Appellate

  • January 30, 2025

    1st Circ. Backs Hospital's Win In Fired Nurse's Vax Bias Suit

    The First Circuit backed a Boston hospital's defeat of a Christian nurse's lawsuit claiming she was fired for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, finding she couldn't overcome the medical center's argument that letting her skip the jab would have been too risky.

  • January 30, 2025

    Beasley Firm Must Face Ex-Client's Suit Over Med Mal Claim

    A New Jersey appellate panel on Thursday reinstated a legal malpractice lawsuit accusing The Beasley Firm LLC of mishandling a medical malpractice lawsuit, saying the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the law firm.

  • January 30, 2025

    2nd Circ. Backs Valentino $200K Award In Copyright Feud

    The Second Circuit on Thursday affirmed the enforcement of a Milanese arbitral award favoring Italian luxury fashion house Valentino following a copyright dispute with a New York-based designer, agreeing with a lower court that the parties' contract delegated jurisdictional questions to an arbitrator.

  • January 30, 2025

    SCOTUSblog Publisher Can't Shield Home From Forfeiture

    SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein won't be able to shield his Washington, D.C., residence from forfeiture by substituting various properties in South Carolina as he battles charges that he dodged taxes and used his law firm's money to pay off gambling debts.

  • January 30, 2025

    Mass. High Court Backs Insurers' Lost Resale Value Exclusion

    Language in Massachusetts auto insurance policies limiting coverage to "tangible losses" lets MAPFRE Insurance subsidiary Commerce and other companies off the hook for claims based on lost resale value after an accident, the state's highest court said on Thursday.

  • January 30, 2025

    Calif. Court Says Late Arbitration Fees Keep Bias Suit In Court

    A California-based security company can't kick a former supervisor's employment discrimination lawsuit back to arbitration, a state appeals panel ruled, saying a state statute letting suits return to court if arbitration fees are paid late wasn't usurped by federal law.

  • January 30, 2025

    Gov't Urges High Court To OK 2nd 'Buffalo Billion' Trial

    The federal government asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clear the way for a second trial in a public corruption case tied to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "Buffalo Billion" development initiative, saying prosecutors should be allowed to pursue charges under a different theory after the justices undid the original convictions.

  • January 30, 2025

    Pa. Pot Panels Not 'Arbitrary' In Assigning Different Scores

    A Pennsylvania appeals panel rejected a petition from a dispensary owner who challenged the state Department of Health's denial of one of his applications, finding the DOH wasn't arbitrary just because two of his proposed locations received different scores on their identical applications.

  • January 29, 2025

    Albertsons Must Face County's Opioid Nuisance Claims

    Albertsons Cos. Inc. can't escape a Texas county's public nuisance claims stemming from opioid sales at the grocery giant's in-store pharmacies, an Ohio federal judge ruled Tuesday, saying there's a "common law duty of care" for pharmacies not to expose the county to a "reasonably foreseeable" risk of harm.

  • January 29, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Affirms Delaying Biosimilars For Regeneron's Eylea

    A West Virginia federal judge has the power to oversee patent infringement litigation against drugmakers from South Korea and Germany and stop them from launching biosimilar versions of Regeneron's blockbuster eye disease treatment Eylea, the Federal Circuit said Wednesday.

  • January 29, 2025

    Ferrari Exits Fla. Driver's Brake Defect Suit Due To Jurisdiction

    A race car driver who suffered life-altering injuries when the Ferrari 458 Challenge he was driving crashed into a concrete wall can't sue Ferrari in state court, a Florida state appeals court panel ruled Wednesday, saying the courts do not have jurisdiction over the Italian automaker.

  • January 29, 2025

    Apple Will Appeal Denial Of Bid To Defend Google Search Deal

    Apple said Wednesday that it will appeal an order refusing to let it intervene in the government's search monopolization case against Google to defend a multibillion-dollar revenue-sharing deal that makes Google the default search engine for the Safari browser.

  • January 29, 2025

    4th Circ. Mulls If Tossing No-Poach Suit Rewards Bad Behavior

    As the Fourth Circuit mulled the idea of reviving a proposed class action accusing military shipbuilding contractors of agreeing not to poach each other's engineers, one judge rebuffed the idea that the suit had no legs because there were no specific allegations of fraudulent concealment.

