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Appellate
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January 31, 2025
Ex-BigLaw Atty Can't Escape OneCoin Conviction At 2nd Circ.
The Second Circuit on Friday upheld a former Locke Lord LLP partner's conviction and 10-year sentence for helping launder roughly $400 million in proceeds from the multibillion-dollar OneCoin cryptocurrency scheme, rejecting the attorney's contention that a sole cooperating government witness' perjury and other purported errors warranted reversing his punishment.
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January 31, 2025
Goldstein Case Raises The Stakes For A DOJ Office In Tumult
The bombshell tax-crimes case of U.S. Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein landed at a U.S. Department of Justice outpost in Maryland that has been plagued in recent years by botched cases and internal strife — pitting a beleaguered U.S. attorney against a pair of former Donald Trump attorneys itching for a fight.
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January 31, 2025
Calif. Atty Wins Ruling To Sue Doctor For Defamation
A California state appeals court said Friday a Pasadena attorney can pursue a defamation lawsuit against an orthopedic surgeon who allegedly made unflattering remarks about the attorney in front of one of the attorney's clients.
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January 31, 2025
Fla. Judge Tees Up Free Speech Defense In Ethics Case
A Florida state judge facing ethics charges related to campaign statements is going forward with a First Amendment defense in her Monday hearing, she told the state's Judicial Qualifications Commission in a prehearing statement.
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January 31, 2025
Conn. Justices Let McCarter Ex-Client Off $3.6M Hook
Answering a certified question from a federal judge, the Connecticut Supreme Court on Friday ruled that McCarter & English LLP can't claw an additional $3.6 million in common law punitive damages from a nutritional supplement maker as part of a protracted fee feud, holding that the firm should have pleaded and proven an "independent tort" if it wanted to pursue the money.
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January 31, 2025
Jury Instructions Tainted Ex-State's Atty's Trial, 4th Circ. Hears
A Fourth Circuit decision from 1938 took center stage Friday as a seemingly divided appellate panel debated whether a jury that found former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby guilty of mortgage fraud had been improperly instructed on where the crime occurred.
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January 31, 2025
Mass. Justices Rule 'Unwarranted Privilege' Law Not Vague
Massachusetts' top court ruled on Friday that a statute that bars public officials from misusing the benefits of their position for private gain is not unconstitutionally vague, rejecting a former police officer's bid to reverse his conviction for borrowing cash from his department's evidence room to pay his mortgage and other personal expenses.
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January 31, 2025
Seasoned Patterson Belknap Trial Team Joins Linklaters In NY
Linklaters LLP announced Friday it has brought aboard a high-profile team of litigation partners from Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, including one who is the current president of the New York City Bar Association and a lawyer former President Joe Biden had nominated to the Third Circuit.
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January 31, 2025
6th Circ. Affirms Pot Biz Owner's $2.8M Tax Restitution
The owner of a medical marijuana dispensary who was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution to the IRS after being convicted of tax crimes failed to convince the Sixth Circuit that Congress lacked the power to tax his sales of the drug.
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January 31, 2025
NC Prosecutors Say Evidence Backs Cannabis Conviction
State prosecutors urged a North Carolina appeals court to stand by a man's conviction for possession and intent to distribute cannabis, arguing that even if there was no forensic analysis of the substance he possessed there was plenty of other evidence to conclude it was cannabis rather than legal hemp.
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January 31, 2025
Manufacturer Can't Arbitrate Wage Suit, Calif. Panel Affirms
A California panel upheld an order that refused to send to arbitration an employee's Private Attorneys General Act lawsuit against a power transformer manufacturer, saying the company failed to show sufficient evidence it wasn't technically the worker's employer.
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January 30, 2025
11th Circ. Revives Wage Suit From Biz Owners' Fla. Worker
The Eleventh Circuit on Thursday revived a Florida domestic worker's lawsuit accusing his former employers of refusing to pay him overtime wages, saying in a published opinion that the employers shouldn't have gotten a summary judgment win in light of conflicting evidence concerning the worker's regular hourly rate.
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January 30, 2025
5th Circ. Says 18-Year-Olds Can Buy Handguns
The Fifth Circuit found a law banning Americans under 21 years old from buying handguns was unconstitutional, saying in a Thursday opinion the law doesn't have any kind of historical analogs that would pass a Second Amendment smell test.
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January 30, 2025
Texas Panel Asks If Late Votes Should Decide Judge's Election
A Texas appellate panel asked what it was supposed to do with voters who wrote that they lived outside the county in deciding the last remaining challenge to the county's 2022 election results, saying during oral arguments Thursday that voters' own assertions seemed convincing.
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January 30, 2025
Calif. AG Asks 9th Circ. To Block Meta's MDL Discovery Win
The California attorney general urged the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday to block orders requiring third-party state agencies to respond to Meta Platforms' discovery demands in multidistrict litigation over social media's alleged harms, arguing in a mandamus petition the "clearly erroneous" ruling "runs roughshod" over the state's constitutional divisions of power.
