Appellate

  • July 02, 2024

    Bond-Rigging Suit Revived Over Judge's Wife's Stock Conflict

    The Second Circuit on Tuesday revived a proposed class action accusing big banks of rigging corporate bonds, ruling that the New York federal judge who previously dismissed the suit should have recused himself due to his wife's ownership of Bank of America stock.

  • July 02, 2024

    Fla. Bar Drops Kennedys Ethics Case Over Unlawful Practice

    The Florida Bar has dropped an ethics complaint against Kennedys CMK and three of its attorneys over allegations the firm improperly presented the lawyers as permitted to practice law in the Sunshine State.

  • July 02, 2024

    Mich. Justices Pass Up 'Most Famous' Atty's Malpractice Case

    The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place an appellate ruling that said comments by self-proclaimed "America's most famous trial lawyer" during a press conference can be used in a malpractice suit brought against him by a former client.

  • July 02, 2024

    Ga. Justices Say Atty Ethics Rules Only Apply To Legal Work

    A Georgia lawyer did not violate attorney ethics rules when she allegedly mishandled trust funds since she was managing those funds only as a fiduciary and not as a lawyer, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

  • July 02, 2024

    Sentencing Relief Law Gets Another Supreme Court Look

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider whether a sentencing reduction provision in the First Step Act can apply to defendants whose sentences prior to the 2018 law are vacated and who are resentenced with the statute in effect.

  • July 02, 2024

    Top Federal Tax Cases Of 2024: Midyear Report

    In the first half of the year, the U.S. Supreme Court torpedoed the Chevron doctrine of judicial deference to federal agencies and affirmed the denial of a tax refund to a business owner's estate related to a life insurance payout, while the U.S. Tax Court reversed itself regarding a rule for conservation easements. Here, Law360 reviews federal court decisions from the past six months that tax attorneys should know.

  • July 02, 2024

    Thomas Warns Of 'Danger In Delay' In Snapchat Abuse Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to review whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes platforms from lawsuits based on their own misconduct, rejecting a petition from a man who alleges that his high school teacher used Snapchat to send him sexually explicit material when he was 15.

  • July 02, 2024

    Thomas Laments Cert Denial In OSHA Standard Setting Fight

    The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it will not review the Sixth Circuit's split decision that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's authority to set workplace safety standards is constitutional, although Justice Clarence Thomas warned against the "far-reaching" grant of that power to an agency.

  • July 02, 2024

    Trump's NY Sentencing Pushed To Sept. After Immunity Ruling

    A New York judge on Tuesday delayed Donald Trump's criminal sentencing from July 11 until Sept. 18 to give prosecutors and the former president's attorneys time to argue over whether the U.S. Supreme Court's immunity decision vacates his conviction.

  • July 02, 2024

    Supreme Court Won't Hear Ill. Gun Ban Dispute

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review a Seventh Circuit decision upholding laws by the state of Illinois and a Chicago suburb banning the sale of assault weapons.

  • July 02, 2024

    Justices Order Post-Rahimi Review For Felon Gun Ban

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered lower courts to review a series of cases that challenged as unconstitutional federal gun restrictions, including those for felons and drug users, in light of its ruling this term that allowed bans for domestic abusers.

  • July 02, 2024

    High Court Agrees To Review FDA's Flavored E-Cig Denial

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's petition to review a Fifth Circuit decision overturning its denial of a flavored e-cigarette marketing application.

  • July 02, 2024

    Justices Will Hear Texas' Porn Site Age Check Law

    The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case challenging a Texas law that requires people accessing websites containing explicit material to provide age verification before they can see the content, the nation's high court said Tuesday.

  • July 02, 2024

    Justices Skip Highland Capital Ch. 11 Plan Look After Purdue

    The Supreme Court declined to weigh in Tuesday on the exculpations in the Chapter 11 plan from venture capital firm Highland Capital after parties in the case argued that more clarity was needed following the high court's recent rejection of third-party claims releases in the Purdue Pharma reorganization.

