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Appellate
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May 21, 2025
Calif. Justices Weigh Strict Arbitration Fee Law's Validity
Counsel for a food supply company urged the California Supreme Court on Wednesday to find the Federal Arbitration Act preempts a state statute automatically waiving arbitration rights for a party that doesn't timely pay arbitration fees, saying the law is so draconian that even an earthquake wouldn't excuse late payment.
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May 21, 2025
'DIY' Rape Kit Ban Challenge Seems To Leave 9th Circ. Split
A Ninth Circuit panel appeared divided Wednesday over a company's appeal in its case challenging Washington state's ban on self-administered DNA collection kits for sexual assault survivors, with one judge remarking the product "doesn't do a whole heck of a lot" if the evidence isn't admissible in court. Â
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May 21, 2025
FTC Urges 8th Circ. Not To Pause In-House PBM Case
The Eighth Circuit should once again say no to a request to pause the Federal Trade Commission's in-house case accusing three pharmacy benefit managers of hiking up the price of insulin to line their own pockets, the agency has told the appellate court.
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May 21, 2025
The Status Of Biden-Era Immigration Suits: A Roundup
Following the presidential transition, the U.S. Department of Justice moved to dismiss suits brought by the Biden administration challenging state immigration enforcement measures in Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma, leaving the status of those cases up in the air.
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May 21, 2025
4th Circ. Won't Revive Khashoggi Widow's Surveillance Suit
The Fourth Circuit on Wednesday said a Virginia federal judge properly tossed a lawsuit from the widow of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi alleging NSO Group Technologies' spyware contributed to her husband's assassination, saying she hasn't shown the cyber-intelligence firm's alleged conduct was directed at the Commonwealth.
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May 21, 2025
9th Circ. Judge Asks If Apple's Watch Updates 'Ice Out' Rivals
Two Ninth Circuit judges appeared skeptical Wednesday of Apple Inc.'s arguments against reviving an antitrust suit brought by medical monitoring startup AliveCor Inc. after Apple blocked third-party access to medical data on the Apple Watch, with one judge asking rhetorically whether a "marginal" improvement by Apple could actually be a way to "ice out" competition.
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May 21, 2025
Ga. Judge Tells Ethics Panel No Harm Meant In Family Cases
An Atlanta trial judge facing allegations that she intervened on behalf of her uncle in a legal proceeding and had a woman locked in a cell during her parents' divorce hearing took the stand Wednesday before Georgia's judicial watchdog, saying she would have done things differently in hindsight.
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May 21, 2025
AbbVie Gets Victory In Allergan Shareholder Suit Upheld
An Illinois state appellate panel said Wednesday that a trial court properly dismissed a shareholder class action against biopharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc. that accused the drugmaker of issuing unregistered shares to investors after acquiring Irish pharmaceutical company Allergan.
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May 21, 2025
Army Contract Protest Dismissed Over Filing Violations
Multiple missed filing deadlines and public filings containing confidential information, despite repeated warnings, provided grounds to dismiss a Virginia company's challenge of a U.S. Army contract award for information technology services, a Court of Federal Claims Judge said Wednesday.
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May 21, 2025
6th Circ. Revives Yacht Co.'s ERISA Health Fee Claims
The Sixth Circuit on Wednesday revived a Michigan yacht company's federal benefits lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, holding that a lower court wrongly tossed allegations that excessive healthcare fees breached fiduciary duties and caused prohibited transactions.
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May 21, 2025
Texas Bills To Watch Before The End Of The 2025 Session
With less than two weeks remaining in the Texas legislative session, lawmakers will hit several deadlines in the coming days that will seal the fate of bills surrounding legal procedure, abortion, artificial intelligence and other topics.
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May 21, 2025
ITC Wants Full Fed. Circ. To Rehear Lashify Dispute
The U.S. International Trade Commission wants the Federal Circuit to rethink its finding that the commission was wrongly prohibiting domestic expenses related to sales, marketing and other activities from allowing companies to pursue ITC patent cases.
