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Appellate
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June 20, 2024
House Dems Ask Chief Justice To Say How He'll Review Ethics
Two top Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee asked Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday how he's working to address the "glaring episodes" of ethical improprieties on the U.S. Supreme Court.
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June 20, 2024
NC Law Firm Fights Ex-Client's Bid To Ditch Malpractice Deal
A personal injury law firm and one of its former attorneys urged a North Carolina state appeals court to enforce their settlement with a prior client in a legal malpractice suit, as the client asserts that he was sick during mediation and didn't know what he was doing when he signed the agreement.
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June 20, 2024
Casinos Must Fight Hotel Tax In State Court, 5th Circ. Says
Owners of two Louisiana casinos with attached hotels must challenge Baton Rouge in state court, rather than federal court, over taxes the city says they owe on free hotel stays they gave patrons, the Fifth Circuit ruled, saying the state is entitled to deference.
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June 20, 2024
Fla. Judge's 'Conservative' Label No Cause For Reprimand
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday declined to sanction a judge for calling herself a "conservative" during her first campaign for office last year, but the state justices did issue a public reprimand over the jurist's approval of a social media post that misled voters about her fundraising ahead of the election.
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June 20, 2024
Ill. Panel Says Insurer Off Hook For 23 Carbon Monoxide Suits
An insurer doesn't need to defend a design firm against 23 allegations that its negligent work led numerous children and others to suffer injuries from carbon monoxide exposure, an Illinois appeals court panel found, affirming a lower court's ruling.
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June 20, 2024
GOP Sens. Get Tough On 6th Circ. Nominee's History
Republican senators hammered Sixth Circuit nominee Karla M. Campbell, of counsel at Stranch Jennings & Garvey PLLC, during a hearing on Thursday about her political donations, past advisory roles and the process by which she was nominated.
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June 20, 2024
Ga. Panel Says $3M Damages Should Be Cut In Crash Case
The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed and vacated a trial court's $3 million compensatory damages award in a case in which a Southern Oil Refinery LLC truck driver rear-ended another vehicle, killing three people.
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June 20, 2024
ACLU Urges 9th Circ. To Reject Insurer's Trans Health Appeal
The American Civil Liberties Union urged the Ninth Circuit to reject Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois' appeal seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that found denying transgender health plan participants gender-affirming care violated the Affordable Care Act, arguing federal healthcare nondiscrimination laws clearly protected against gender identity bias.
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June 20, 2024
Patent Office Elevates Acting Solicitor To Official Position
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday announced that its longtime litigator Farheena Y. Rasheed has been appointed solicitor and deputy general counsel for the agency.
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June 20, 2024
5th Circ. Misapplied Precedent In Arrest Case, Justices Say
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday scrapped a Fifth Circuit decision that a woman who claims she was jailed in retaliation for criticizing local government officials couldn't pursue her retaliatory arrest claim, reviving a five-year dispute between the woman and a Texas city.
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June 20, 2024
Justices Say Experts Can Testify Broadly On Criminal Intent
The U.S. Supreme Court found Thursday that a rule barring expert witnesses from testifying about a defendant's alleged criminal intent does not block testimony about the mental state of people in similar situations.
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June 20, 2024
Top Court Declines To Limit Malicious Prosecution Cases
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a charge made without probable cause can be grounds for a malicious prosecution civil suit even if another charge with valid probable cause accompanied it.
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June 20, 2024
Repatriation Tax Doesn't Violate Constitution, Justices Rule
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 2017 federal tax overhaul's mandatory repatriation levy on Thursday, finding the measure applies to the earnings of foreign corporations with U.S. shareholders and therefore does not raise constitutional questions about taxing unrealized income.
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June 18, 2024
High Court Petition Asks Justices: What's A 'Willful' Kickback?
Does a "willful" act under federal anti-kickback law require a defendant to know that the conduct violates the law? That's the question a whistleblower is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to answer in order to resolve what the petition calls a circuit split on a key question of federal fraud prosecutions.
