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Appellate
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September 18, 2025
11th Circ. Appears Poised To Back MetLife Benefits Denial
The Eleventh Circuit seemed unpersuaded Thursday by a push to overturn MetLife's denial of death benefits to a worker who died days after she broke her leg and ankle exiting a vehicle, with judges zeroing in on plan language that barred coverage when contributing illnesses were involved.
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September 18, 2025
Dems Demand Even More Funds For Courts, Judicial Security
An alternative continuing resolution unveiled by the Democrats in the House and Senate on Wednesday evening includes more funding for judicial security and the courts than the Republicans' version, but it's unlikely it will be adopted as is.
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September 18, 2025
Harley-Davidson Says 7th Circ. Right To Toss Warranty Suit
Harley-Davidson is urging the Seventh Circuit not to hold an en banc rehearing on antitrust claims alleging its warranties prohibited off-brand parts, saying the panel was correct last month when it found the plaintiffs failed to allege the relevant market or that the warranty actually had any such prohibition.
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September 18, 2025
1st Circ. Won't Lift Block On HHS Job, Program Cuts
The First Circuit on Wednesday rejected a bid by the Trump administration to let it move ahead with cutting 10,000 jobs and end a number of programs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services while it appeals a Rhode Island federal judge's order temporarily barring the plan.
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September 18, 2025
Chinook Tribe Asks High Court To Reverse Recognition Denial
The Chinook Indian Nation is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to undo a Ninth Circuit order that denied the tribe federal recognition, arguing that the appellate court misinterpreted a law that lays a path for the status through judiciary or regulatory decisions.
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September 18, 2025
Florida Judge Accused Of Making Improper Political Donations
A Florida state judge who donated almost $30,000 in more than 900 total contributions to political organizations — thereby becoming the "most prolific offender" of the rule barring judges from making those types of donations — may receive a public reprimand for her actions.
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September 18, 2025
Michigan Pushes Appeals Court To Reinstate Abortion Laws
The state of Michigan has asked an appeals court to revive laws mandating abortion seekers wait 24 hours before the procedure and review counseling materials that a judge had deemed "paternalistic and stigmatizing" when striking them down earlier this year.
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September 18, 2025
DOJ Seeks Rehearing On Copyright Chief's Reinstatement
The federal government has asked the D.C. Circuit to rethink its decision to temporarily reinstate the head of the U.S. Copyright Office who was fired by President Donald Trump, saying the president has the authority to remove the copyright chief because the position is part of the executive branch.
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September 18, 2025
Mich. Justices Won't Delay Arguments Amid Shutdown Worry
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would not push back oral arguments for two cases up to be heard next month, despite the state Attorney General's Office's concerns that their counsel wouldn't be able to participate because of a potential government shutdown.
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September 18, 2025
Insured Wants Bad Faith Loss Against Progressive Reversed
A woman who lost her bad faith suit against Progressive Insurance told the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday that she should have been allowed to show jurors in the bad faith trial a win on her breach of contract claims against the insurer.
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September 18, 2025
Hunters Say High Court Should Skip 'Corner Crossing' Case
A group of Wyoming elk hunters has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to ignore a call from a landowner to review a Tenth Circuit decision applying an 1885 law to uphold corner-crossing on millions of acres of public lands in the American West that form a checkerboard pattern with private property.
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September 18, 2025
5th Circ. Won't Rehear Crypto Exec's IRS Summons Case
The Fifth Circuit stood by its decision not to quash an IRS summons for a cryptocurrency executive's bank records, rejecting his request to reconsider its finding that he must wait until the federal government decides whether to bring legal proceedings against him before challenging a lower court's ruling.
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September 18, 2025
Trump Asks High Court To Let Him Remove Fed's Cook
President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to allow him to move forward with firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook, escalating a fight over presidential removal power that will test the boundaries of the central bank's traditional independence.
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September 17, 2025
J&J Whistleblowers Defend $1.6B False Claims Act Win
Whistleblowers filed a brief Wednesday in the Third Circuit in a closely watched False Claims Act appeal involving a $1.6 billion judgment against Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen as well as the constitutionality of the FCA's "qui tam" whistleblower provisions, arguing that the act's lawfulness has been settled by its "unbroken 162-year history."