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May 21, 2025
'Only God Knows My Name': 11th Circ. OKs Doe's Conviction
The 11th Circuit on Wednesday affirmed the conviction of a man who refused to be identified by immigration officials, saying, "Only God knows my name," ruling the lower court correctly held the criminal statute he was charged under applied to him although it couldn't prove he lawfully entered the country.Â
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May 21, 2025
Immigrant Groups Appeal Denied Bid To Halt IRS-ICE Deal
Immigrant advocacy groups on Wednesday appealed a D.C. federal judge's order denying their bid to block the IRS from sharing taxpayer data with immigration enforcement agencies, with their counsel warning "it will be too late" once the information is shared.
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May 21, 2025
Airplane Parts Cos. Urge NC Justices To Revive Crash Appeal
A pair of airplane parts makers urged the North Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday to bring back their appeal seeking to dismiss claims brought against them over a fatal 2015 plane crash, arguing the state justices should clarify when interlocutory appeals are warranted and correct what they called "patently wrong" reasoning at the lower courts.
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May 21, 2025
Full Fed. Circ. Undoes $20M Google Loss, Orders New Trial
The full Federal Circuit on Wednesday ordered a new damages trial in a case where a jury told Google LLC to pay $20 million for infringing an EcoFactor Inc. thermostat patent, ruling that the testimony of EcoFactor's damages expert was unreliable and should not have been admitted.
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May 21, 2025
Mich. Justices Won't Hear Hotels' Water Rate Appeal
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review a Michigan town's water and sewer rates, rejecting an appeal from a group of hotels and restaurants that alleged a rate hike was an unconstitutional tax.
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May 21, 2025
11th Circ. Blocks Fla. Credit Union's Arbitration Bid In Fee Suit
The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday denied a Florida credit union's bid to force arbitration in a proposed class action alleging it wrongly charged overdraft fees, saying its checking account agreements didn't require the parties to settle the case out of court.
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May 21, 2025
Court Won't Revive Mental Health Class Suit Against Fla. Blue
A Florida appeals court Wednesday declined to revive a proposed class suit by state employees enrolled in a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida healthcare plan alleging the insurer designed a claims process to obstruct approval and payment of claims for mental health care.
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May 21, 2025
Pa. Justices To Mull State DOT Liability For Hanging Branches
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will decide if the state Department of Transportation should be immune to wrongful-death claims stemming from a large tree branch that overhung a PennDOT road but grew from a tree on land owned by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the court announced Wednesday.
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May 21, 2025
Democrats Wary of Nominees' Pledge To Honor Court Orders
Nominees for top roles at the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security fended off questions from Democrats on Wednesday about the Trump administration's willingness to defy court orders and pledged that the White House would at least follow rulings of the Supreme Court.
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May 21, 2025
NRA Asks Justices To End Fla.'s Age Limit On Gun Sales
The National Rifle Association is taking its fight against Florida's prohibition on gun sales to anyone under 21 up to the U.S. Supreme Court, telling the justices that a circuit split makes the Eleventh Circuit's March decision upholding the ban ripe for review.
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May 21, 2025
DOGE Seeks High Court's Help In Ducking FOIA Discovery
The Department of Government Efficiency asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to halt discovery into whether it's an agency subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, arguing a Washington, D.C., federal judge has improperly authorized a "fishing expedition" into the internal workings of a presidential advisory entity.
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May 21, 2025
Clerk Shouldn't Have Deemed Injury Suit Late, Pa. Court Rules
The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled in a precedential opinion that a county prothonotary clerk did not have the authority to reject an injury lawsuit against a resort as lacking the proper signatures or as untimely after the filing sat in the courthouse for five days, with the appellate court reviving the case for further proceedings.
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May 21, 2025
NC Panel Sides With County In Builder's Service Fee Spat
North Carolina's intermediate appeals court on Wednesday backed a county's interpretation of an ordinance allowing it to collect water service fees from a homebuilder, reasoning that the builder's residential neighborhood is a "new development" subject to the law.
Expert Analysis
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Notable Q1 Updates In Insurance Class Actions
The first quarter of 2025 was filled with the refinement of old theories in the property and casualty space, including in vehicle valuation, time to seek appraisal and materials depreciation, says Mathew Drocton at BakerHostetler.