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June 18, 2024
No Reason To Move Net Neutrality Suits To DC Circ., ISPs Say
Nearly a dozen industry groups are calling on the Sixth Circuit to reject an effort by the Federal Communications Commission to move a raft of lawsuits over the FCC's net neutrality rules to the D.C. Circuit.
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June 18, 2024
'Reckless' Behavior Centered In Climate Coverage Suit Args
Attorneys for a Sunoco subsidiary and AIG offered sharply differing views to Hawaii's top court Tuesday in oral arguments over whether reckless behavior would trigger the oil company's liability coverage in a novel suit over coverage for underlying climate change claims.
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June 18, 2024
Fed. Circ. Won't Revive Philips Communication Patent Claims
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday sided with Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges who gutted claims in a Philips patent challenged by a Chinese chipmaker that is facing an infringement suit in Delaware.
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June 18, 2024
Fla. Immune To Contract Suit Over COVID Tests, 4th Circ. Says
The Fourth Circuit reversed on Tuesday a district court decision denying a motion to dismiss by a Florida state agency in a breach of contract case involving COVID-19 tests, finding the lower court erred in ruling that the state did not have sovereign immunity and remanding the case for further proceedings.
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June 18, 2024
11th Circ. Orders New Shrimp Secrets Trial Over Judge's Exit
The Eleventh Circuit ordered a new trial in a trade secrets dispute involving breeders of disease-resistant shrimp, saying Tuesday that a magistrate judge who oversaw the trial's conclusion so that a federal judge could catch a flight exceeded his authority by answering jury questions and rejecting a defense counsel's request for clarification on damages awarded.
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June 18, 2024
Nuke Regulator Asks High Court To Review Atomic Waste Rule
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a contentious Fifth Circuit decision that barred it from issuing a license to a temporary nuclear waste storage facility in Texas, saying that the circuit court widened circuit splits and upended decades of agency practice.
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June 18, 2024
6th Circ. Asks Who's A 'Consumer' In Meta Data Sharing Case
Sixth Circuit judges questioned how a decades-old federal privacy law aimed at protecting people's video rental history applies to website users, as one customer argued Tuesday that the court should revive claims that Paramount unlawfully shared his data with Meta, Facebook's parent company.
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June 18, 2024
Colo. Justices Iffy On Cake's Message In Baker's Speech Suit
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday pressed a Christian cake baker on whether requiring him to make a pink cake with blue frosting to celebrate a customer's gender transition counts as "compelled speech" under a recent high court ruling, with some justices skeptical that such a cake has inherent meaning.
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June 18, 2024
Dems Ask For Update On Justice Thomas Gifts Investigation
A pair of Democratic lawmakers have asked the judiciary's governing body for an update on its review of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' failure to disclose years of luxury gifts and travel he received from conservative billionaires.
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June 18, 2024
Green Group Insists It Can Fight Colo. Air Plan Approval
The Center for Biological Diversity told the Tenth Circuit it didn't forfeit its challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approval of a Colorado air emissions permitting program and that the agency is wrong to assert otherwise.
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June 18, 2024
11th Circ. Affirms Warrantless Search Of Probationer's Home
The Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday affirmed the denial of a woman's bid to suppress evidence obtained by police in a warrantless search of her home, finding that the search was reasonable because her live-in boyfriend's probation conditions authorized warrantless home searches.
Expert Analysis
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Fed. Circ. Ruling Shows Difficulty Of Proving Deceptive Intent
The Federal Circuit’s recent Freshub v. Amazon decision demonstrates how proving the deceptive intent requirement for inequitable conduct can be challenging, even when there is a five-year delay after abandonment before revival, say attorneys at BCLP.
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Banks Have Won Syndicated Loan Battle, But Not The War
Though the U.S. Supreme Court's recent denial of certiorari in Kirschner v. JPMorgan preserves the status quo that syndicated loans are not securities, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's discomfort suggests that the underlying issues have not been fully resolved, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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The Art Of Asking: Leveraging Your Contacts For Referrals
Though attorneys may hesitate to ask for referral recommendations to generate new business, research shows that people want to help others they know, like and trust, so consider who in your network you should approach and how to make the ask, says Rebecca Hnatowski at Edwards Advisory.
