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Appellate
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July 12, 2024
Loper Bright Is Shaking Up Dozens Of Regulatory Fights
In the two weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, the landmark decision has emerged as a live issue in dozens of administrative challenges, with federal courts already pausing agency regulations expanding LGBTQ+ rights in education and healthcare and with a wave of parties seeking to use the new decision to win their cases.
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July 12, 2024
10th Circ. Tosses Prof's Conviction In 'China Initiative' Case
A split Tenth Circuit panel has reversed the conviction of a former University of Kansas professor accused of hiding the fact that he was pursuing a job in China, ruling that prosecutors hadn't offered enough evidence to prove that his omission was material to any federal agency funding decision.
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July 12, 2024
NC Justices Asked To Take Up 'Double Odor' Pot Test Appeal
Police should not be able to establish probable cause to search a vehicle based on the smell of cannabis and a perceived "cover scent," such as cologne, according to a petition filed to the North Carolina Supreme Court which described this kind of conduct as a "stealthy encroachment" on constitutional rights.
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July 12, 2024
FirstEnergy Denied 6th Circ. Appeal In Doc Dispute
Scandal-plagued utility company FirstEnergy Corp. lost another attempt to shield internal investigation documents from a class of investors as well as its former CEO on Friday when an Ohio federal judge denied the company's request to appeal the dispute to the Sixth Circuit on a "logically fallacious" premise.
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July 12, 2024
Texas Assistant DA Blew Whistle A Day Late, Panel Finds
A Texas appeals court tossed a suit filed by a former assistant district attorney who says he was fired for blowing the whistle on alleged kickbacks and other illegal acts by his colleagues, finding in a Friday opinion that the whistleblower filed his complaint one day past the deadline.
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July 12, 2024
2nd Circ. Revives 'Whole Wheat Flour' Cracker Label Suit
Advertising which emphasized "organic whole wheat flour" in a box of crackers when white flour was the primary ingredient was misleading and "arguably false," according to the Second Circuit, which revived a lawsuit accusing Back to Nature Foods Co. of tricking its customers.
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July 12, 2024
CFPB Takes Its 5th Circ. Lumps To Advance Late Fee Rule Suit
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has told the Fifth Circuit that it won't appeal a three-judge panel's decision forcing it defend its $8 credit card late fee rule in Texas rather than Washington, D.C., a move that could expedite the agency's efforts to free the rule from a lower-court injunction.
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July 12, 2024
Split DC Circ. Backs NLRB Bargaining Order Against NY Hotel
A divided D.C. Circuit panel on Friday upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision finding that a Brooklyn hotel's operator illegally refused to bargain with a union over economics until noneconomic issues were settled, finding the board's bargaining order was proper under federal labor law.
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July 12, 2024
Conn. Justices Avoid Entanglement Issues In Rabbi Land Row
The Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday agreed that a property dispute between the Chabad Lubavitch of Western and Southern New England Inc. and a Stamford rabbi belongs before a private religious panel, settling the case on arbitration principles and declining to analyze broader entanglement questions.
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July 12, 2024
Texas DA Tells 5th Circ. He's Immune In Border Law Fight
Texas District Attorney Bill Hicks told the Fifth Circuit its June decision finding another district attorney immune from a suit over changes to the state's election code means he should be shielded from a challenge to the Lone Star State's migrant arrest law.
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July 12, 2024
DC Circ. Upholds FCC Approval Of SpaceX Satellite Plan
A D.C. Circuit panel Friday affirmed a Federal Communications Commission license authorizing SpaceX to deploy thousands of its Starlink satellites, rejecting challenges from satellite TV provider Dish Network LLC and advocacy group DarkSky International.
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July 12, 2024
Fed. Circ. Upholds Natera's Injunction In Cancer Test IP Fight
The Federal Circuit on Friday upheld a preliminary injunction barring NeoGenomics Laboratories Inc. from selling certain cancer tests while a North Carolina federal court decided whether they infringed Natera Inc. patents.
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July 12, 2024
Expect NCAA To Dig In Heels On Employee Status After Ruling
Even after Thursday's Third Circuit ruling clearing a path for college athletes to be considered employees, experts say the NCAA's record of litigating to the hilt on other athletes' rights matters portends a long road ahead before the issue is clarified.
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July 12, 2024
Fed. Circ. Probes Case With Apple Watch Import Ban At Stake
In a case that could lead to a U.S. International Trade Commission import ban on the Apple Watch amid a patent dispute with AliveCor, Federal Circuit judges asked both companies Friday why a patent office tribunal that invalidated the patents didn't see evidence from the ITC case.
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July 12, 2024
Texas Lethal Injections Criminal Matter, Says Appeals Court
A split Texas appeals court panel found that a state district court should have dismissed two death row inmates' suit because it did not have jurisdiction, with the majority saying Friday that any case seeking an injunction that could stay an execution falls under the jurisdiction of criminal courts.
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July 12, 2024
Texas Panel Revives Woman's Acupuncture Burn Suit
A Texas court of appeals revived a suit accusing an acupuncturist of providing negligent suction cup treatment that left a woman with second-degree burns, finding the woman should be provided additional time to fix her deficient medical expert report.
