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Appellate
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August 06, 2025
9th Circ. Backs SEC's No-Denials Settlements Rule
The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday rejected a First Amendment challenge to a decades-old U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule that restricts defendants who settle securities law charges from denying the claims against them, saying the law has "long regarded the voluntary relinquishment of constitutional rights as permissible" with safeguards.
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August 06, 2025
Family Says Court Must Face Bias Suit Over Witness Killing
The father of a pregnant woman from Las Vegas who was fatally shot after traveling to Asheville to testify in a capital murder case urged the North Carolina Court of Appeals to restore his case against the state's court administrative office, arguing it was not time-barred.
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August 06, 2025
Ark. Prisoners Challenge Nitrogen Gas Execution Law
Ten Arkansas death row inmates have challenged a new law authorizing their execution by nitrogen gas, arguing the law is unconstitutional because it violates the state's separation of powers doctrine, an attorney confirmed to Law360.
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August 06, 2025
Vivint Asks 4th Circ. To Rethink Affirming $190M TM Verdict
Vivint Smart Home Inc. is looking for a do-over after the Fourth Circuit affirmed a nearly $190 million verdict in a suit accusing it of deceiving customers of a rival security company, saying the ruling flouts North Carolina's cap on punitive damages and ignores state appellate precedence.
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August 06, 2025
NJ Panel Backs Jury Verdict For Law Firm In $244K Fee Row
A New Jersey appellate panel on Wednesday upheld a jury verdict in favor of the New York-based law firm Weg & Myers PC in a breach-of-contract action brought by a former client, finding no abuse of discretion or prejudicial error by the judge.
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August 06, 2025
7th Circ. Adopts Flexible Standard For Collective Actions
The Seventh Circuit in a discrimination case against Eli Lilly & Co. laid out a new standard for certifying collective actions, joining the Fifth and Sixth circuits in departing from a two-step analysis courts had used for decades but taking a more middle-of-the-road approach.
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August 06, 2025
2nd Circ. Backs J&J Spinoff In 'Rapid Release' Label Suit
The Second Circuit on Wednesday declined to revive a proposed class action alleging a Johnson & Johnson spinoff company misled consumers by claiming that "Rapid Release" Tylenol gelcaps dissolve faster than other types of Tylenol.
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August 06, 2025
Russia Says It Never Agreed To Arbitrate With Ukrainian Utility
Russia has asked the D.C. Circuit to overturn a decision ordering it to face litigation by a Ukrainian utility to enforce a nearly $219 million arbitral award the company won after its Crimean assets were seized, saying it never agreed to arbitrate with the company.
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August 06, 2025
7th Circ. Revives Ex-Teacher's Suit Over Trans Student Names
A split Seventh Circuit panel reinstated a religious bias suit from a Christian teacher who alleged that a school district unlawfully required him to refer to transgender students by their preferred names, with a dissent warning that the ruling created a "perilous precedent" for employers.
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August 06, 2025
10th Circ. Partly Revives Ex-Sales Head's Client List Case
A split panel of the Tenth Circuit partially revived a case from a sales executive against his former employer who claims the company took a customer list, saying the executive had improperly been barred from offering expert testimony on his lost wages.
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August 05, 2025
5th Circ. Wipes Out Honeywell Win In Worker's Vaccine Fight
The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday resurrected a former Honeywell employee's suit claiming he was fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine after his request for a religious exemption was denied, ruling that a jury could indeed determine that the worker faced religious discrimination.
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August 05, 2025
Key Opioid Theory Actually Irrelevant, Drug Cos. Tell 4th Circ.
With federal judges in West Virginia suddenly split over the central legal theory in opioid litigation, major drug distributors are insisting the theory actually doesn't matter, telling the Fourth Circuit it can uphold their triumph in a landmark trial without even touching the hot-button issue.
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August 05, 2025
Biz Prof's Pay Based On Experience, Not Bias, 6th Circ. Told
Michigan Technological University told the Sixth Circuit on Monday that a former accounting professor was paid less than her husband because he had more teaching experience and better evaluations, urging the court to reject her appeal challenging the dismissal of pay disparity claims and racial or gender discrimination.
