Appellate

  • June 24, 2024

    Willis' Plan To Prejudice Defendants Requires DQ, Trump Says

    Former President Donald Trump told the Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday that a trial court judge inaccurately applied the legal standard for forensic misconduct when he ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could continue her prosecution of him and his co-defendants in the Georgia presidential election interference case.

  • June 24, 2024

    5th Circ. Won't Revive Texas' Homemade Gun-Silencer Fight

    The Fifth Circuit refused Friday to revive a challenge by Texas residents and attorney general against federal laws regulating the manufacturing of firearm silencers, finding the residents lack standing, since vague intentions to make silencers aren't enough to establish injury, and the state can't voluntarily litigate its residents' personal claims.

  • June 24, 2024

    9th Circ. Upholds Fine For Fake News In $18B Chevron Case

    The Ninth Circuit has affirmed a $268,000 fine against a Seattle attorney for filing a fake newspaper article as a court exhibit in an attempt to bolster his clients' efforts to enforce a nearly $18 billion arbitral award against Chevron.

  • June 24, 2024

    Justices Will Weigh Liability Of Corporate Affiliates In TM Row

    The U.S. Supreme Court will review whether a real estate development company's corporate affiliates should be responsible for a $46.6 million trademark infringement judgment — even though they were not defendants — in a case attorneys said Monday could have ramifications beyond the Lanham Act.

  • June 24, 2024

    DC Circ. Affirms Verizon Win In Conspiracy Defamation Row

    The D.C. Circuit upheld the toss of a conservative commentator's defamation suit over a Yahoo News podcast that covered the 2016 killing of a Democratic National Committee staffer and the conspiracy theories the homicide produced, ruling that the commentator's allegations fell short of the actual malice threshold.

  • June 24, 2024

    Split 4th Circ. Panel Reopens DEA Applicant's Retaliation Suit

    The Fourth Circuit reinstated a lawsuit Monday accusing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of pulling a job offer after it learned the applicant had participated in a sexual harassment suit against the FBI, saying a trial court held the would-be special agent to too high of a standard.

  • June 24, 2024

    Justices End Irish Landowner's Fight Against $23M Clawback

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by Irish businessman Sean Dunne and his ex-wife Gayle Killilea to a Chapter 7 trustee's roughly $23 million avoidance action win, leaving intact a Connecticut jury verdict and a Second Circuit rejection of the onetime couple's claims.

  • June 24, 2024

    5th Circ. Weighs 'Binding Authority' Of Gulf Fishery Council

    A Fifth Circuit panel on Monday pushed back against the government's assertion that members of a council tasked with regulating fishing in federal waters do not count as federal officers, saying the council's ability to limit changes to federal rules "sounds like a legally binding authority."

  • June 24, 2024

    6th Circ. Backs University's Win In ADA Bias, Retaliation Suit

    The Sixth Circuit refused Monday to revive a former Western Michigan University employee's lawsuit claiming he was fired for requesting accommodations for his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ruling Congress didn't have the power to eliminate states' immunity from retaliation claims under federal disability law.

  • June 24, 2024

    Ill. Landowners Challenge FERC Moves On $7B Power Line

    Illinois residents, farmers and landowners launched a fresh challenge to the $7 billion Grain Belt Express high-voltage power line, telling the D.C. Circuit that when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved an amended negotiated rate authority, it ignored clean energy giant Invenergy's unsanctioned purchase of the project in 2020.

  • June 24, 2024

    9th Circ. Won't Reconsider Or Sanction In Kari Lake Vote Suit

    The Ninth Circuit has rejected Arizona Republican Kari Lake's attempt to revive her 2022 suit over the state's voting machines, issuing a two-sentence order that also rejects a sanctions bid Maricopa County officials filed in response to the former gubernatorial candidate's attempt to restart her failed suit.

  • June 24, 2024

    Illinois, Other States Back FTC Bid To Affirm Intuit Ad Ruling

    Illinois, along with 20 other states and the District of Columbia, defended the Federal Trade Commission in tax software giant Intuit's Fifth Circuit constitutional challenge to the agency's findings that the company engaged in deceptive advertising, saying in an amicus brief that the FTC's conclusion was correct.

  • June 24, 2024

    Colo. Justices Send Back 'Rare' Atty Conflict Criminal Case

    The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday found that an appeals court panel used an outdated analysis when reversing the sexual assault conviction of a man because his defense attorney was being prosecuted at the same time by the same district attorney's office, remanding the case for another look.

