Donald Trump's $475 million lawsuit alleging CNN defamed him by repeatedly calling Trump's 2020 presidential election fraud claims a "Big Lie," agreeing with the lower court that Trump failed to adequately allege CNN's "subjective" statements about Trump's conduct were false.

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Trump Asks 11th Circ. For Redo On Clinton, DNC RICO Claims

By David Minsky

President Donald Trump urged the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday to revive his Florida federal lawsuit alleging a racketeering conspiracy between Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to thwart his 2016 presidential campaign with false Russian collusion evidence, saying the complaint was tossed without giving him another chance to replead.

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Judge Details Reasons For Goldstein's Pretrial Motion Losses

By Jake Maher

A Maryland federal judge explained in further detail Tuesday her decision against SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein on several motions seeking to trim his tax evasion case as it heads to trial next year.

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NPR Wins $36M Grant As CPB Backs Off Plan To Cut Funds

By Jared Foretek

National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have reached a settlement to keep nearly $36 million in public radio satellite interconnection funds with NPR, as CPB agreed not to implement an executive order requiring it to cut off NPR funding unless ordered to do so by a court.

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Miss America Fight Heats Up With Competing Sanctions Bid

By Madison Arnold

In a Florida federal court battle over the ownership of the Miss America pageant, the defendants have filed a competing sanctions motion against the plaintiffs and their counsel for "false narratives" following the latter parties' own bid for sanctions filed in September.

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Scary Spice Says Ex Can't Sue Her For Defamation In Fla.

By Carolina Bolado

The Spice Girls' Mel B urged a Florida federal judge Tuesday to dismiss a defamation suit filed by her ex-husband, film producer Stephen Belafonte, arguing that he can't bring the claims in Florida and that his reputation was already destroyed by the time she went public with her claims of abuse.

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Judge Punts FTC Suit Over Meta's Instagram, WhatsApp Buys

By Bryan Koenig

A federal antitrust campaign against major technology platforms suffered a significant blow Tuesday with a D.C. federal judge's rejection of a Federal Trade Commission suit accusing Meta Platforms of illegally monopolizing social media through its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

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Live Nation Says Promoter Can't Revive Nixed Damages

By Carla Baranauckas

Live Nation Entertainment Inc. urged a New Jersey federal judge Tuesday to bar all evidence of damages in a long-running concert interference lawsuit, arguing that a defunct promoter's trial plan attempts to revive allegations the court deemed inadmissible.

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IBM, Qualcomm Lead Public Cos. In Patented Inventions

By Dani Kass

IBM Corp. holds the most patent families of all S&P 100 companies, followed by Qualcomm Inc. and Microsoft Corp., according to an IFI Claims Patent Services report released Tuesday.

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DSW Faces Sony IP Suit Amid Jurisdictional Issues For Others

By Ivan Moreno

A California federal judge has ruled that Sony Music Entertainment and other music companies can proceed with a lawsuit that accuses DSW Shoe Warehouse of infringing song copyrights with social media ads, but the plaintiffs must do more to establish jurisdiction over other defendants.

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Software Provider Can't Shake Suit Over AT&T Call Recordings

By Allison Grande

A California federal judge has refused to toss a putative class action accusing conversation analytics software provider Invoca Inc. of illegally recording AT&T customers' phone calls, finding that a pair of recent district court decisions supported the conclusion that the plaintiffs had adequately asserted a claim for wiretapping.

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Plaintiffs Seek Meta Research Docs On Youth Users

By Emily Field

Plaintiffs urged a Los Angeles judge to compel Meta to produce unredacted internal documents that they say show its attorneys changed company research about the effects of social media on the young, citing a recent order by a Washington, D.C., judge in related litigation.

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World Aquatics Freed From Enhanced US' Antitrust Suit

By Tom Lotshaw

Enhanced US LLC, a sporting event organizer that lets athletes use performance-enhancing drugs, failed to plausibly allege that World Aquatics and others broke antitrust laws by conspiring to thwart its competitions, a New York federal judge said Monday.

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Brief

Rumble Alerts 9th Circ. To Recusal Bid Over Google Ties

By Emily Sawicki

Days after Rumble asked a California federal judge to consider recusal in the event the Ninth Circuit revives its antitrust lawsuit against Google, the video-sharing site flagged its recusal bid to the Ninth Circuit itself, filing a motion for judicial notice of the district court judge's friendship with Google's top in-house litigation chief.

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Skaggs' Contract Worth Over $124M Had He Lived, Jury Told

By Gina Kim

Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs' contract through the 2027 MLB season would've been worth up to $124 million had he lived and continued to improve in his professional career, an expert for the plaintiffs told California state jurors considering his family's wrongful death claims against the ball club on Tuesday. 

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Buyers Ask To Add 'Hawk Tuah' Influencer To Token Suit

By Katryna Perera

Buyers of the "Hawk Tuah" themed-meme coin want to expand their securities suit with new claims and defendants, including naming the social media star behind the viral phrase, Haliey Welch, as well as her managers.

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Senate Dem Slams FCC's Carr Over Cybersecurity Plan

By Christopher Cole

A top Senate Democrat on telecom issues blasted Brendan Carr, head of the Federal Communications Commission, on Tuesday for seeking to roll back an FCC cybersecurity ruling issued late in the Biden administration responding to the Salt Typhoon cyberattack.

