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Appellate
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October 16, 2024
9th Circ. Revives Mexican Dad's Bid To Challenge Removal
The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday affirmed an immigration judge's decision denying a Mexican citizen's cancellation of removal bid, but ruled that the Board of Immigration Appeals' application of an incorrect standard for reopening the father's removal proceedings warranted a remand.
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October 16, 2024
Justices Torn On Interpretation Of Veterans Benefits Law
U.S. Supreme Court justices questioned Wednesday whether two veterans expected more than legally required from a lower court that only granted limited review of the denial of their disability benefits claims, while challenging the government's denial in equal measure.
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October 16, 2024
Photog Tells 9th Circ. Miles Davis Tattoo Was Not Fair Use
A photographer wants the Ninth Circuit to undo a California federal jury's finding that cleared celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D of claims she infringed a copyrighted photo of Miles Davis that he took, saying she failed to adequately show fair use.
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October 16, 2024
2nd Circ. Scrutinizes Conn. Restrictions On AR-15s
A Second Circuit panel put the phrase "dangerous and unusual" under a microscope Wednesday as three judges considered dual challenges to Connecticut's post-Sandy Hook bans on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines, working to parse out whether the state's restrictions are allowed under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
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October 16, 2024
Ex-Davis Polk Atty Drops Appeal Of Bias Verdict Loss
A former Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP associate on Tuesday dropped his appeal of a jury verdict clearing the firm and two lawyers of liability in a suit alleging he was fired in retaliation for airing concerns about racial bias and diversity.
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October 16, 2024
11th Circ. Says No Claim For Taking Until Permit Is Denied
The Eleventh Circuit ruled Wednesday that Fane Lozman — houseboat owner, activist and thorn in the side of the Riviera Beach, Florida, city government — cannot yet bring his claims for a regulatory taking of his property against the city because he has not applied for a permit or zoning variance.
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October 16, 2024
En Banc DC Circ. Will Revisit Campaign Finance Appeal
The full D.C. Circuit will revisit an appeal implicating the court's authority to review the Federal Election Commission's decisions on campaign finance complaints when those decisions rest on commissioners' so-called prosecutorial discretion.
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October 16, 2024
Banks Ditch Exchange's Boycott Conspiracy Suit At 2nd Circ.
The Second Circuit on Wednesday rejected a small trading exchange's effort to revive its claims that several major banks conspired to shut it out of the credit default swap market, saying the exchange failed to plausibly allege that the banks' conduct was the result of an unlawful agreement or conspiracy.
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October 16, 2024
5th Circ. Pauses Block Of Texas Election Law
The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday pressed pause on a San Antonio judge's order blocking part of a controversial Texas election law, writing that a change in law less than three weeks before voters will cast their ballots will cause undue confusion during the election.
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October 16, 2024
Teacher's Defamation Suit Can Proceed, NJ Court Says
A New Jersey teacher's claim that an Olympic fencer defamed her in social media posts about an incident in class involving a student's hijab can move forward, a state appellate court ruled Tuesday, finding the teacher adequately detailed facts that could constitute actual malice.
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October 16, 2024
Monsanto's Appellate Bid To Stop Seattle PCB Trial Flops
A Washington appellate commissioner won't overrule a lower court's decision to forge ahead with a pending Monsanto PCB poisoning trial, rejecting the company's request to pause until the state Supreme Court decides a similar case, concluding that she would be improperly "substituting" her judgment for the trial court's by pausing the case.
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October 16, 2024
NC Panel Won't Reignite Duke Energy Case Over House Fire
A split panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals declined to revive a liability suit brought against Duke Energy Corp. and a contractor it hired to install new meters at its customers' homes after one of those contractors allegedly caused a bed to catch fire leading to $130,000 in damage.
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October 16, 2024
Mich. Panel Sinks Inventor's Atty Malpractice Appeal
A Michigan appellate panel has held that the inventor of a swim training device did not prove he would have built a successful custom swim paddle business had his attorney secured him a patent, affirming the dismissal of a legal malpractice suit against the inventor's patent attorney and firm.
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October 16, 2024
Justices Question EPA's Authority For 'Vague' SF Water Permit
The U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments on Wednesday appeared genuinely torn about what to make of San Francisco's challenge to a Clean Water Act permit issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which the city argues is impermissibly vague and difficult to comply with.
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October 16, 2024
Justices Won't Review Tax Scam Co-Conspirator's Sentence
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the more than eight-year prison sentence for one of the men who conspired with a Canfield, Ohio defense attorney to perpetrate a tax refund scam that defrauded the U.S. Internal Revenue Service out of $1.3 million.
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October 16, 2024
Fraud Probe Spoils Crop Insurance Case, 6th Circ. Rules
A Sixth Circuit panel on Tuesday affirmed dismissal of two Michigan farmers' claims against the federal government and a private crop insurer over claims of loss that have been stuck in limbo during a crop-insurance fraud investigation.
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October 16, 2024
NY Urges Sotomayor Not To Block Broadband Price Cap Law
New York is fighting the telecommunications industry's effort to halt its new law capping broadband prices for low-income residents, telling U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to reject a petition that would stay the law's implementation pending a forthcoming certiorari bid challenging the law.
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October 16, 2024
AAM, Alvogen Back Sun Pharma In Double Patenting Row
A trade group representing generic-drug makers, a generic-drug company and a plant-breeding technology business have all thrown their support behind Sun Pharmaceutical Industries' bid for the full Federal Circuit to take a closer look at the issue of double patenting.
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October 16, 2024
Fed. Circ. Restores Patent Fight Between LED Light Cos.
