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Appellate

  • September 08, 2025

    9th Circ. Axes Ruling Trader Joe's 'Weaponized Legal System'

    A California federal judge hastily found that Trader Joe's cooked up borderline-frivolous theories of trademark infringement to punish union organizers, the Ninth Circuit held Monday, finding that union merchandise looks "strikingly similar" to the grocer's well-known logo.

  • September 08, 2025

    10th Circ. Backs Dentist's Murder, Insurance Fraud Convictions

    A dentist convicted of murdering his wife on a hunting trip in Zambia to collect nearly $5 million in life insurance who became the subject of a Hulu documentary must continue to serve a life prison sentence for murder and insurance fraud, the Tenth Circuit ruled on Monday.

  • September 08, 2025

    'Disappointed' Alsup Wants More Info On $1.5B Anthropic Deal

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup has declined to sign off on Anthropic's proposed $1.5 billion settlement with authors accusing the artificial intelligence developer of copyright infringement, saying he's "disappointed that counsel have left important questions" unanswered and instructing the parties to provide more information by the end of the month.

  • September 08, 2025

    3rd Circ. Revives Ex-Lecturer's Suit Over Alt-Right Views

    The Third Circuit on Monday found school disruptions at the New Jersey Institute of Technology caused by a philosophy lecturer's comments don't outweigh his free speech rights, reversing the school's summary judgment win in the professor's lawsuit alleging NJIT violated his constitutional rights by refusing to renew his contract after his off-campus, alt-right comments drew national attention.

  • September 08, 2025

    DC Circ. Mulls Whether To Leave Whistleblower Rewardless

    The D.C. Circuit didn't seem to think it was fair that the SEC refused a million dollar reward to a whistleblower who went to the media first, even though the judges hinted Monday they thought the agency might have been within its rights to do so.

  • September 08, 2025

    Immigration Board's Undoing Of Bond Practice Stuns Attys

    A Board of Immigration Appeals decision to deny bond and require mandatory detention for anyone entering the U.S. unlawfully has stunned immigration attorneys, who say the upending of decades of precedent will leave few options beyond leaving the country.

  • September 08, 2025

    Split 4th Circ. Axes States' Challenge To Trump Admin Layoffs

    A split Fourth Circuit panel held Monday that a coalition of states doesn't have standing to sue the Trump administration over the mass firing of thousands of probationary government employees, finding that it was the employees — not the states — who "suffered the brunt of the harm" underlying the case.

  • September 08, 2025

    9th Circ. Affirms Toss Of Illuminate Education Data Breach Suit

    A Ninth Circuit panel affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a proposed class action Monday filed against Illuminate Education Inc. by parents of children whose personal information may have been exposed in a massive data breach, holding the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that any harms were suffered. 

  • September 08, 2025

    3rd Circ.'s Grid-Planning Ruling Will Coax States To Play Ball

    A Third Circuit decision limiting states' ability to block transmission projects already greenlighted by regional grid operators could make a federal overhaul of transmission planning policies more appealing, even as several states and utilities pursue litigation to block the changes.

  • September 08, 2025

    Chamber Accuses Mich. Of 'Gamesmanship' In Pipeline Fight

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has urged the Supreme Court to rule that judges have the power to waive the deadline to transfer a lawsuit to federal court in special circumstances, saying Michigan shouldn't be allowed to play procedural games to keep a case against energy infrastructure firm Enbridge Energy LP in state court. 

  • September 08, 2025

    Unions Knock 'Flawed' 4th Circ. Injunction Take In DOGE Row

    A split Fourth Circuit panel's decision to vacate an injunction targeting the Department of Government Efficiency created a flawed framework for evaluating whether an injunction is appropriate, a coalition of unions argued Monday, asking the full Fourth Circuit to override the majority's "sharp departure from established precedents."

  • September 08, 2025

    Mayo Clinic Beats Suit Over Fatal Brain Hemorrhage

    A Minnesota state appeals court ruled Monday that a lower court was within its rights to exclude an expert witness who couldn't identify a causal link between a pain medication the Mayo Clinic gave an amputation patient and a subsequent fatal brain hemorrhage.

  • September 08, 2025

    DC Circ. Probes Sovereign Immunity In Nazi Art Case

    The D.C. Circuit on Monday grappled with whether claims asserted by the descendants of Hungarian Jewish art collectors over artwork stolen during the German occupation of Hungary are barred under sovereign immunity, focusing on how to delineate an "occupation."