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Trending At The PTAB: Permissible New Reply Arguments
In the time since the Federal Circuit’s Axonics ruling, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has allowed petitioners to raise new unpatentability grounds in response to unforeseeable claim constructions in petitions, and reiterated that a petition need not anticipate every argument that may be raised in the response, say Joseph Myles and Timothy May at Finnegan.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: April Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses three notable circuit court decisions on topics from the Class Action Fairness Act to consumer fraud — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including CAFA’s local controversy exception and Article III standing to seek injunctive relief.
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A Deep Dive Into High Court's Permit Fee Ruling
David Robinson and Daniel Golub at Holland & Knight explore the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that a local traffic impact fee charged to a California property owner may be a Fifth Amendment taking — and where it leaves localities and real estate developers.
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Opinion
The Case For Overturning Florida Foreclosure Ruling
A Florida appellate court's recent decision in Desbrunes v. U.S. Bank National Association will potentially put foreclosure cases across the state in jeopardy, and unless it is reconsidered, foreclosing plaintiffs will need to choose between frustrating and uncertain options in the new legal landscape, say Sara Accardi and Paige Knight at Bradley.
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McKesson May Change How AKS-Based FCA Claims Are Pled
The Second Circuit’s analysis in U.S. v. McKesson, an Anti-Kickback Statute-based False Claims Act case, provides guidance for both relators and defendants parsing scienter-related allegations, say Li Yu at Dicello Levitt, Ellen London at London & Stout, and Erica Hitchings at Whistleblower Law.
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Fed. Circ. Defines Foreign IP Damages, Raises New Questions
In Brumfield v. IBG, the Federal Circuit recently clarified which standard determines the extraterritoriality of the patent statute after the U.S. Supreme Court's WesternGeco decision, opening a new avenue of damages for foreign activities resulting from certain domestic activities while also creating some thorny questions, say Amol Parikh and Ian Howard at McDermott.
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9th Circ. Arbitration Ruling Could Have Int'l Implications
In Patrick v. Running Warehouse, the Ninth Circuit's recent matter-of-fact invocation of an unusual California rule in a domestic arbitration context raises choice of law questions, and could make California law a strategic option for some international arbitration parties, says Jerry Roth at FedArb.
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5 Employer Actions Now Risky After Justices' Title VII Ruling
Last week in Muldrow v. St. Louis, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that harm didn't have to be significant to be considered discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, making five common employer actions vulnerable to litigation, say Kellee Kruse and Briana Scholar at The Employment Law Group.
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Series
Being An Equestrian Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Beyond getting experience thinking on my feet and tackling stressful situations, the skills I've gained from horseback riding have considerable overlap with the skills used to practice law, particularly in terms of team building, continuing education, and making an effort to reset and recharge, says Kerry Irwin at Moore & Van Allen.
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7th Circ. Mootness Fee Case May Curb Frivolous Merger Suits
On April 15, the Seventh Circuit in Jorge Alcarez v. Akorn Inc. mapped out a framework for courts to consider mootness fees paid to individual shareholders after the voluntary dismissal of a challenge to a public company merger, which could encourage objections to mootness fees and reduce the number of frivolous merger challenges filed, say attorneys at Skadden.
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4 Ways To Refresh Your Law Firm's Marketing Strategy
With many BigLaw firms relying on an increasingly obsolete marketing approach that prioritizes stiff professionalism over authentic connection, adopting a few key communications strategies to better connect with today's clients and prospects can make all the difference, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law.
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What 3rd Circ. Trust Ruling Means For Securitization Market
Mercedes Tunstall and Michael Gambro at Cadwalader break down the Third Circuit's March decision in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. National Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust, as well as predict next steps in the litigation and the implications of the decision for servicers and the securitization industry as a whole.