  • January 29, 2025

    Court Garbled Pharma Owner's Fraud Charges, 6th Circ. Told

    An Ohio district court misrepresented healthcare fraud charges against a pharmaceutical salesman to a jury, his attorney argued Wednesday before the Sixth Circuit, calling for the court to overturn his 2023 conviction and subsequent restitution order to pay $7 million to the IRS.

  • January 29, 2025

    $17M Punitive Award Reversed In Miami Hotel's Noise Suit

    A Florida state appeals court on Wednesday upheld sanctions against the owner of two Miami Beach hotels for committing fraud on the court in a commercial landlord-tenant dispute, but the court threw out a $17.4 million punitive damages award and ordered a new trial on that issue.

  • January 29, 2025

    Del. Justices Mull 'Nuanced' T-Mobile Data Breach Claims

    Delaware's chief justice pressed an attorney for T-Mobile Corp. stockholders Wednesday on what the attorney called a "nuanced" derivative claim that the company's board wrongly failed to pursue damages for massive data breaches after its controlling stockholder pressed for adoption of a vulnerable data sharing program.

  • January 29, 2025

    5th Circ. Rejects Outside Bid To Defend CFPB Small-Biz Rule

    The Fifth Circuit on Wednesday stood by its decision to refuse two advocacy groups' request to help defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's small business lending data rule, a day after the bureau and the suing banking trade groups pushed back and said they are fine to litigate themselves, without intervention.

  • January 29, 2025

    Labcorp Can't Flip Patent Board Loss At Fed. Circ.

    Labcorp had no luck Wednesday trying to convince Federal Circuit judges to overturn a patent board decision that refused to invalidate a host of claims in a patent covering a way of detecting genetic disorders.

  • January 29, 2025

    LG Foe Loses Fed. Circ. Appeal On Image Processing Patent

    The Federal Circuit shot down an appeal launched by a face detection technology patent owner over how a lower court construed claim terminology in the patent, handing a win Wednesday to LG in a suit accusing it of infringement.

  • January 29, 2025

    8th Circ. Rejects Oglala Rancher's Cattle Theft Appeal

    The Eighth Circuit has rejected an appeal by an Oglala Sioux rancher who looked to undo a lower court's finding that he was afforded due process before several head of his cattle were impounded when found to be improperly grazing on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

  • January 29, 2025

    Cell Tower Co. Says Colo. Jury Was Misled Over Dish Lease

    Telecom infrastructure giant Crown Castle is urging the Colorado Court of Appeals to vacate a jury finding in its $32 million suit against Dish Network over allegedly unpaid cell tower site rent, arguing that a judge's pretrial ruling led the jury to incorrectly find that Dish wasn't at fault.

  • January 29, 2025

    Tom Goldstein Seeks To Shield DC Home In Tax Crimes Case

    Appellate lawyer and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein asked a Maryland federal judge Wednesday if he could put up three South Carolina properties as collateral for his pretrial release in place of his Washington, D.C., home as he faces charges of tax evasion and mortgage fraud.

  • January 29, 2025

    5th Circ. Says DOT Must Redo Airline Fees Disclosure Rule

    The Fifth Circuit has ordered the U.S. Department of Transportation to reassess its rule requiring airlines to more clearly disclose add-on fees upfront, saying the Biden administration failed to properly consider public comments on how costly it would be for airlines to comply with the 2024 mandate.

  • January 29, 2025

    Families Of Slain Urge Justices To Uphold Terror Victim Law

    Relatives of U.S. nationals killed in terrorist attacks in Israel told the U.S. Supreme Court this week that the Second Circuit was wrong to invalidate a federal law that broadened jurisdiction for Anti-Terrorism Act cases against the Palestine Liberation Organization.

  • January 29, 2025

    6th Circ. Doubts Free Speech Flouted By Deer Hunt Drone Ban

    Sixth Circuit judges sounded skeptical on Wednesday that a drone company can challenge a Michigan law barring drone use to hunt deer by claiming the law violates their free-speech ability to use the devices to locate and communicate about fallen game, with the judges suggesting the statute seems to regulate conduct rather than speech.