  • September 08, 2025

    Atty In Judge Newman Suspension Feud Moves To DOJ

    An attorney who has been representing Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman in the legal battle over her suspension has jumped from the New Civil Liberties Alliance to work at the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • September 08, 2025

    Barrett Talks Dobbs, Court's Role In New Book

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett defends her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and declare there's no constitutional right to abortion in her new memoir, which also provides unique insight into her view of the judiciary's role in American democracy and her approach to interpreting law.

  • September 08, 2025

    11th Circ. Grants Cop Immunity Over Repeat 911 Caller Arrest

    An Eleventh Circuit panel has ruled that a pair of cops are shielded by qualified immunity for arresting a woman who repeatedly called 911 to report gunfire in her neighborhood despite knowing that the guns were being fired on a legal shooting range.

  • September 08, 2025

    Securities Class Actions Had A Late Summer Appellate Bloom

    While the later summer months are often a quiet time for the nation's courts, the federal appellate courts were hard at work this past July and August issuing important rulings on class certification standards for shareholder lawsuits and handing down split-panel decisions over the future of disclosure litigation.

  • September 08, 2025

    11th Circ. Says Cos.' 20-Year Contract Fight Properly Ended

    The Eleventh Circuit won't revive fastener and components supplier Whitesell Corp.'s contract fight with household appliance maker Electrolux and a lawn and garden equipment-maker spinoff company, saying it will not disturb various court rulings that led to a nearly $9 million jury verdict after 20 years of litigation.

  • September 08, 2025

    9th Circ. Upholds Dismissal Of 'Penny Dreadful' IP Suit

    The Ninth Circuit on Monday affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss a suit brought by a woman who claimed her writings on an online role-playing forum were used to create a character in the Showtime series "Penny Dreadful," saying the resemblance between her characters and Showtime's wasn't obvious enough to preclude coincidence.

  • September 08, 2025

    Grassley Blocked On Quick US Attorney Confirmations

    Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tried Monday to quickly confirm 10 nominees for U.S. attorneys, but was blocked by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

  • September 08, 2025

    Phillips 66 Faces Retrial After 'Improper' Infringement Theory

    The Federal Circuit on Monday ordered a new trial over allegations that Phillips 66 infringed Magēmā Technology's oil refinery patents, saying in a precedential opinion that a Texas federal court wrongfully concluded that Phillips' noninfringement theory was harmless, as it had also found the theory "improper and prejudicial."

  • September 08, 2025

    Biz Groups Ask Justices To Shield Freight Brokers From Suits

    Business and trucking trade groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court to smooth out splintered circuit court rulings that have exposed freight brokers to patchwork liability for state-based negligence claims, saying there could be lasting disruptions to the supply chain if the justices don't intervene.

  • September 08, 2025

    Exxon, BP, Others Keep Dismissal Of Pa. Benzene Suit

    A Pennsylvania appeals court on Monday refused to reinstate a woman's suit alleging that products from Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Products North America Inc. and others exposed her husband to benzene, leading to his death, ruling the trial court rightly found that North Carolina is the far better venue.

  • September 08, 2025

    Del. Gov. Defends Corp. Law Overhaul In Pending Appeal

    Delaware's governor has weighed in strongly against a state Supreme Court challenge to legislation approved earlier this year barring damages or "equitable" relief for some controlling stockholder or going-private deals, arguing that nothing in the measure unconstitutionally limits court powers.

  • September 08, 2025

    Caltrans Escapes $3.8M Verdict Over Bicyclist's Injuries

    The California Department of Transportation successfully overturned a $3.8 million jury verdict in a case involving a bicycle accident on a bridge in Santa Barbara that caused a man's severe injuries, as an appeals court ruled Monday that the trial court improperly excluded Caltrans' witnesses as a discovery sanction.

Expert Analysis

  • Patenting AI And Machine Learning In The Wake Of Recentive

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    Though the Federal Circuit's recent decision in Recentive Analytics v. Fox Corp. initially appears to doom patents related to artificial intelligence and machine learning, a closer look shows that strategies for successfully drafting and prosecuting such patents offer hope despite increased pushback from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, say attorneys at Banner Witcoff.

