Appellate

  • November 22, 2024

    Del Monte's 'Fruit Naturals' Label Not Deceptive, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit on Friday refused to revive a California woman's proposed class action accusing Del Monte Foods of falsely advertising fruit cups as being "natural" despite containing synthetic preservatives, saying a reasonable consumer would know to read the products' back label to confirm the ingredients.

  • November 22, 2024

    Split DC Circ. Punts On FINRA's Constitutionality

    A partially divided D.C. Circuit panel on Friday blocked the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority from removing Alpine Securities Corp. from its membership rolls while the corporation sues in federal court to challenge the agency's constitutionality, which the appeals court declined to remark on.

  • November 22, 2024

    Pam Bondi's 'Greatest Hits' As Florida Attorney General

    In her eight years as attorney general of Florida, Pam Bondi — who has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump as attorney general — took on pill mills and telemarketing scams targeting the state's large elderly population, while also leading GOP state efforts to battle the Obama administration.

  • November 22, 2024

    Retirement Contributions Found Not Disposable In Ch. 13

    A split Ninth Circuit on Friday held that voluntary contributions to employer-managed retirement plans are not disposable income under Chapter 13 bankruptcy, reversing a lower court's decision that required a debtor to include $484 in monthly retirement contributions in her disposable income.

  • November 22, 2024

    Taco Bell's 'Inconsistent' Stance Revives Fla. Fall Suit

    A Florida state appellate court on Friday reversed a ruling that tossed a slip-and-fall injury lawsuit against Taco Bell, citing the restaurant's "logically inconsistent" position admitting that a customer ignored a freshly mopped restroom floor but proceeded to dispute that the floor was actually wet.

  • November 22, 2024

    Texas Justices Say Court Bungled Ruling In Abortion Case

    The Texas Supreme Court said Friday a lower appellate court tried to "prematurely drag the judiciary into highly contentious and politicized debates" around abortion without analyzing a key standing issue, jeopardizing Planned Parenthood's and other abortion rights groups' bid to invalidate the controversial Texas Heartbeat Act.

  • November 22, 2024

    11th Circ. Panel Weighs Remanding Florida Trans Health Fight

    The Eleventh Circuit on Friday appeared unlikely to affirm a lower court's ruling to invalidate a Florida state law banning Medicaid payments for gender-affirming medical care, with two judges on the panel asking attorneys for specifics about additional analysis of discriminatory factors on a potential remand.

  • November 22, 2024

    High Court Bar's Future: Sullivan & Cromwell's Morgan Ratner

    Morgan L. Ratner has emerged as a leader of the U.S. Supreme Court bar's next generation, and she attributes her ascent to brilliant mentors, a laid-back argument style, an aversion to overconfidence and a firm commitment to clear principles in every case — even if that means reluctantly telling the chief justice, as she once did, that a hypothetical cat stuck in a tree shouldn't be saved.

  • November 22, 2024

    Texas Supreme Court Sends 130-Car Pileup Suit To Trial 

    The Texas Supreme Court on Friday denied a petition from several defendants involved in a fatal 130-car ice storm pileup in Fort Worth to temporarily stay an upcoming trial date, teeing up the trial to begin in January, almost four years after the tragedy.

  • November 22, 2024

    Service Fees Not 'Incidental' To Debt Collection, 11th Circ. Told

    Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC urged the Eleventh Circuit on Friday to reverse two Florida lower court judgments finding it violated debt collection practices with a fee to process phone or internet payments, saying it's not an illegal "incidental" charge because the borrower is paying for an optional service.

  • November 22, 2024

    Calif. Panel Affirms Six Flags' Trial Win In Coaster Injury Case

    Six Flags isn't liable for a woman's injury after her hand was crushed by a railing while waiting to get on the Twisted Colossus roller coaster, California appellate justices said Thursday, finding the park didn't have a heightened duty of care since she was injured before she got on the ride.