  • June 24, 2024

    Justices Undo Terror Victims' Win, Citing Twitter Decision

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday swept aside a D.C. Circuit ruling that threatened to expose major pharmaceutical companies to liability for terrorist attacks that injured or killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers and civilians in Iraq.

  • June 24, 2024

    LA Schools Says Pseudoscience Infected 9th Circ. Vax Ruling

    The Los Angeles Unified School District said Friday that a split Ninth Circuit panel leaned on pseudoscience when ruling that a rescinded employee COVID-19 vaccination mandate implicated the right of district employees to refuse medical treatment, urging an en banc panel to correct the "fatally flawed" decision.

  • June 24, 2024

    Mars Beats Dove Chocolate False Ad Suit At 9th Circ.

    The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal Monday of a proposed class action claiming that a Mars subsidiary falsely advertised its Dove dark chocolate products as being made without using child slave labor or contributing to rainforest deforestation, finding that the candy packages' "Rainforest Alliance Certified farms" labeling isn't misleading.

  • June 24, 2024

    Mich. Justices Take Up Young Adults' Life Sentence Challenge

    Michigan's top court will weigh whether the state's mandatory life sentence for murder is unconstitutional when applied to young adults, after 19- and 20-year-olds argued that a 2022 precedent banning the punishment for 18-year-olds should extend to them.

  • June 24, 2024

    8th Circ. Sides With Minn. DOT In Injured Worker's ADA Suit

    The Eighth Circuit on Monday backed the Minnesota Department of Transportation in a suit by a former mechanic who alleged the agency discriminated against him after an on-the-job injury, finding MNDOT reasonably showed that he could not do the work of his prior position.

  • June 24, 2024

    Pipe Co. Seeks Full Fed. Circ. Redo Of Thai Pipe Duty Review

    A pipe company asked the full Federal Circuit to unwind a panel ruling broadening a decades-old anti-dumping duty order on Thai pipe, saying the panel mistakenly expanded the levy to cover more imports than allowed under federal trade law.

  • June 24, 2024

    9th Circ. Asks Wash. Justices If Uber Had Duty To Slain Driver

    The Ninth Circuit urged Washington's highest court Monday to determine whether Uber had a duty to use reasonable care to protect one of its drivers who was murdered in a carjacking, in an order that paused an appeal brought by the driver's family.

  • June 24, 2024

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Ex-Uber Driver's Bias Suit

    An Asian man who previously drove for Uber didn't provide enough information in his proposed class action to support his claim that the ride-hailing platform's use of customer ratings when making decisions to drop drivers had a "significant disparate impact" on non-white drivers, the Ninth Circuit said Monday.

  • June 24, 2024

    Wage Law Doesn't Apply To $32M In PPE Sales, NJ Panel Says

    An employee who sold more than $32 million in personal protective equipment during three months of the COVID-19 pandemic is not entitled to $1.3 million in commissions under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law, because the sales did not fall under her normal role and are instead "supplementary incentives," a state appeals panel ruled Monday.

  • June 24, 2024

    DC Circ. Backs Gov't Contractor Win In Fight With Ex-Worker

    The D.C. Circuit has backed a ruling that a former senior technical manager for government contractor Apprio Inc. breached a proprietary information agreement giving the rights of certain software he created over to the company.

  • June 24, 2024

    Ex-NJ Corrections Official Can't Revive Demotion Bias Suit

    A New Jersey state appellate court on Monday refused to reinstate a lawsuit against the state's Department of Corrections alleging it demoted a former deputy commissioner because she was in her 60s and underwent a hip replacement, saying the agency's commissioner was free to make personnel decisions.

  • June 24, 2024

    Julie Chrisley To Be Resentenced, But Convictions Stand

    The Eleventh Circuit on Friday upheld the tax evasion and fraud convictions of former reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, but ordered a Georgia federal judge to resentence Julie Chrisley after finding that the judge failed to fully explore her discrete role in the $36 million scheme.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Playing Hockey Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Nearly a lifetime of playing hockey taught me the importance of avoiding burnout in all aspects of life, and the game ultimately ended up providing me with the balance I needed to maintain success in my legal career, says John Riccione at Taft.

  • ESG Challenges In Focus After Sierra Club Opposes SEC Rule

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    The Sierra Club's recent objection to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosures for investors presents an unusual — pro-disclosure — legal challenge and an opportunity to take a close look at the varying critiques of ESG regulations, say Colin Pohlman, and Jane Luxton and Paul Kisslinger at Lewis Brisbois.