  • July 02, 2024

    High Court Vacates Tribes' Legislative Privilege Dispute

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated and remanded two North Dakota tribes' challenge to a lower court's ruling that held the state's lawmakers are immune from civil discovery in a voting rights lawsuit, with instructions to the Eighth Circuit to dismiss the case as moot.

  • July 02, 2024

    Justices To Review Relief For Self-Deportation Failure

    The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review if noncitizens who fail to leave voluntarily within 60 days of a deportation order can try reopening their removal cases when the 60th day falls on a weekend or federal holiday.

  • July 01, 2024

    High Court's 1-2 Punch Sets Up Long-Standing Regs For KO

    By ending its term with a stinging combination against federal agencies, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative bloc left behind a bruised bureaucracy and a regulatory system that's now vulnerable to a barrage of incoming attacks.

  • July 01, 2024

    Trump Seeks To Vacate NY Verdict, Citing Immunity Decision

    Former President Donald Trump's attorneys asked the New York state judge overseeing his hush money case to delay sentencing and consider setting aside the jury's guilty verdict in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity Monday.

  • July 01, 2024

    What To Know: The High Court's Ruling On Social Media Regs

    Rather than settling a circuit split over state laws curbing content moderation on the largest social media platforms, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday remanded the cases — a decision many attorneys and First Amendment experts are viewing as a win for free speech online.

  • July 01, 2024

    High Court Test Could Reshape Ga. Trump Case, Experts Say

    The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts will likely reshape the criminal case against him in Georgia, although Peach State courts will have to grapple with how to test which of his alleged actions were official.

  • July 01, 2024

    9th Circ. Cites Led Zeppelin In Affirming 'SmartBiz' TM Loss

    The Ninth Circuit on Monday affirmed a trial loss by the user of the "SmartBiz" trademark against Collins Cash, the user of the "Smart Business Funding" mark, citing the circuit's own ruling that sided with Led Zeppelin in a copyright dispute to find the lower court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to give the plaintiff's requested jury instruction.

  • July 01, 2024

    'Science Guy' Bill Nye Can't Revive Disney Royalty Fight

    A California appellate court backed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by famed 'Science Guy' Bill Nye claiming The Walt Disney Co. cheated him out of millions for his educational television show, saying Monday the trial judge didn't err by deciding the accounting dispute instead of sending it to a jury.

  • July 01, 2024

    FCC Urged To Delay Broadcast Reporting Rule During Lawsuit

    Religious broadcasters and advocacy groups are urging the Federal Communications Commission to halt collection of workforce race and gender demographics at television and radio broadcasters while a challenge to a reinstated rule proceeds in the Fifth Circuit.

  • July 01, 2024

    Juror Didn't Taint Trial Before Removal, Colo. Justices Say

    The Colorado Supreme Court said Monday that a trial judge's rejection of a Black defendant's challenge to a juror for alleged racial bias did not infringe on the defendant's rights, according to a majority decision that concluded the error was harmless because the juror was ultimately sent home.

  • July 01, 2024

    Nev. Supreme Court Won't Give Gruden 2nd Try Against NFL

    The Nevada Supreme Court will not rehear a decision to send to arbitration former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden's defamation lawsuit against the NFL, a three-member court panel ruled Monday.

Expert Analysis

  • What Have We Learned In The Year Since Warhol?

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    In the almost year since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, which was widely seen as potentially chilling to creative endeavors, seven subsequent decisions — while illuminating to some extent — do not indicate any trend toward a radical departure from prior precedents in fair use cases, says ​​​​​​​Jose Sariego at Bilzin Sumberg.

  • The Practical Effects Of Justices' Arbitration Exemption Ruling

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries, that a transportation worker need not work in the transportation industry to be exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act, may negatively affect employers' efforts to mitigate class action risk via arbitration agreement enforcement, say Charles Schoenwetter and Eric Olson at Bowman and Brooke.

  • Binance Ruling Spotlights Muddled Post-Morrison Landscape

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    The Second Circuit's recent decision in Williams v. Binance highlights the judiciary's struggle to apply the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison v. National Australia Bank ruling to digital assets, and illustrates how Morrison's territorial limits on the federal securities laws have become convoluted, say Andrew Rhys Davies and Jessica Lewis at WilmerHale.