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2nd Circ. Ruling May Aid Consistent Interpretation Of ADA
In Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District, the Second Circuit joined the majority of circuits by holding that an employee's ability to perform their job without an accommodation does not disqualify them from receiving one, marking a notable step toward uniform application of the Americans with Disabilities Act nationwide, says Michelle Grant at Wilson Elser.
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EPA's Proposed GHG Reform Could Hinder Climate Regulation
The Trump administration will reconsider the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's landmark 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding, which could leave the U.S. federal government with no statutory authority whatsoever to regulate climate change or greenhouse gas emissions, says David Smith at Manatt.
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Perspectives
Power To The Paralegals: The Value Of Unified State Licensing
Texas' proposal to become the latest state to license paraprofessional providers of limited legal services could help firms expand their reach and improve access to justice, but consumers, attorneys and allied legal professionals would benefit even more if similar programs across the country become more uniform, says Michael Houlberg at the University of Denver.
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Fed. Circ. In March: Forfeiting Claim Construction On Appeal
The Federal Circuit's decision in Wash World v. Belanger last month confirms the importance of fair notice to the district court when determining forfeiture of an argument on appeal in the context of patent claim construction, allowing appellants to better gauge the appropriate framing of arguments that may be presented, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.
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1st Circ. Ruling May Slow SEC Retail Investment Advice Cases
The First Circuit's recent ruling, finding the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission did not substantiate its $93.3 million fine against a retail investment adviser, may raise the threshold on materiality findings in these cases and add a speed bump resulting in fewer such actions, say attorneys at Weil.
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10 Soft Skills Every GC Should Master
As businesses face shifting regulatory and technological uncertainty, general counsel will need to strengthen certain soft skills to succeed, from admitting when they make a mistake to maintaining a healthy dose of dispassion, says Douglas Brown at Manatt.
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6 Criteria Can Help Assess Executive Branch Actions
With new executive policy changes announced seemingly every day, several questions can help courts, policymakers and businesses determine whether such actions are proper, effective and in keeping with our democratic norms, say Marc Levin and Khalil Cumberbatch at the Council on Criminal Justice.
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Fed Circ.'s PTAB Ruling Highlights Obsolete Rationale
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in In re: Riggs shines a new light on its 2015 decision in Dynamic Drinkware v. National Graphics, and raises questions about why the claim support requirement established by Dynamic Drinkware exists at all, say attorneys at Patterson Belknap.
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Traversing The Shifting Sands Of ESG Reporting Compliance
Multinational corporations have increasingly found themselves between a rock and a hard place attempting to comply with EU and California ESG requirements while not running afoul of expanding U.S. anti-ESG regimes, but focusing on what is material to shareholder value and establishing strong governance can help, say attorneys at MoFo.
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An Unrestrained, Bright-Eyed View Of Legal AI's Future
Todd Itami at Covington offers a bright-eyed, laughing-all-the-way, skydive look at what the legal industry could look like after an artificial intelligence revolution, which he believes may happen much sooner and more dramatically than we expect.
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Tracking The Evolution In Litigation Finance
Despite continued innovation, litigation finance remains an immature market with borrowers recieving significantly different terms as lenders learn to value cases, which firms need a strong handle on to ensure lending terms do not overwhelm collateral value, says Robert Wilkins at Lightfoot Franklin.
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Addressing Antitrust Scrutiny Over AI-Powered Pricing Tools
Amid multiple recent civil complaints alleging antitrust violations by providers and users of algorithmic pricing tools, such as RealPage and Yardi, digital-era measures should feature prominently in corporate compliance programs, including documentation of pro-competitive benefits and when to use disclosures, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Opinion
In Vape Case, Justices Must Focus On Agencies' Results
With the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments having put off the question of whether agency decisions arrived at erroneously are always invalid, the court should give the results of agency actions more weight than the reasoning behind them when it revisits this case, says Jonathan Sheffield at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
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Series
Volunteer Firefighting Makes Me A Better Lawyer
While practicing corporate law and firefighting may appear incongruous, the latter benefits my legal career by reminding me of the importance of humility, perspective and education, says Nicholas Passaro at Ford.