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January 30, 2025
2nd Circ. Voices Unease Over Ex-Iconix CEO's Fraud Retrial
The Second Circuit on Thursday expressed doubt regarding the conviction of Iconix Brand Group founder Neil Cole, who was found guilty of fraudulently booking $11 million of revenue to hit earnings targets, and appeared open to the argument that his retrial violated the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment.
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January 30, 2025
Lower Court Altered Contract Reading, Texas Justices Told
An Energy Transfer subsidiary told the Texas Supreme Court that a lower court upended the way contracts are interpreted in the state when it found no remedy for alleged losses from a soured $1 billion deal with an Exxon Mobil Corp. unit.
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January 30, 2025
2nd Circ. Sees No Skadden Conflict In Pharma Merger Work
The Second Circuit on Thursday declined to revive an investor suit alleging a merger between Sumitomo Pharma America Inc. and Myovant Sciences Ltd. was undervalued because the lawyers from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP who helped negotiate the deal had undisclosed conflicts of interest.
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January 30, 2025
FERC Says Pacific NW Pipeline Approval Was By The Book
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is defending its approval of a controversial TC Energy Corp. pipeline expansion project in the Pacific Northwest, telling the Fifth Circuit it reasonably determined that the project was needed and adequately reviewed its environmental impacts.
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January 30, 2025
Ex-Rabobank Exec Asks Justices To Hear 9th Circ. OCC Fight
A former Rabobank compliance chief who wants to clear her name after a now-abandoned Office of the Comptroller of the Currency enforcement action has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up her case following the Ninth Circuit's dismissal of her appeal for lack of standing.
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January 30, 2025
Hotel Guests Get Backing For Algorithmic Pricing Suit
Hotel guests accusing a group of Atlantic City properties of using shared software to fix room rates are getting a helping hand in their Third Circuit fight to revive their suit from antimonopoly interest groups, who filed in separate amicus briefs in support of their effort this week.
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January 30, 2025
Sheriffs Raise Concern About New FCC Prison Phone Caps
A sheriffs' group brought concerns to the Federal Communications Commission about recently adopted caps on prison phone rates, saying the exclusion of certain cost categories would lead to less access to services for the incarcerated.
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January 30, 2025
DC Circ. Weighs Mootness In DOD's Time-In-Service Appeal
A D.C. Circuit panel on Thursday wrestled with mootness in the federal government's appeal of a ruling that blocked the U.S. Department of Defense from setting service duration requirements for noncitizen soldiers to become citizens, questioning whether the 2021 recission of the policy leaves anything to rule on.
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January 30, 2025
Supreme Court Urged To Clarify Alice, End 1-Line Orders
The owner of a pair of invalidated patents covering medical machinery has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to look at what it called "confusion" stemming from the high court's Alice decision and also at the Federal Circuit's practice of issuing one-line orders.
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January 30, 2025
Wash. Court Rejects Palestinian Patient's Verdict Bias Appeal
A Washington state appeals court said Thursday it would not touch a doctor's win in a medical malpractice trial, rejecting arguments from the Palestinian plaintiff that the jury's verdict was tainted by racial bias, while further clarifying the benchmark for judges to make such a determination.
Expert Analysis
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Navigating 4th Circ.'s Antitrust Burden In Hybrid Relationships
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.
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Dissecting The Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Debate
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.
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Calif. Ruling May Shield Public Employers From Labor Claims
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.
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Contract Disputes Recap: Perils Of Perfunctory Interpretation
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.
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2nd Circ. AmTrust Decision Shows Audit Reports Still Matter
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.
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Series
Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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9th Circ.'s High Bar May Limit Keyword Confusion TM Claims
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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Post-Election Implications For The EPA's Methane Rules
Amid the U.S. Supreme Court's recent denial of requests to halt implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's methane rule in two suits, and given the outcome of the election, a complete reversal of the methane rule is expected, but state-level policymaking and enforcement will continue, says John Watson at Spencer Fane.
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Opinion
Justices Should Squash Bid To Criminalize Contract Breaches
In Kousisis v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court should reject the sweeping legal theory that breaches of contract can satisfy the property element of the mail and wire fraud statutes, which, if validated, would criminalize an array of ordinary conduct and violate basic constitutional principles, say attorneys at The Norton Law Firm.
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Racing Patents To The Fed. Circ.: Collateral Estoppel Lessons
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.
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Nvidia Supreme Court Case May Not Make Big Splash
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.
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Series
Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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Purse-Case Scenarios: 'MetaBirkin' Appeal Tests TM Rights
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.
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3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less
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.
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6th Circ. Ruling Prevents Disability Insurer Overreach
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.