  • Practical Pointers After Fed. Circ. Double-Patenting Decision

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    With the Federal Circuit recently denying a full court review of In re: Cellect, a decision regarding obviousness-type double-patenting, affected patent family holders should evaluate their rights through both patent prosecution and future litigation lenses to minimize risks, say Austin Lorch and Jeff Wolfson at Haynes Boone.

  • Sorting Circuit Split On Foreign Arbitration Treaty's Authority

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    A circuit court split over whether the New York Convention supersedes state law barring arbitration in certain disputes — a frequent issue in insurance matters — has left lower courts to rely on conflicting decisions, but the doctrine of self-executing treaties makes it clear that the convention overrules state law, says Gary Shaw at Pillsbury.

  • Corp. Transparency Act Could Survive 11th Circ. Several Ways

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    If the Eleventh Circuit upholds an Alabama federal court’s injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act, the anti-money laundering law could persist as a narrower version that could moot some constitutional challenges, but these remedies would likely generate additional regulatory or statutory ambiguities that would result in further litigation, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

  • Del. Match.com Ruling Maintains Precedent In Time Of Change

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    Despite speculation that the Delaware Supreme Court could drive away corporations if it lowered the bar for business judgment review in its Match.com stockholder ruling, the court broke its recent run of controversial precedent-busting decisions by upholding, and arguably strengthening, minority stockholder protections against controller coercion, say Renee Zaytsev and Marc Ayala at Boies Schiller.

  • The Future Of BIPA Insurance Litigation After Visual Pak

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    A recent Illinois appellate court decision, National Fire Insurance v. Visual Pak, may have altered the future of insurance litigation under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act by diametrically opposing a prominent Seventh Circuit ruling that found insurance coverage for violations of the act, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

  • Macquarie Ruling Raises The Bar For Securities Fraud Claims

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week in Macquarie Infrastructure v. Moab Partners — holding that a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule does not forbid omissions in company disclosures unless they render other statements false — is a major setback for plaintiffs pursuing securities fraud claims against corporations, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • Patent Lessons From 8 Federal Circuit Reversals In March

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    A number of Federal Circuit patent decisions last month reversed or vacated underlying rulings, providing guidance regarding the definiteness of a claim that include multiple limitations of different scopes, the importance of adequate jury instruction, the proper scope of the precedent, and more, say Denise De Mory and Li Guo at Bunsow De Mory.

  • NC Rulings Show Bankruptcy Isn't Only For Insolvent Debtors

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    Two recent rulings from a North Carolina bankruptcy court show that lack of financial distress is not a requirement for bankruptcy protection, particularly in the Fourth Circuit, but these types of cases can still be dismissed for other reasons, say Stuart Gordon and Alexandria Vath at Rivkin Radler.

  • A Look At Ex Parte Seizures 8 Years Post-DTSA

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    In the eight years since the Defend Trade Secrets Act was enacted, not much has changed for jurisprudence on ex parte seizures, but a few seminal rulings show that there still isn’t a bright line on what qualifies as extraordinary circumstances warranting a seizure, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • Series

    Whitewater Kayaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Whether it's seeing clients and their issues from a new perspective, or staying nimble in a moment of intense challenge, the lessons learned from whitewater kayaking transcend the rapids of a river and prepare attorneys for the courtroom and beyond, says Matthew Kent at Alston & Bird.

  • 10 Years After Alice, Predictability Debate Lingers

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    A decade after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Alice ruling, critics continue to argue that the subject matter eligibility framework it established yields inconsistent results, but that contention is disproved by affirmance data from the Federal Circuit, district courts and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, say Dennis Abdelnour and David Thomas at Honigman.

  • Cannabis Ruling Lights Path For Bankruptcy Protection

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    A recent Massachusetts bankruptcy appellate court ruling in Blumsack v. Harrington leaves the door open for those employed in the cannabis industry to seek bankruptcy relief where certain conditions are met, but rescheduling marijuana as a Schedule III drug may complicate matters, say Jane Haviland and Kathryn Droumbakis at Mintz.

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