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Appellate
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May 23, 2025
Mich. Justices To Hear Appeal Over Auto Policy Rescission
The Michigan Supreme Court agreed to hear a dispute over whether an appeals court correctly held that a Progressive unit could rescind a woman's auto policy because of misrepresentations in her insurance application after a trial court ruled the insurer had to reform the policy instead.
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May 23, 2025
Texas Justices Flip $6M Judgment In Gas Pipeline Row
The Texas Supreme Court chided a trial court after it "blue-penciled extra words" into a contract dealing with a natural gas pipeline, reversing Friday a $6 million judgment previously in favor of Rainbow Energy Marketing Corporation and what it called a "cascade of errors."
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May 23, 2025
9th Circ. Judges Grapple With Funko Investors' Fraud Claims
Ninth Circuit panelists said Friday they were "struggling" with an appeal from a group of investors in a proposed class securities fraud case against toymaker Funko, expressing skepticism that the shareholders had shown corporate leadership knowingly misrepresented the status of a software update that flopped.
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May 23, 2025
Report By Law Prof Filed In Ex-Atty's Bid To Win Back House
A Florida law professor's report filed this week with the state Supreme Court calls a Tampa judge's order taking away an attorney's home "manifestly erroneous," asserting the ruling handed down more than eight years ago was made without determining whether the property had state constitutional protection from creditors.
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May 23, 2025
Texas Justices Answer 5th Circ. Query On State Usury Laws
The Texas Supreme Court on Friday concurred with a credit card industry firm that sued a lender over its "usurious" interest charges, telling the Fifth Circuit that state law holds that the maximum permissible interest on a loan is based on the declining principal balance, not the initial total principal amount.
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May 23, 2025
Fed. Circ. Dings PTAB Decision Upholding X-Ray Patent
The Federal Circuit on Friday reversed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruling that claims in an X-ray patent aren't invalid as anticipated, concluding that the board's claim construction in the matter was incorrect, even though the board denied that it was construing any claims.
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May 23, 2025
9th Circ. Upholds Ch. 13 Plan Against Debt Bifurcation Appeal
The Ninth Circuit rejected a mortgage lender's bid to overturn a California couple's bankruptcy plan, ruling their recalculated home value qualified them for Chapter 13 despite initial estimates exceeding the unsecured debt limit.
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May 23, 2025
NJ Panel Revives Ex-Nursing Director's Discrimination Suit
A New Jersey appeals court panel on Friday revived a former Capital Health nursing director's suit alleging the state nurses association discriminated against her for receiving treatment for alcoholism, finding that the trial court could hear her complaint.
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May 23, 2025
2nd Circ. Says Judge Misapplied Fair Use In Copyright Case
A Manhattan federal judge misunderstood the fair use doctrine when she dismissed a photographer's copyright lawsuit against a website that published one of her images, the Second Circuit said in a Friday ruling that directed the lower court to enter judgment in favor of the plaintiff.
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May 23, 2025
Prudential Urges 3rd Circ. To Back Win In 401(k) Suit
A New Jersey district court correctly tossed a suit in which a class of workers claimed they were shorted millions of dollars in their retirement plans, Prudential told the Third Circuit, arguing that it made cautious decisions in its fiduciary process.
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May 23, 2025
Alex Jones Says $45.1M Sandy Hook Verdict Unconstitutional
Infowars host Alex Jones' newest attorneys have asked a Texas appeals court to overturn a $45.1 million defamation verdict awarded to Sandy Hook families, arguing the default judgment was unconstitutionally issued after limited discovery and that the award violates Texas law limiting punitive damages compared to actual harm.
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May 23, 2025
Chief Justice Pauses DOGE's FOIA Discovery For Now
Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused discovery Friday into whether the Department of Government Efficiency is an agency subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, giving the initiative a short reprieve as the U.S. Supreme Court considers DOGE's bid to more fully halt a purported "fishing expedition."
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May 23, 2025
Texas Atty Still Disbarred For Failing To Report Client's Death
A Texas appeals court has upheld the disbarment of an attorney who was found by a jury to have engaged in professional misconduct, in part, by failing to report the death of a client he had represented in an attempt to recover the value of bounced checks.
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May 23, 2025
Law Prof Rebuked For Trying To End Sister's Conservatorship
Colorado appellate judges have said a Northwestern University law professor lacked standing to request termination of a conservatorship over his sister, citing the professor stealing at least $1.5 million from his sister's inheritance and calling him "the antithesis" of a person interested in her welfare.
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May 23, 2025
Split DC Circ. Affirms Ax Of Ex-Trump Aide's Surveillance Suit
A split D.C. Circuit affirmed Friday the dismissal of claims by former Trump 2016 campaign adviser Carter Page that the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI and former top officials violated privacy statutes in surveilling him as part of a Russian election interference probe.
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May 23, 2025
9th Circ. Urged To Force ERISA 401(k) Suit Arbitration
A Los Angeles-based investment management company urged the Ninth Circuit to force individual arbitration of an ex-worker's proposed class action alleging 401(k) mismanagement, arguing a lower court incorrectly concluded an arbitration provision in employees' retirement plan wasn't enforceable because it waived statutory rights under federal benefits law.