Expert Analysis

  • What Fed. Circ. Ruling Means For Patent Case Dismissals

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    ​​​​​​​The Federal Circuit's recent decision in UTTO v. Metrotech is significant because it specifically authorizes district courts to dismiss patent infringement lawsuits without a separate Markman hearing, but only when the meaning of a claim term is clear and case-dispositive, says Peter Gergely at Merchant & Gould.

  • 7th Circ. Travel Time Ruling Has Far-Reaching Implications

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    In a case of first impression, the Seventh Circuit’s recent holding in Walters v. Professional Labor Group will have significant implications for employers that must now provide travel time compensation for employees on overnight assignments away from home, says Anthony Sbardellati at Akerman.

  • The Fed. Circ. In October: Anti-Suit Injunctions And SEPs

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    The Federal Circuit's holding in Ericsson v. Lenovo, a complex global case involving standard-essential patents, will likely have broad consequences for practitioners, including by making it easier to obtain an anti-suit injunction, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • IP Ruling Likely To Limit Arguments Against Qualified Experts

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Osseo v. Planmeca, clarifying when experts may offer testimony from the perspective of a skilled artisan, provides helpful guidance on expert qualifications and could quash future timing arguments regarding declarants' expertise, says Whitney Jenkins at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Unpacking Arguments From High Court's Rural Hospital Case

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    During oral arguments in Advocate v. Becerra, the U.S. Supreme Court justices focused questions on the meaning of being "entitled to" supplementary security income assistance, and there's reason for optimism that the likely split decision will break in favor of hospitals, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

  • Args In 2 High Court Cases May Foretell Clarity For Employers

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    Mary Anna Brand at Maynard Nexsen examines possible employment implications of two cases argued before the Supreme Court this fall, including a higher bar for justifying employees as overtime exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and earlier grants of prevailing party status for employee-plaintiffs seeking attorney fees.

  • California Supreme Court's Year In Review

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    Attorneys at Horvitz & Levy highlight notable decisions on major questions from the California Supreme Court's last term, including voter initiatives, hostile work environment and the economic loss rule.

  • DC Circ. Decision Opens Door To NEPA Regulation Litigation

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    A recent D.C. Circuit decision in Marin Audubon Society v. Federal Aviation Administration could open the door to more litigation over the White House Council on Environmental Quality's National Environmental Policy Act regulations, and could affect how many agencies conduct and interpret environmental assessments, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Navigating 4th Circ.'s Antitrust Burden In Hybrid Relationships

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    The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to review the Fourth Circuit's Brewbaker decision, a holding that heightens the burden on antitrust prosecutors when the target companies have a hybrid horizontal-vertical relationship, but diverges from other circuits, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Dissecting The Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Debate

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Allergan v. MSN highlights the ongoing evolution of the obviousness-type double patenting doctrine, revealing increasing tension between expiration-based interpretations and procedural flexibility, says Jeremy Lowe at Leydig Voit.

  • Calif. Ruling May Shield Public Employers From Labor Claims

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    In Stone v. Alameda Health System, the California Supreme Court recently exempted a county hospital from state-mandated rest breaks and the Private Attorneys General Act, granting government employers a robust new bulwark against other labor statutes by undermining an established doctrine for determining if a law applies to public entities, say attorneys at Hunton.

  • Contract Disputes Recap: Perils Of Perfunctory Interpretation

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    Attorneys at Seyfarth examine three recent decisions in which the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals and the Federal Circuit ruthlessly dismantled arguments that rely on superficial understandings of different contract terms.

  • 2nd Circ. AmTrust Decision Shows Audit Reports Still Matter

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    Though the Second Circuit eventually found on reconsidering a case over the high-profile accounting meltdown at AmTrust that audit reports are material to investors, its previous contrary holding highlights the seriousness of the ongoing crisis of confidence in the audit report, say attorneys at Bernstein Litowitz.

  • Series

    Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.

  • 9th Circ.'s High Bar May Limit Keyword Confusion TM Claims

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    A recent Ninth Circuit ruling that a law firm did not infringe upon a competitor’s trademarks by paying Google to promote its website when users searched for the rival’s name signals that plaintiffs likely can no longer win infringement suits by claiming competitive keyword advertising confuses internet-savvy consumers, say attorneys at Mitchell Silberberg.

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