Appellate

March 10, 2025
Treasury's CTA Halt Doesn't Justify Block, Feds Tell 5th Circ.

The U.S. Treasury Department halting enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act on domestic entities doesn't add justification to a nationwide block on the law because it's a valid exercise of Congress' powers to regulate commerce, taxes, foreign affairs and national security, the U.S. government told the Fifth Circuit.
March 10, 2025
11th Circ. Affirms FCC Ownership Ruling, But Scraps Penalty

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a Federal Communications Commission finding that Gray Television broke ownership consolidation rules when it bought a CBS affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska, but vacated a $518,283 penalty against the broadcast company, saying the agency failed to serve Gray proper notice on an "egregiousness" finding.
March 10, 2025
4th Circ. Reverses $10M Coverage Cap For Aluminum Co.

The Fourth Circuit on Monday reversed a lower court's ruling capping an aluminum supplier's total recovery for losses related to a fire at $10 million, saying a molten material endorsement in the company's all-risk policies is ambiguous.
March 10, 2025
Colo. Proposal Seeks Taxpayer Votes On New State Fees

Colorado voters could decide whether to require future votes to approve new state fees and other charges to fund major state enterprises under a pair of proposed initiatives with titles approved by a state board.
March 10, 2025
Trump Tells 9th Circ. To Undo Birthright Citizenship Injunction

President Donald Trump urged the Ninth Circuit to undo a Washington federal court's injunction on his executive order limiting birthright citizenship, saying children born to noncitizens in the United States do not fall within the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause.
March 10, 2025
Fed. Circ. Skeptical Of USPTO's Refusal To Register F-Word TM

A Federal Circuit panel appeared skeptical of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's reasoning for rejecting an application to register the F-word as a mark because of its widespread use, with one judge telling the government's attorney a couple of times during arguments Monday, "I don't understand what you're saying."
March 10, 2025
High Court Will Review Colo.'s Conversion Therapy Ban

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will review a challenge to Colorado's ban on licensed therapists providing conversion therapy to transgender minors, in a case that asks whether the state's law is a permissible regulation of professional conduct or an unconstitutional restriction of speech.
March 10, 2025
Colo. Justices To Weigh Attys' Duties When Borrowing Claims

Colorado justices will consider if and when attorneys can borrow claims from other lawsuits and still satisfy their personal duty to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" under professional rules, according to an order on Monday agreeing to hear a telecommunications company's challenge to a stockholder suit.
March 10, 2025
Colo. Court Affirms Property Tax Valuation For Partial Build

A partly built commercial building in Colorado was properly valued by a county board of equalization, as the state doesn't have an exemption for partial builds, a state appeals court ruled.
March 10, 2025
Fed. Circ. Won't Pause Teva Patent Delisting For Appeal

The Federal Circuit denied on Friday Israeli drugmaker Teva Pharmaceuticals' bid to keep an injunction ordering it to remove its inhaler patents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book on hold pending its appeal of the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
March 10, 2025
Justices To Weigh If Del. Expert Law Applies In Federal Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review whether federal courts must apply a Delaware state law requiring an expert affidavit for all medical malpractice complaints.
March 10, 2025
Justices Reject Red-State Bid To End State Climate Torts

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a request from red states to stop climate change torts against fossil fuel companies brought by blue-state governments.
March 10, 2025
High Court Turns Down Firefighter's Religious Bias Case

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a religious discrimination case from a Christian fire chief who said he was fired for his beliefs, leaving in place a Ninth Circuit decision that sided with the city that employed him as well as a long-standing legal framework that the justices had been asked to reconsider.
March 10, 2025
High Court Skips Florida Brokerage's Copyright Fee Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a Florida real estate brokerage firm's challenge to lower court decisions denying it attorney fees when another company accusing it of copyright infringement voluntarily dropped the case.
March 10, 2025
Supreme Court Won't Review FLSA Overtime Exemption

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to consider whether an employer's line of business, rather than a worker's job duties, determines if an employee is exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
March 10, 2025
Supreme Court Vacates Ruling On Nazi-Looted Art Dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated a unanimous Ninth Circuit decision holding that a Spanish museum is not obligated to return a painting that was stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis, months after California changed its law in response to the dispute.
March 07, 2025
9th Circ. Open To Reviving Monsanto Expiration Label Fight

A Ninth Circuit panel appeared open Friday to reviving a proposed class action over expiration dates on Monsanto's Roundup pesticides, but two judges were skeptical of claims against a distributor, which the distributor's counsel argued could open the floodgates of litigation.
March 07, 2025
Justices Asked To Audit Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' Win

Structured Asset Sales LLC asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to review the Second Circuit's opinion that Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" did not rip off Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On," arguing that the lower appellate court incorrectly affirmed that the Copyright Act of 1909 only protected the Motown song's sheet music.
March 07, 2025
Fed. Circ. Talks Definitions In Express Mobile Patent Case

The Federal Circuit spent a chunk of its morning hashing it out over the meaning of the phrase "runtime engine" in a pair of disputes brought to the court by Express Mobile, one in which it accused GoDaddy of violating a set of patents and another fighting the invalidation of one of those patents.
March 07, 2025
FINRA Says High Court Appeal Shouldn't Stop Broker's Case

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority told the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday that it would like to move forward with disciplinary proceedings against a broker currently challenging the organization's constitutionality before the high court, arguing that the broker doesn't face the immediate harm of expulsion from the industry while the case is pending.
March 07, 2025
Fed. Circ. Panel Wary Of Discarding Prosecution Laches