A small Utah company that claims to have developed novel LED lights persuaded the Federal Circuit on Wednesday to keep its patent lawsuit alive after a Los Angeles judge used an "improper construction" of words to allow a different company that sells light bulbs to slip out of the suit.
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October 16, 2024
Fed. Circ. Affirms Samsung's PTAB Wins Over LED Patents
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision to invalidate the vast majority of two Lynk Labs LED patents, but wasn't ready to address a larger issue from a third, related case.
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October 16, 2024
Trump Mostly Denied 'Speculative' Jan. 6 Document Bids
A D.C. federal judge on Wednesday largely denied Donald Trump's request for documents from a slew of federal agencies as he defends against election interference charges, calling the motion mostly "speculation."
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October 16, 2024
EPA Defends Rejection Of Smog Rule Reconsideration Pleas
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the D.C. Circuit it reasonably rejected petitions by U.S. Steel Corp. and Hybar LLC to reconsider its so-called Good Neighbor Plan to curb cross-state ozone pollution after courts stayed the rule for some affected states.
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October 16, 2024
DC Circ. Urged To Let Feds Fix Pipeline Safety Rules
A pipeline industry group urged a D.C. Circuit panel to reconsider its August decision throwing out a handful of new safety standards for gas transmission pipelines, warning that federal regulators' implementation of the court's mandate could lead to millions of dollars of unnecessary repair costs for pipeline operators.
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October 16, 2024
Bipartisan Judgeships Bill In House Keeps Gaining Support
A Republican on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday urged the House to pass his bipartisan bill to add 66 new and temporary judgeships to address the "overwhelming caseloads" in the federal courts.
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October 16, 2024
Prosecutor's Office Seeks Order For NJ AG To Defend It
The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office urged the New Jersey appellate court Wednesday to order the state attorney general's office to defend and indemnify it in a lawsuit stemming from an internal affairs investigation of a police official.
Expert Analysis
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A Look At The PTAB's Assessment Of Prior Art Exceptions
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's approach over the last 10 years to assessing Section 102(b) prior art exceptions reveals a few trends, including that evidence of common ownership may have a higher likelihood of successfully disqualifying prior art under Section 102(b)(2)(C) at the institution stage, say Louis Panzica and David Holman at Sterne Kessler.
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Series
Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers
Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.
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5th Circ. Shows Admin Rules Can Survive Court Post-Chevron
The Fifth Circuit's textual analysis of the Fair Labor Standards Act, contributing to its recent affirming of the U.S. Department of Labor’s authority to set an overtime exemption salary threshold, suggests administrative laws can survive post-Chevron challenges, say Jessi Thaller-Moran and Erin Barker at Brooks Pierce.
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Open Questions In Unsettled Geofence Warrant Landscape
The Fourth and Fifth Circuits recently reached radically divergent conclusions about the constitutionality of geofence warrants, creating an uncertain landscape in which defendants should assert and preserve the full range of conventional Fourth Amendment challenges, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.
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Applying High Court's Domestic Corruption Rulings To FCPA
After the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the domestic corruption statutes in three decisions over the past year and a half, it’s worth evaluating whether these rulings may have an impact on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement, and if attorneys can use the court’s reasoning in international bribery cases, says James Koukios at MoFo.
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Bid Protest Spotlight: Debriefings, Timeliness, Documentation
James Tucker at MoFo examines three recent decisions from the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims concerning an agency's decision not to hold post-award discussions, a timeliness trap in certain Federal Supply Schedule procurements and the importance of providing contemporaneous documentation in price-evaluation protests.
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Conn. Court Split May Lead To Vertical Forum Shopping
As shown by a recent ruling in State v. Exxon Mobil, Connecticut state and federal courts are split on personal jurisdiction, and until the Connecticut Supreme Court steps in, parties may be incentivized to forum shop, causing foreign entities to endure costly litigation and uncertain liability, says Matthew Gibbons at Shipman & Goodwin.
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
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Fla. Insurer-Breach Cases Split On Unrepaired Property Issue
A Florida appellate court's recent decision in Universal v. Qureshi is directly at odds with a 2020 decision from another Florida appellate court, and raises important questions for policyholders and insurers about the proper measure of damages in breach claims involving unrepaired property, say Andrea DeField and Yaniel Abreu at Hunton.
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Revisiting The Crime-Fraud Exception After Key Trump Cases
Evidence issues in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and classified documents cases involving former President Donald Trump offer an opportunity to restudy elements and implications of the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine, noting the courts' careful scrutiny of these matters, say Robert Hoff and Paul Tuchmann at Wiggin and Dana.
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Enviro Policy Trends That Will Continue Beyond The Election
Come October in a presidential election year, the policy world feels like a winner-take-all scenario, with the outcome of the vote determining how or even whether we are regulated — but there are several key ongoing trends that will continue to drive environmental regulation regardless of the election results, say J. Michael Showalter and Samuel Rasche at ArentFox Schiff.
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2 High Court Securities Cases Could Clarify Pleading Rules
In granting certiorari in a pair of securities fraud cases against Facebook and Nvidia, respectively, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its intention to align interpretations of the heightened pleading standard under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act amid its uneven application among the circuit courts, say attorneys at V&E.
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Opinion
Failure To Use Apportionment Has Distorted Patent Damages
Apportionment is the solution to the problem of inflated patent infringement damages, and courts should return to focusing on the smallest saleable unit as the starting point for apportionment analysis, say William Lee at WilmerHale and Mark Lemley at Stanford Law School.
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Series
Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.
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A Look At Recent Case Law On Expedited Judgment In NY
A number of recent New York state court decisions clarify and refine the contours surrounding Civil Practice Law and Rule 3213, providing landlords, lenders and other payees guidance on how to seek accelerated judgment in certain litigation, says Alexander Lycoyannis at Holland & Knight.