Appellate

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.  

  • January 30, 2025

    Biz Groups Back 2nd Circ. Appeal In Morgan Stanley Pay Fight

    Business trade groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote in support of Morgan Stanley's Second Circuit appeal in a proposed class action from ex-advisers seeking additional deferred compensation, backing the investment bank's argument that an arbitrator should get to determine if federal benefits law applies to the arrangements.

  • January 30, 2025

    Colo. Panel Says Atty Errors May Sink Contempt Sanctions

    In a precedential ruling Thursday, a Colorado Court of Appeals panel determined that a party facing a contempt sanction may bring a motion to reconsider premised on challenging the effectiveness of their legal representation.

  • January 30, 2025

    Peruvians Tell High Court Smelter Lawsuit Should Proceed

    Peruvian nationals suing U.S. billionaire Ira Rennert's The Renco Group Inc. for allegedly poisoning them with toxic chemicals from a smelting and refining complex in a rural part of the country are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let their litigation move forward.

  • January 30, 2025

    1st Circ. Restores Endangered Whale's Cape Cod Protections

    The First Circuit on Thursday upheld the National Marine Fisheries Service's decision to seasonally ban some lobster and crab fishing equipment near Cape Cod in order to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

  • January 30, 2025

    Amazon Can't Lob 'Hail Mary' In Price-Gouging Suit, AG Says

    Washington's attorney general said Wednesday that Amazon can't dodge a proposed class action alleging price-gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic, telling a federal judge that a pivotal state high court ruling in the case was clear on how Washington law allows the consumers to sue.

Expert Analysis

  • Testing The Waters As New Texas Biz Court Ends 2nd Month

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    Despite an uptick in filings in the Texas Business Court's initial months of operation, the docket remains fairly light amid an apparent wait-and-see approach from some potential litigants, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

  • Employer Lessons From Mass. 'Bonus Not Wages' Ruling

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    In Nunez v. Syncsort, a Massachusetts state appeals court recently held that a terminated employee’s retention bonus did not count as wages under the state’s Wage Act, illustrating the nuanced ways “wages” are defined by state statutes and courts, say attorneys at Segal McCambridge.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Committee Best Venue For Litigation Funding Rules

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    The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules' recent decision to consider developing a rule for litigation funding disclosure is a welcome development, ensuring that the result will be the product of a thorough, inclusive and deliberative process that appropriately balances all interests, says Stewart Ackerly at Statera Capital.

  • The Strategic Advantages Of Appointing A Law Firm CEO

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    The impact on law firms of the recent CrowdStrike outage underscores that the business of law is no longer merely about providing supplemental support for legal practice — and helps explain why some law firms are appointing dedicated, full-time CEOs to navigate the challenges of the modern legal landscape, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate Strategies.

  • Fed. Circ. Ruling May Signal Software Patent Landscape Shift

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    The Federal Circuit's recent ruling in Broadband iTV, despite similarities to past decisions, chose to rely on prior cases finding patent-ineligible claims directed to receiving and displaying information, which may undermine one of the few areas of perceived predictability in the patent eligibility landscape, say attorneys at King & Wood.

  • Series

    After Chevron: The Future Of OSHA Enforcement Litigation

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in Loper Bright provides a blueprint for overruling the judicial obligation to defer to an agency's interpretation of its own regulations established by Auer, an outcome that would profoundly change the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s litigation and rulemaking landscape, say attorneys at Ogletree.

  • What Hawaii High Court Got Right And Wrong In AIG Ruling

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    Though the Hawaii Supreme Court in its recent Aloha Petroleum v. National Union Fire Insurance decision correctly adopted the majority rule that recklessly caused harm is an accident for coverage purposes, it erred in its interpretation of the pollution exclusion by characterizing climate change as "traditional environmental pollution," say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

  • Series

    Beekeeping Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The practice of patent law and beekeeping are not typically associated, but taking care of honeybees has enriched my legal practice by highlighting the importance of hands-on experience, continuous learning, mentorship and more, says David Longo at Oblon McClelland.

  • Amazon Holiday Pay Case Underscores Overtime Challenges

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    The recent Hamilton v. Amazon.com Services LLC decision in the Colorado Supreme Court underscores why employers must always consult applicable state law and regulations — in addition to federal law — when determining how to properly pay employees who work more than 40 hours in a workweek, says James Looby at Vedder Price.

  • Opinion

    It's Time To Sound The Alarm About Lost Labor Rights

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    In the Fifth Circuit, recent rulings from judges appointed by former President Donald Trump have dismantled workers’ core labor rights, a troubling trend that we cannot risk extending under another Trump administration, say Sharon Block and Raj Nayak at the Center for Labor and a Just Economy.

  • Anticipating Jarkesy's Effect On Bank Agency Enforcement

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    Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, federal courts may eventually issue decisions on banking law principles and processes that could fundamentally alter the agencies' enforcement action framework, and the relationship between banks and examiners, says Brendan Clegg at Luse Gorman.

  • Opinion

    Legal Institutions Must Warn Against Phony Election Suits

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    With two weeks until the election, bar associations and courts have an urgent responsibility to warn lawyers about the consequences of filing unsubstantiated lawsuits claiming election fraud, says Elise Bean at the Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy.

  • Peeling Back The Layers Of SEC's Equity Trading Reforms

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently adopted amendments lowering the tick sizes for stock trading and reducing access fee caps will benefit investors and necessitate broad systems changes — if they can first survive judicial challenges, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • 5th Circ. DOL Tip Decision May Trigger Final 80/20 Rule Fight

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    A recent Fifth Circuit decision concerning a Labor Department rule that limits how often tipped employees can be assigned non-tip-producing duties could be challenged in either historically rule-friendly circuits or the Supreme Court, but either way it could shape the future of tipped work, says Kevin Johnson at Johnson Jackson.

  • Strategies To Avoid Patent Issues In AI Drug Discovery

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    Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve drug discovery and design, but companies should consider a variety of factors when patenting drugs created using AI systems, including guidance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and methods for protecting patent eligibility, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

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