  • Opinion

    High Court Should Settle Circuit Split On Risk Disclosures

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    The U.S. Supreme Court should grant the petition for writ of certiorari in the Facebook case to resolve a growing circuit split concerning when risk disclosures can be misleading under federal securities laws, and its decision should align with the intent of Congress and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, says Richard Zelichov at DLA Piper.

  • Opinion

    Why Supreme Court Should Allow Repatriation Tax To Stand

    If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't reject the taxpayers' misguided claims in Moore v. U.S. that the mandatory repatriation tax is unconstitutional, it could wreak havoc on our system of taxation and result in a catastrophic loss of revenue for the government, say Christina Mason and Theresa Balducci at Herrick Feinstein.

  • For Lawyers, Pessimism Should Be A Job Skill, Not A Life Skill

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    A pessimistic mindset allows attorneys to be effective advocates for their clients, but it can come with serious costs for their personal well-being, so it’s crucial to exercise strategies that produce flexible optimism and connect lawyers with their core values, says Krista Larson at Stinson.

  • High Court's Jan. 6 Rioter Case May Have Wide Ripple Effects

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    The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear oral arguments in Fischer v. United States, a case that will determine whether a law enacted after the Enron scandal can be used to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters, and could affect the government’s ability to charge those who impede a range of official proceedings, say Brook Dooley and Sara Fitzpatrick at Keker Van Nest.

  • 5th Circ. Clarifies What Is And Isn't A 'New Use' Of PFAS

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    The Fifth Circuit's March 21 decision in Inhance Technologies v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, preventing the EPA from regulating existing uses of PFAS under "significant new use" provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act, provides industry with much-needed clarity, say Joseph Schaeffer and Sloane Wildman at Babst Calland.

  • CORRECTED: Endoscope Patent Case Offers Guidance On Right To Repair

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    An Alabama federal court's decision in Karl Storz v. IMS reaffirmed that product owners have broad rights to repair or modify their property as they see fit, highlighting the parameters of the right to repair in the context of patent infringement, say Dustin Weeks and Dabney Carr at Troutman Pepper. Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article and headline attributed the Karl Storz ruling to the wrong court. The error has been corrected.

  • Trump's NY Civil Fraud Trial Spotlights Long-Criticized Law

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    A New York court’s recent decision holding former President Donald Trump liable for fraud brought old criticisms of the state law used against him back into the limelight — including its strikingly broad scope and its major departures from the traditional elements of common law fraud, say Mark Kelley and Lois Ahn at MoloLamken.

  • How A Motion Before Justices May Help Trump Beyond Court

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    Even if Donald Trump loses his presidential immunity claim before the U.S. Supreme Court, the delay created by the motion may mean a trial can't be completed before the November election, says Paul Tuchmann at Wiggin and Dana.

  • Opinion

    $175M Bond Refiled By Trump Is Still Substantively Flawed

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    The corrected $175 million bond posted by former President Donald Trump on Thursday to stave off enforcement of the New York attorney general's fraud judgment against him remains substantively and procedurally flawed, as well as inadequately secured, says Adam Pollock of Pollock Cohen.

  • Opinion

    Requiring Leave To File Amicus Briefs Is A Bad Idea

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    A proposal to amend the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure that would require parties to get court permission before filing federal amicus briefs would eliminate the long-standing practice of consent filing and thereby make the process less open and democratic, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation and DRI Center.

  • NJ Ruling Offers Road Map To Fight Dishonored Check Claims

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    As ATM and mobile check deposits become more common, a New Jersey state appellate court’s recent ruling in Triffin v. Neptune shows that issuers can rely on copies of checks to defend against claims that checks were wrongfully dishonored after being electronically deposited, say attorneys at Sherman Atlas.

  • 4 Ways To Motivate Junior Attorneys To Bring Their Best

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    As Gen Z and younger millennial attorneys increasingly express dissatisfaction with their work and head for the exits, the lawyers who manage them must understand and attend to their needs and priorities to boost engagement and increase retention, says Stacey Schwartz at Katten.

  • A Look At Recent Challenges To SEC's Settlement 'Gag Rule'

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    Though they have been unsuccessful so far, opponents of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's so-called gag rule, which prevents defendants from denying allegations when settling with the SEC, are becoming increasingly vocal and filing more challenges in recent years, say Mike Blankenship and Regina Maze at Winston & Strawn.

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