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May 23, 2025
My So-Called Retirement: Some IP Lawyers Just Can't Quit
When patent partner Terry Rea set out to retire, the onetime acting director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had her eyes on the independence that retirement promises — flexible hours, fewer deadlines and less stress over having lots of people counting on you.
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May 23, 2025
DeSantis Taps Ex-Governor's Office Atty For Appellate Seat
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday appointed his former chief deputy general counsel to the First District Court of Appeal bench in Tallahassee.
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May 23, 2025
Mich. Justices To Hear Law Firm's Roof 'Addition' Appeal
Michigan's highest court said it will review whether a law firm office building's new roof was an addition to the property for the purposes of evaluating taxable value, meaning the property's value could increase beyond a 5% cap.Â
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May 23, 2025
Philly Firm Dodges DQ Despite 'Troubling' Discovery Conduct
Philadelphia-based construction law specialists Horn Williamson LLC can't be disqualified from a batch of negligence lawsuits against home builder Toll Brothers Inc. over "troubling" misconduct involving third-party subpoenas, a Pennsylvania Superior Court said Friday.
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May 23, 2025
Boston Not Liable Over School Shooting, Appeals Court Says
The city of Boston is not liable for injuries to a high school student shot by a classmate while being dismissed early to attend a funeral, nor for the trauma experienced by his mother and younger siblings who were also in the line of fire, a Massachusetts intermediate appellate court concluded Friday.
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May 23, 2025
Mich. Justices Agree To Hear Insurer's PIP Benefits Appeal
The Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to review a split lower court's finding that an auto insurer must provide personal injury protection, or PIP, benefits to a policyholder's son who was injured in an out-of-state tractor-trailer crash.
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May 23, 2025
Former AG Garland Returns To Arnold & Porter
Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has returned to Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, where he worked early in his career, the firm announced Friday.
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May 23, 2025
Fed. Circ. Partly Revives Allstate Challenge To Tech Patent
The Federal Circuit on Friday threw out the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's finding that Allstate failed to show the invalidity of two claims in a patent on cellphone sensors that can tell if a vehicle has accelerated or crashed, telling the board to take another look.
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May 23, 2025
Off The Bench: Tennis Officials, NCAA Stay On The Defensive
In this week's Off The Bench, tennis players face pushback from the governing bodies they are accusing of antitrust violations, college basketball players claiming the NCAA exploited them want their class action revived, and a baseball player seeking one last year to play in college hits another legal roadblock.
Expert Analysis
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Series
Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.
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Opinion
New DOJ Leaders Should Curb Ill-Conceived Prosecutions
First-of-their-kind cases have seemingly led to a string of overly aggressive prosecutions in recent years, so newly sworn-in leaders of the U.S. Department of Justice should consider creating reporting channels to stop unwise prosecutions before they snowball, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.
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Opinion
Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay
Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.
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What Justices' FLSA Ruling Means For 2-Step Collective Cert.
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in EMD Sales v. Carrera may have sounded the death knell for the decades-old two-step process to certify collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which could lead more circuits to require a preponderance of the evidence showing that members are similarly situated, says Steven Katz at Constangy.
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Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example
Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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SEC Motion Response Could Reveal New Crypto Approach
Cumberland DRW recently filed to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement action against it for the unlawful purchase and sale of digital asset securities, and the agency's response should unveil whether, and to what extent, the Trump administration will relax the federal government’s stance on digital asset regulation, say attorneys at O'Melveny.
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Perspectives
Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines
KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.
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Perspectives
DC Circ. Cellphone Ruling Upends Law Enforcement Protocol
The D.C. Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Brown decision, holding that forcibly requiring a defendant to unlock his cellphone with his fingerprint violated the Fifth Amendment, has significant implications for law enforcement, and may provide an opportunity for defense lawyers to suppress electronic evidence, says Sarah Sulkowski at Gelber & Santillo.
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The Post-Macquarie Securities Fraud-By-Omission Landscape
While the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 opinion in Macquarie v. Moab distinguished inactionable "pure omissions" from actionable "half-truths," the line between the two concepts in practice is still unclear, presenting challenges for lower courts parsing statements that often fall within the gray area of "misleading by omission," say attorneys at Katten.
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AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex
Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.
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When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law
In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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The Future Of ALJs At NLRB And DOL Post-Jarkesy
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Jarkesy ruling, several ongoing challenges to the constitutionality of the U.S. Department of Labor's and the National Labor Relations Board's administrative law judges have the potential to significantly shape the future of administrative tribunals, say attorneys at Wiley Rein.
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The Tides Are Changing For Fair Access Banking Laws
The landscape of fair access banking laws, which seek to prevent banks from denying services based on individuals' ideological beliefs, has shifted in the last few years, but a new presidential administration provides renewed momentum for advancing such legislation against the backdrop of state efforts, say attorneys at Latham.
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Imagine The Possibilities Of Openly Autistic Lawyering
Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law, who was diagnosed with autism about midway through her career, discusses how the legal profession can create inclusive workplaces that empower openly autistic lawyers and enhance innovation, and how neurodivergent attorneys can navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with disclosing one’s diagnosis.
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Top 10 Healthcare And Life Sciences Issues To Watch In 2025
Under the new Trump administration, this coming year may benefit some healthcare and life sciences stakeholders, while creating new challenges for others amid an increasingly complex regulatory environment, say attorneys at Debevoise.