  • Age Bias Suit Against Aircraft Co. Offers Lessons For Layoffs

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    In Raymond v. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, an aircraft maker's former employees recently dismissed their remaining claims after the Tenth Circuit rejected their nearly decade-old collective action alleging age discrimination stemming from a 2013 reduction in force, reminding employers about the importance of carefully planning and documenting mass layoffs, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Trade Secrets Would Likely See Court Protection From GenAI

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    The advent of generative artificial intelligence has given rise to debate about how this technology will affect intellectual property rights and trade secret protections in particular, but courts to date have protected owners when technological advances have facilitated new means for trade secret theft, say attorneys at Kilpatrick Townsend.

  • How Mass Arbitration Defense Strategies Have Fared In Court

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    As businesses face consumers who leverage arbitration agreements to compel mass arbitration, companies are trying defense strategies like batching arbitration cases to reduce costs, and escaping specific mass arbitrations without rejecting the process completely, with varying results in the courtroom, say attorneys at Montgomery McCracken.

  • FTC Focus: Interlocking Directorate Enforcement May Persist

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    Though the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Andrew Ferguson seems likely to adopt a pro-business approach to antitrust enforcement, his endorsement of broader liability for officers or directors who illegally sit on boards of competing corporations signals that businesses should not expect board-level antitrust scrutiny to slacken, says Timothy Burroughs at Proskauer.

  • How Cos. Can Navigate Risks Of New Cartel Terrorist Labels

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    The Trump administration’s recent designation of eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations gives rise to new criminal and civil liabilities for companies that are unwittingly exposed to cartel activity, but businesses can mitigate such risks in a few key ways, say attorneys at Steptoe.

  • Mass. Suit Points To New Scrutiny For Home Equity Contracts

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    The Massachusetts attorney general’s recent charge that a lender sold unregulated reverse mortgages shows more regulators are scrutinizing mortgage alternatives like home equity contracts, but a similar case in the Ninth Circuit suggests more courts need to help develop a consensus on these products' legality, say attorneys at Weiner Brodsky.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Size, Supply Schedules, SINs

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    In this month's bid protest roundup, Alissandra McCann at MoFo examines three recent decisions, two of which offer helpful reminders for U.S. General Services Administration schedule holders drafting blanket purchase agreement proposals, and one for small-business joint ventures to avoid running afoul of the U.S. Small Business Administration's two-year rule.

  • 4th Circ. Latest To Curb Short-Seller Usage In Securities Suits

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    The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Defeo v. IonQ will serve as a powerful and persuasive new precedent for corporate defendants as courts continue curtailing securities class action plaintiffs' use of short-seller reports to plead federal securities law claims, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • Perspectives

    Reading Tea Leaves In High Court's Criminal Law Decisions

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    The criminal justice decisions the U.S. Supreme Court will announce in the coming weeks will reveal whether last term’s fractured decision-making has continued, an important data point as the justices’ alignment seems to correlate with who benefits from a case’s outcome, says Sharon Fairley at the University of Chicago Law School.

  • 8 Strategies For Proving The Laws Of Foreign Countries

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    A recently decided case in Virginia federal court highlighted some of the pitfalls surrounding expert testimony on foreign law, but certain strategies are available to counsel to circumvent these dilemmas, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • $38M Law Firm Settlement Highlights 'Unworthy Client' Perils

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    A recent settlement of claims against law firm Eckert Seamans for allegedly abetting a Ponzi scheme underscores the continuing threat of clients who seek to exploit their lawyers in perpetrating fraud, and the critical importance of preemptive measures to avoid these clients, say attorneys at Lockton Companies.

  • Hints Of Where Enforcement May Grow Under New Ƶ

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    Though the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has significantly scaled back enforcement under the new administration, states remain able to pursue Consumer Financial Protection Act violators and the Ƶ seems set to enhance its focus on predatory loans to military members and fraudulent debt collection and credit reporting practices, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • Series

    Teaching Business Law Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Teaching business law to college students has rekindled my sense of purpose as a lawyer — I am more mindful of the importance of the rule of law and the benefits of our common law system, which helps me maintain a clearer perspective on work, says David Feldman at Feldman Legal Advisors.

  • Jurisdictional Issues At Play In 9th Circ.'s FCA Trade Case

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    A decision by the Ninth Circuit in Island Industries v. Sigma Corp. could result in the U.S. Court of International Trade’s exclusive jurisdiction over trade-related FCA cases, a big shift in the enforcement landscape just as tariffs take center stage in trade policy, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

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