A Federal Circuit panel indicated Friday that it doesn't plan to overturn precedent holding that inventors forfeit their patent rights when they cause unreasonable delays in the application process, telling counsel for prolific inventor Gilbert Hyatt that it would take the full court to do that.
March 07, 2025
4th Circ. Overturns Remand Of Md., SC PFAS Suits Against 3M

U.S. district court judges erred when they sent lawsuits Maryland and South Carolina filed against 3M over environmental contamination from consumer products containing forever chemicals back to state courts, a split Fourth Circuit panel ruled Friday.
March 07, 2025
Hints Of A New High Court Majority Emerge In Trump Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent rejection of President Donald Trump's bid to keep frozen nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funding gave court watchers a glimpse of a coalition majority that could end up thwarting some of the president's more aggressive and novel attempts to expand executive power.
March 07, 2025
Frost Bank Wins Arbitration Right In Texas Ownership Dispute

A Texas appeals court has found Frost Bank has the right to compel arbitration in a tangled ownership dispute involving a privately owned South African packaging company's Texas affiliate, holding Thursday that the bank has a valid arbitration agreement.
March 07, 2025
Ohio, PBMs Say High Court Ruling Didn't End Pricing Appeal

Ohio state enforcers have told the Sixth Circuit an appeal in their case accusing Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics of driving up prescription drug prices was not resolved by a U.S. Supreme Court decision dealing with federal versus state jurisdiction.

Expert Analysis

5 Transition Tools Trump Could Use To Implement His Agenda

President-elect Donald Trump will have several tools available to him to halt or otherwise claw back federal regulations promulgated during the Biden administration, including reconciliation, executive orders and memoranda, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.
When Judging Product Label Claims, Follow The Asterisk

A recurring question in false advertising class actions is whether misleading or ambiguous statements on a product's front label can be cured by information on the back label — but recent decisions from the Ninth Circuit suggest that a front-label asterisk can help alert consumers to seek further clarification, say attorneys at Hunton.
Justices Seem Focused On NEPA's Limits In Utah Rail Case

After last month's oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the court appears poised to forcefully reiterate that the National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to review only those environmental impacts within their control, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
Fed. Circ. Patent Decisions In 2024: An Empirical Review

Despite an ever-increasing backlog of argument-ready cases, the Federal Circuit issued fewer decisions in 2024 than in previous years, and the decisions' overall friendliness toward patent owners and applicants was low, says Dan Bagatell at Perkins Coie.
Series

Exercising On My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

While I originally came to the Peloton bike for exercise, one cycling instructor’s teachings have come to serve as a road map for practicing law thoughtfully and mindfully, which has opened opportunities for growth and change in my career, says Andrea Kirshenbaum at Littler.
5 Drug And Device Developments That Shaped 2024

The last year saw significant legal developments affecting drug and device manufacturers, with landmark decisions and regulatory changes that require vigilance and agility from the industry, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.
Lessons From United's Axed Win In Firing Over Online Pics

In Wawrzenski v. United Airlines, a California state appeals court revived a flight attendant’s suit over her termination for linking photos of herself in uniform to her OnlyFans account, providing a cautionary tale for employers navigating the complexities of workplace policy enforcement in the digital age, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.
Reviewing The High Court's Approach To Free Speech Online

As the U.S. Supreme Court began addressing the interplay between the First Amendment and online social media platforms, its three opinions from last term show the justices adopting a nuanced approach that recognizes that private citizens, public employees and online platforms all have First Amendment rights, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
Series

In The CFPB Playbook: A Sprint To The Finish Line

The fourth quarter of 2024 was an impressive demonstration of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's ability to regulate, enforce and supervise, even on borrowed time following the election results, and we should expect the current bureau to run nonstop until Jan. 20, say attorneys at Covington.
Mich. Ruling Offers View On 'Occurrence' Coverage Definition

As demonstrated by a Michigan state court in its recent decision finding per-wound insurance coverage for a school shooting, the amount of coverage available under occurrence-based policies often depends on how courts interpret "occurrence," say attorneys at Hunton.
Rejoinder Strategy After Allergan Double-Patenting Case

A closer look at last year's Allergan v. MSN case at the Federal Circuit highlights the importance of rejoinder during patent prosecution in view of the risks associated with obviousness-type double patenting based on later-filed applications in the same patent family, say attorneys at BCLP.
What FARA Enforcement In 2024 Reveals For The Year Ahead

A number of developments, from indictments to legislation, shaped the Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement landscape last year, and following the U.S. Department of Justice's recently released long-awaited proposed amendments to the law, 2025 shows no signs of slowing down, says Tessa Capeloto at Wiley.
Exploring Venue Strategy For Trump-Era Regulatory Litigation

Litigation will likely play a prominent role in shaping policy outcomes during the second Trump administration, and stakeholders have several tools at their disposal to steer regulatory litigation toward more favorable venues, say attorneys at Covington.
Lessons Learned From 2024's Top FMLA Decisions

Last year's major litigation related to the Family and Medical Leave Act underscores why it is critical for employers to understand the basics of when leave and accommodations are required, say attorneys at Dechert.
5th Circ.'s Nasdaq Ruling Another Piece In DEI Policy Puzzle

The Fifth Circuit's recent en banc opinion vacating Nasdaq's board diversity listing rule wades into the hotly debated topic of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at a time when many public companies are navigating the attention that DEI commitments are drawing from activists and shareholders, say attorneys at Debevoise.