  • November 22, 2024

    Texas Panel Says Gender-Affirming Surgery Suit Too Late

    A Texas appellate court has backed a counselor's win in a lawsuit from a former client who came to regret undergoing a double mastectomy following the counselor's recommendation for gender-affirming surgery, finding the claims were time-barred.

  • November 22, 2024

    Nissan Automatic Brake Classes Dismantled By 6th Circ.

    A Sixth Circuit panel vacated class certification Friday for Nissan drivers who say their cars' automatic braking system activates unnecessarily, finding the trial judge failed to grapple with software upgrades that may have fixed the alleged flaw for some of the class vehicles.

  • November 22, 2024

    Feds Slam Utah High Court Case Over Fed. Land Ownership

    The federal government called on the Supreme Court to reject Utah's attempt to file a complaint accusing it of unconstitutionally hoarding and profiting from public lands in the state, saying the justices should decline to exercise original jurisdiction over the matter.

  • November 22, 2024

    EEOC Backs Rehab Worker's Retaliation Case At 10th Circ.

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday urged the Tenth Circuit to revive an occupational therapist's lawsuit claiming a colleague inappropriately touched her and that she was fired after she reported the co-worker's harassment, arguing the trial court used the wrong standard when it tossed her retaliation claim.

  • November 22, 2024

    Senior Dem Asks Schumer For Votes On Circuit Court Picks

    Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday pushed back against a deal Democrats and Republicans cut earlier this week that obligates Democrats to forgo votes on four appellate picks.

  • November 22, 2024

    Mich. Justices Want To Know If 3M Water Challenge Is Moot

    The Michigan Supreme Court ordered additional briefing Friday in 3M Co.'s challenge to regulations on PFAS in drinking water to address whether subsequent regulatory changes made 3M's lawsuit moot, echoing a focal point of last week's oral arguments in the case. 

  • November 22, 2024

    Federal Circuit Backs Philip Morris' Electronic Pipe IP Win

    The Federal Circuit on Friday refused to revive claims in an electronic pipe patent that was challenged by Philip Morris, backing a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that language in the patent could be found in older patent paperwork.

  • November 22, 2024

    Bondi Vowed Trump Payback. Ex-Colleagues Aren't Worried.

    U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi is an outspoken ally of President-elect Donald Trump and vowed during the campaign that his "prosecutors will be prosecuted," but people who've worked with her say she's well qualified to serve as the nation's top cop and downplayed concerns that she would politicize the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • November 22, 2024

    Texas Justices Say Paxton Can Duck Whistleblower Suit Depo

    The Texas Supreme Court said Friday that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doesn't have to sit for a deposition in the long-running employment retaliation suit brought by his former top deputies, partially agreeing with his contention there are no longer any factual disputes in the case.

  • November 22, 2024

    Newsom Names Appellate Judges In SF And Orange County

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom has tapped two long-tenured trial court judges for positions on the state's appellate benches, one in San Francisco, the other in Orange County.

  • November 22, 2024

    1st Circ. Affirms Volvo Win In Dealers' Maintenance Pay Suit

    The First Circuit affirmed a pretrial win granted to Volvo in a suit brought by two dealerships claiming the carmaker was underpaying them for maintenance they perform under prepaid service plans.

  • November 22, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Won't Rethink Toppling Tire Verdict

    The Federal Circuit has declined to rethink a ruling last month that upended what was once a multimillion-dollar jury verdict in a decadelong tire design dispute, rejecting the argument that the judges "overlooked and misapprehended Illinois law" on the matter of "litigation privilege."

  • November 22, 2024

    High Court To Review Legality Of FCC's Subsidy Fees

    The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to review whether fees collected to support the Federal Communications Commission's array of telecom subsidy programs for low-income consumers, schools and rural healthcare run afoul of constitutional limits on taxing authority.

  • November 22, 2024

    Lender Can't Arbitrate Fired Worker's Suit Over Cancer Leave

    A California appeals court upheld a trial court's order that a mortgage lender cannot arbitrate a worker's suit alleging she was wrongfully fired after a cancer diagnosis, ruling the former employee cast enough doubt about the signature on the deal to keep her case in court.