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August 05, 2025
Walmart's $2.6M Fall Injury Verdict Not Excessive, Court Affirms
A California appeals court has affirmed a $2.6 million award in a suit accusing Walmart of causing a customer's devastating hamstring injury in a fall, saying the verdict was not excessive given the evidence.
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August 05, 2025
USPTO Urges Fed. Circ. To End Motorola's Fintiv Appeal
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office stood by its acting leader's decision to shut down Motorola's challenge to various Stellar patents at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, saying all of Motorola's appellate arguments at the Federal Circuit should be rejected.
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August 05, 2025
5th Circ. Says Texas Voter ID Law Is Legally Sound
A Fifth Circuit panel upheld a Texas law that requires voters to provide an identification number when voting by mail, finding the law complies with the Civil Rights Act and that the state designed it to combat mail-in ballot fraud.
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August 05, 2025
Fired NCUA Officials Urge DC Circ. To Return Them To Board
Two top credit union regulators fired by President Donald Trump are asking the D.C. Circuit to let them go back to work while it reviews a lower-court decision reinstating them, arguing their service is needed to prevent a painful impending snapback in interest-rate limits for federal credit unions.
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August 05, 2025
Fed. Circ. Presses Brita On Bid To Revive Water Filter Patent
A Federal Circuit panel Tuesday questioned Brita LP's effort to reverse a U.S. International Trade Commission decision that a water filter patent is invalid, suggesting the patent describes little more than an unpredictable scientific formula.
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August 05, 2025
Ex-USPTO Heads, Judges Oppose Anti-Patent Thicket Bill
A pro-innovation group composed of former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officials and former Federal Circuit judges on Tuesday asked Congress to oppose a bill introduced last month that would limit so-called patent thickets used by pharmaceutical companies to restrict the production of generic counterparts to their drugs.
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August 05, 2025
Fed. Circ. Panel Feeling Deja Vu In Hoverboard IP Case
A Federal Circuit panel had little support for the owner of hoverboard design patents Tuesday, as the judges said much of its noninfringement appeal relies on concerns addressed in a prior appellate decision.
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August 05, 2025
Fed. Circ. Partly Revives Solar Panel Safety Patent Challenge
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday said the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has to take another look at one of renewable energy industry trade group SunSpec Alliance's arguments in its challenge to claims of a patent on safeguards for solar panels.
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August 05, 2025
10th Circ. Says No Signature Needed In Asylum Appeal
The Tenth Circuit on Tuesday revived a Salvadoran family's appeal of an immigration judge's denial of their asylum claim, ruling that the Board of Immigration Appeals wrongly rejected it over a missing signature that wasn't legally required.
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August 05, 2025
UBH Patients Score Partial Win In Mental Health Claims Fight
A California federal judge handed a partial win Tuesday to a class of participants in employee health benefit plans who sought coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatments from United Behavioral Health, holding the company's overly restrictive guidelines breached fiduciary duties under federal benefits law.
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August 05, 2025
Fed. Hazmat Law Doesn't Bar Negligence Suit, 2nd Circ. Says
A Connecticut federal judge was wrong to find that the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act preempted a propane company's common-law negligence and recklessness claims over damage it suffered from a heating oil spill, the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday in restoring a lawsuit seeking more than $500,000 to cover remediation costs.
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August 05, 2025
McDermott Investors Say One Class Is Enough In Fraud Case
An employee retirement plan leading an investor class action against McDermott International Inc. asked the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday to reverse an order certifying two subclasses of investors based on whether they held stock before or after a 2018 merger.
Expert Analysis
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How Political Divisions Are Stalling Pa. Energy Development
Despite possessing the nation's second-largest natural gas reserves and a legacy of energy infrastructure, Pennsylvania faces a fragmented and politically charged path to developing the energy resources it will need in the future, thanks to legislative gridlock, divided public opinion and competing energy interests, says Andrew Levine at Stradley Ronon.