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July 12, 2024
Off The Bench: NCAA Loses, Favre Wobbles, NFL Fights Back
In this week's Off The Bench, the Third Circuit enlivens the debate over whether college athletes can be considered employees, the Fifth Circuit is skeptical of Brett Favre's defamation suit and the NFL disputes claims of racism.
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July 12, 2024
Apollo Seeks Chancery Toss Of Stockholder Pact Challenge
Pointing in part to a pending Delaware law that would allow corporate directors to cede some board powers to big stockholders, Apollo Global Management Inc. has asked a Delaware vice chancellor to dismiss a suit challenging its own stockholder pact.
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July 12, 2024
Conn. Justices Say Town Can Tax Hospital's Property
Personal property of a Connecticut hospital owned by Hartford HealthCare is taxable, the state Supreme Court said Friday, reversing a trial court opinion and ruling that Hartford's acquisition of the hospital negated a tax exemption for charitable entities.
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July 12, 2024
Payments To Ex-Wife Should Be Deductible, 11th Circ. Told
A Georgia man told the Eleventh Circuit on Friday that his payments to his ex-wife as part of a marital settlement should qualify as alimony and therefore be deductible from his federal income taxes, asking the court to reverse a U.S. Tax Court decision.
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July 12, 2024
11th Circ. Ends Widow's Crash Suit Against Trucking Broker
The widow of a man killed in a collision with a tractor trailer won't be able to press her negligent selection claim against the company that hired the trucker and his carrier after the Eleventh Circuit this week backed a district court's ruling that federal transportation law preempts her case.
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July 12, 2024
Zimmer Biomet Owes Despite Expired Patents, 7th Circ. Says
Zimmer Biomet Holdings shouldn't have stopped paying royalties on knee replacement devices it developed using an orthopedic surgeon's various patents after those patents expired, the Seventh Circuit said Friday, backing a lower court's decision affirming an arbitration ruling in favor of the surgeon's estate.
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July 12, 2024
6th Circ. Delays FCC's Net Neutrality Effective Date
The Sixth Circuit on Friday delayed the effective date of the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules by two weeks to give the court more time to consider an indefinite hold on the regulations during a legal challenge.
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July 12, 2024
Pa. Drive-In Dinged For Sleepovers In No-Campground Zone
A Pennsylvania drive-in movie theater's "overnight passes" for guests to stay after a late-night showing or for multiple days of a movie marathon effectively made the theater into a campground and ran afoul of township zoning ordinances, a state appellate court ruled Friday.
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July 12, 2024
Texas City Escapes Suit Over 2014 Toby Keith Concert
A state appeals court wrote that a south Texas city can escape a lawsuit brought by the promoters of a Toby Keith concert held at a city building, writing that the city didn't waive governmental immunity because the contract was verbal.
Expert Analysis
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Corp. Transparency Act Could Survive 11th Circ. Several Ways
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.
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Del. Match.com Ruling Maintains Precedent In Time Of Change
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.
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The Future Of BIPA Insurance Litigation After Visual Pak
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.
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Macquarie Ruling Raises The Bar For Securities Fraud Claims
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.
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Patent Lessons From 8 Federal Circuit Reversals In March
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.
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NC Rulings Show Bankruptcy Isn't Only For Insolvent Debtors
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.
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A Look At Ex Parte Seizures 8 Years Post-DTSA
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.
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Series
Whitewater Kayaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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10 Years After Alice, Predictability Debate Lingers
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.
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Cannabis Ruling Lights Path For Bankruptcy Protection
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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This Earth Day, Consider How Your Firm Can Go Greener
As Earth Day approaches, law firms and attorneys should consider adopting more sustainable practices to reduce their carbon footprint — from minimizing single-use plastics to purchasing carbon offsets for air travel — which ultimately can also reduce costs for clients, say M’Lynn Phillips and Lisa Walters at IMS Legal Strategies.
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Questions Persist After Ruling Skirts $925M TCPA Award Issue
After an Oregon federal court's recent Wakefield v. ViSalus ruling that the doctrine of constitutional avoidance precluded it from deciding whether a $925 million Telephone Consumer Protection Act damages award was constitutionally sound, further guidance is needed on when statutory damages violate due process, says Michael Klotz at O'Melveny.
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Discord Stock Case Toss Means Little For Fraud Defendants
A Texas federal court’s recent dismissal of fraud charges related to a "pump and dump" scheme on Discord is an outlier after the U.S. Supreme Court scrapped the right-to-control theory of fraud last year, and ultimately won't deter the government from pursuing routine securities prosecutions, says William Johnston at Bird Marella.
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Clarifying Legal Elements To Support A Genocide Claim At ICJ
Reporting on South Africa’s dispute against Israel in the International Court of Justice largely fails to clearly articulate what a case for genocide alleged in the context of war requires — a technical analysis that will evaluate several key factors, from the scale of the devastation to statements by officials, say Solomon Shinerock and Alex Bedrosyan at Lewis Baach.
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Policy Misrepresentations Carry Insurance Rescission Risks
The Second Circuit's recent decision in Medical Mutual v. Gnik, finding that material misrepresentation in a clinic's insurance applications warranted policy rescission, is a clear example of the far-reaching effects that misrepresentations can have and provides a reminder that policyholders should employ relatively straightforward steps to decrease risks, say attorneys at Hunton.