Expert Analysis

  • Racing Patents To The Fed. Circ.: Collateral Estoppel Lessons

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    As more and more parties find themselves in two different forums addressing the same issues and then competing in a race to the Federal Circuit, certain strategies can help despite unanswered questions on when Patent Trial and Appeal Board determinations trigger collateral estoppel, say attorneys at Akin.

  • Nvidia Supreme Court Case May Not Make Big Splash

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    The skeptical tenor of the justices' questioning at oral argument in Nvidia v. Ohman Fonder suggests that the case is unlikely to alter the motion to dismiss pleading standard in securities class actions, as some had feared, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Series

    Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Performing circus arts has strengthened my ability to be more thoughtful, confident and grounded, all of which has enhanced my legal practice and allowed me to serve clients in a more meaningful way, says Bailey McGowan at Stinson.

  • Purse-Case Scenarios: 'MetaBirkin' Appeal Tests TM Rights

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    A federal court's finding that "MetaBirkin" nonfungible tokens infringed on Hermes' iconic Birkin bag imagery is now on appeal in the Second Circuit, and the order will have a lasting effect on how courts balance trademark rights and the First Amendment, say attorneys at Venable.

  • 3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

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    Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

  • 6th Circ. Ruling Prevents Disability Insurer Overreach

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    The Sixth Circuit’s recent ruling in McEachin v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance offers disability insurance claimants guidance on how they might challenge misapplications of policy limitations for mental illness when a medical condition accounts for their disability, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Unclear Criteria, Data Rights, Conflicts

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    Liam Bowers at MoFo examines three recent decisions from the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims examining the use of unstated evaluation criteria, an agency's investigation of its own data rights and unequal access to information about an organizational conflict of interest.

  • The Bar Needs More Clarity On The Discovery Objection Rule

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    Almost 10 years after Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 was amended, attorneys still seem confused about what they should include in objections to discovery requests, and until the rules committee provides additional clarity, practitioners must beware the steep costs of noncompliance, says Tristan Ellis at Shanies Law Office.

  • Foreclosing Lenders Still Floating In Murky Legal Waters In NY

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    The New York foreclosure landscape remains in disarray after the state's highest court last month declined to weigh in on whether legal changes from 2022 that severely curtailed lenders' ability to bring successive foreclosure cases were retroactive, says Brian Rich at Barclay Damon.

  • In Terror Case, DC Circ. Must Weigh Justices' Twitter Ruling

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    When the D.C. Circuit hears oral argument in AstraZeneca UK v. Atchley, how the court interprets the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 ruling in Twitter v. Taamneh will have a significant impact on future claims brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act and Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, say attorneys at Lewis Baach.

  • Series

    Being A Navy Reservist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Serving this country in uniform has not only been one of the greatest honors of my life, but it has also provided me with opportunities to broaden my legal acumen and interpersonal skills in ways that have indelibly contributed to my civilian practice, says Phillip Smith at Weinberg Wheeler.

  • So You Want To Move Your Law Practice To Canada, Eh?

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    Google searches for how to move to Canada have surged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, and if you’re an attorney considering a move to the Great White North, you’ll need to understand how the practice of law differs across the border, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.

  • 3 Policyholder Lessons From NY Bad Faith Ruling

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    A New York appellate court's recent decision finding that Rockefeller University alleged viable bad faith claims against its insurers reinforces the principle that insurers may not elevate their own economic interests over those of their insureds, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • In SF Water Case, Justices Signal How Loper May Be Applied

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    Skeptical questions from U.S. Supreme Court justices during oral argument in San Francisco v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offer hints of how the court intends to apply limits on agency regulatory autonomy established last term in Loper Bright, says Karen Cullinane at Goldberg Segalla.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: November Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses six federal court decisions that touch on Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and when individual inquiries are needed to prove economic loss.

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