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How High Court Ruling Can Aid Judgment Enforcement In US
In CC/Devas (Mauritius) v. Antrix, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that only two steps are required to keep a foreign sovereign in federal court, making it a little easier for investors to successfully bring foreign states and sovereign-owned and -controlled entities into U.S. courts, says Kristie Blase at Felicello Law.
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What High Court's Tenn. Trans Care Ruling Means Nationally
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, is fairly limited in scope and closely tailored to the specific language of Tennessee's law, but it may have implications for challenges to similar laws in other states, say attorneys at Hall Render.
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Justices Rewrite Rules For Challenging Enviro Agency Actions
Three recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings — Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, Oklahoma v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining — form a jurisprudential watershed in administrative and environmental law, affirming statutory standing and venue provisions as the backbone of coherent judicial review, say attorneys at GableGotwals.
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Series
My Opera And Baseball Careers Make Me A Better Lawyer
Though participating in opera and the world of professional baseball often pulls me away from the office, my avocations improve my legal career by helping me perform under scrutiny, prioritize team success, and maintain joy and perspective at work, says Adam Unger at Herrick Feinstein.
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High Court ACA Ruling May Harm Preventative Care
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Braidwood last week, ruling that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary has authority over an Affordable Care Act preventive care task force, risks harming the credibility of the task force and could open the door to politicians dictating clinical recommendations, says Michael Kolber at Manatt.
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Opinion
Subject Matter Eligibility Test Should Return To Preemption
Subject matter eligibility has posed challenges for patentees due to courts' arbitrary and confusing reasoning, but adopting a two-part preemption test could align the applicant, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the courts, says Manav Das at McDonnell Boehnen.
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8 Ways Lawyers Can Protect The Rule Of Law In Their Work
Whether they are concerned with judicial independence, regulatory predictability or client confidence, lawyers can take specific meaningful actions on their own when traditional structures are too slow or too compromised to respond, says Angeli Patel at the Berkeley Center of Law and Business.
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Kousisis Concurrence Maps FCA Defense To Anti-DEI Suits
Justice Clarence Thomas' recent concurrence in Kousisis v. U.S. lays out how federal funding recipients could use the high standard for materiality in government fraud cases to fight the U.S. Justice Department’s threatened False Claims Act suits against payees deviating from the administration’s anti-DEI policies, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.
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Justices' Review Of Fluor May Alter Gov't Contractor Liability
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to review Hencely v. Fluor, a case involving a soldier’s personal injury claims against a government contractor, suggests the justices could reconsider a long-standing test for determining whether contractors are shielded from state-tort liability, says Lisa Himes at Rogers Joseph.
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Google Damages Ruling Offers Lessons For Testifying Experts
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in EcoFactor v. Google represents a shift in how courts evaluate expert testimony in patent cases, offering a practical guide for how litigators and testifying experts can refine their work, says Adam Rhoten at Secretariat.
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Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: Communicating With Clients
Law school curricula often overlook client communication procedures, and those who actively teach this crucial facet of the practice can create exceptional client satisfaction and success, says Patrick Hanson at Wiggam Law.
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One Year On, Davidson Holds Lessons On 'Health Halo' Claims
A year after the Ninth Circuit's Davidson v. Sprout Foods decision — which raised the bar for so-called health halo claims — food and beverage companies can draw insights from its finding, subsequently expanded on by other courts, that plaintiffs must be specific when alleging fraud in healthfulness marketing, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Justices' NRC Ruling Raises New Regulatory Questions
In Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court avoided ruling on the NRC's authority to license private, temporary nuclear waste storage facilities — and this failure to reach the merits question creates new regulatory uncertainty where none had existed for decades, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Rocket Mortgage Appeal May Push Justices To Curb Classes
Should the U.S. Supreme Court agree to hear Alig v. Rocket Mortgage, the resulting decision could limit class sizes based on commonality under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Evidence as opposed to standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, say attorneys at Carr Maloney.