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FCC's Carr Backing Universal Service Reform After Court Win

By Christopher Cole

Federal Communications Commission chief Brendan Carr told rural network providers Tuesday that he's working closely with lawmakers on long-term fixes for the Universal Service Fund, which supports connectivity across the country.

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Broadband Permit Reforms Survive House Subcommittee

By Nadia Dreid

The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee had a productive morning Tuesday, consolidating 28 bills largely related to broadband permitting into seven and passing them along to the full committee for review.

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Insurer Needn't Cover LA Zoo Org. In City Contract Dispute

By Hope Patti

An insurer doesn't owe coverage to the Los Angeles Zoo's nonprofit arm in a contractual dispute brought by the city, a California federal court has ruled, finding that all claims are excluded under the association's nonprofit asset protection policy.

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Warner Bros. Appeals Village Roadshow's Ch. 11 Rights Sale

By Clara Geoghegan

Hollywood studio Warner Brothers asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge on Tuesday to pause the $18.5 million sale of its bankrupt former business partner Village Roadshow's derivative film rights while it challenges the deal.

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Karen Read Says Police, Witnesses Framed Her For Murder

By Hailey Konnath

Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman acquitted of murdering her Boston police officer boyfriend, sued witnesses from her trial, claiming she was framed for the crime and that local law enforcement allowed the scheme by "intentionally sidestepping fundamental investigatory procedures."

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UK Tribunal's Clearview Decision Expands GDPR Application

The Upper Tribunal’s recent decision in Information Commissioner v. Clearview AI is an important ruling on the extraterritorial reach of the European Union and U.K. General Data Protection Regulations, broadening behavioral monitoring to include not only activity by the company, but also its client, says Edward Machin at Ropes & Gray.

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Litigation Funding Could Create Ethics Issues For Attorneys

A litigation investor’s recent complaint claiming a New York mass torts lawyer effectively ran a Ponzi scheme illustrates how litigation funding arrangements can subject attorneys to legal ethics dilemmas and potential liability, so engagement letters must have very clear terms, says Matthew Feinberg at Goldberg Segalla.

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Bonus Spotlight

Cravath Unveils Associate Bonuses, Multiple Firms Follow

By Aebra Coe

Multiple firms swiftly fell in line Tuesday evening just hours after Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP announced associate bonuses in line with those offered last year, continuing a long tradition of BigLaw firms following Cravath's lead on compensation.

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Pillsbury Winthrop Latest Firm Targeted By Data Breach Suit

By Hailey Konnath

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP on Tuesday was hit with a proposed class action stemming from a data breach the firm says happened in April, adding to the growing litigation firms are facing in the aftermath of cyberattacks.

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Analysis

Perkins Coie's Trump Fight Doesn't Scare Off UK Suitor

By Chris Villani

Perkins Coie LLP's ongoing fight with the Trump administration did not deter a proposed combination with British law firm Ashurst, signaling that the legal community is not worried about fallout from the president's suspension of the firm's security clearances.

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Republican Senators Seek Judge Boasberg's Suspension

By Courtney Bublé

Six Republican senators, three of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are asking that Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of the District of Columbia be administratively suspended while Congress considers his impeachment.

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Sanctioned Atty Convinces Mo. Court Errors Not Caused By AI

By Emily Sawicki

A Missouri federal judge sanctioned former counsel for Liberty Mutual Personal Insurance Co. Monday for including citation errors in a motion this fall, finding that, although the attorney likely inserted the errors herself without the use of AI software, "such carelessness, exacerbated by a lack of internal guardrails, is entirely unacceptable."

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Brief

Conn. Atty Fined $500 For AI-Generated Errors In Wage Suit

By Emily Sawicki

In an order that noted an attorney's remorse, a Connecticut federal judge sanctioned a solo practitioner $500 this week for submitting a brief packed with false, AI-generated case citations, finding the fake authorities wasted court resources, risked misleading a pro se litigant and undermined trust in the judicial system.

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Disbarred NC Atty Must Pay $5.2M For Escrow Fund Misuse

By Abigail Harrison

A disbarred attorney was ordered to pay $5.2 million in restitution and serve four years of probation during a Tuesday sentencing hearing in North Carolina federal court, after he pled guilty to a criminal wire fraud charge related to the misuse of escrow funds.

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Judge Upholds NY Law Blocking ICE Courthouse Arrests

By Andrea Keckley

New York beat back a federal lawsuit challenging the state's policy barring immigration officials from arresting people near its courthouses, after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice's preemption claims.

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NY AG James Blasts 'Outrageous Conduct' Behind Indictment

By Adrian Cruz

New York Attorney General Letitia A. James has told a Virginia federal court to dismiss the U.S. government's indictment of her, calling it "patently unconstitutional" and "outrageous conduct."

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McGuireWoods Is Delaying Defamation Case, NC Justices Told

By Hayley Fowler

The former CEO of a managed care organization who alleges McGuireWoods and one of its ex-partners defamed him during a press conference more than seven years ago has told North Carolina's top court not to take up the case, panning their petition as yet another stalling tactic.

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Brief

Missouri Federal Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool of the Western District of Missouri has given notice he will take senior status upon the confirmation of state Judge Megan Benton, whose nomination to the federal bench President Donald Trump announced Friday.

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CFPB's Gradler Takes Deputy Post Amid Agency Uncertainty

By Jon Hill

Geof Gradler, a former industry lobbyist who recently joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's front office, said that he is taking over as the agency's deputy director, a job that positions him as a potential successor to acting director Russell Vought.

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