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September 17, 2025
3rd Circ. Urged To Revive NJ Casino Antitrust Pricing Suit
Algorithmic collusion by Atlantic City casino hotels, as alleged by their customers, poses a grave threat to consumers as the hotels use software to get around a century's worth of antitrust precedent, an attorney for the American Antitrust Institute told the Third Circuit on Wednesday, urging the court to revive an antitrust suit.
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September 17, 2025
'It Doesn't Look Good': CoComelon Foe Faces Uphill IP Fight
Ninth Circuit panel judges doubted Wednesday a Chinese company's appeal of its $23.4 million copyright-trial loss to the maker of the children's YouTube channel CoComelon, with one judge telling counsel "it doesn't look good for you," and another observing he's "never seen copying evidence quite as compelling as this record."
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September 17, 2025
PTAB Told Variations From Prior Rulings Require Explanation
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has told Patent Trial and Appeal Board judges that they must now explain any decisions that have a different outcome from an earlier ruling on the same patent or similar patent claims, either by the patent office or in litigation.
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September 17, 2025
NCR Pushes For Full 11th Circ. Review In Pension Payout Spat
Software company NCR Corp. asked the full Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday to examine a pension payout fight with former executives in the wake of a three-judge panel's ruling last month that the company can't issue lump-sum payments to plan participants as alternatives to promised life annuities.
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September 17, 2025
9th Circ. Judge Hints At Upholding Seattle Housing Ordinance
A Ninth Circuit judge suggested on Wednesday that a waiver provision written into a Seattle affordable housing policy is enough to "save" the ordinance from a homeowner's constitutional claim that it kept her from realizing her property's full value by adding townhomes. Â
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September 17, 2025
5th Circ. Says Genesis Not Indemnified In Platform Injury Suit
The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed that Danos LLC is not required to indemnify Genesis Energy in the defense of a suit by a worker who fell during an oil platform repair, finding the contract between the companies is not covered by maritime law.
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September 17, 2025
9th Circ. Denies Appeal Of Wash. Anti-Vaxxers' Med Board Suit
The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday rejected an appeal brought by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on behalf of anti-vaxxers challenging a Washington state medical board's disciplinary proceedings against doctors who allegedly spread false information about COVID-19.
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September 17, 2025
Probationer's Speech Not A 'True Threat,' NC Panel Finds
Statements a probationer made to a friend while stressed out and fearful over going to jail did not constitute a "true threat," so a trial court erred when it found him in violation of his probation, a North Carolina state appeals court panel ruled Wednesday.
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September 17, 2025
BIPA Logic May Sustain Walgreens Data Suit, Ill. Justices Hint
Illinois' highest court Wednesday pressed an attorney for Walgreens to address why the company shouldn't apply its own reasoning that a plaintiff can file suit based solely on a statutory violation of the state's biometric privacy statute to allegations that the retail pharmacy chain printed too much financial information on receipts.
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September 17, 2025
9th Circ. Seems Split On School Principal's Free Speech Suit
A Ninth Circuit panel appeared split on Wednesday over a Washington state public school employee's claims that he was unfairly punished for a political rant on Facebook, with one judge pushing back on his stance that he was speaking privately while also balking at the district's position that the post was disruptive.
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September 17, 2025
Tribal Members Tell 9th Circ. Tariff Suit Belongs In Fed. Court
Counsel for members of the Blackfeet Nation tribe told the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday their suit challenging President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs should stay in federal district courts, where constitutional and congressional claims over tribal commerce must be heard.
Expert Analysis
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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.
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3 Judicial Approaches To Applying Loper Bright, 1 Year Later
In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in its Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, a few patterns have emerged in lower courts’ application of the precedent to determine whether agency actions are lawful, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.
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Trending At The PTAB: Shifts In Parallel Proceedings Strategy
Dynamics are changing between the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and federal courts, with two recent discretionary denials and one Federal Circuit decision offering takeaways for both patent owners and challengers navigating parallel proceedings, say attorneys at Finnegan.
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What Businesses Need To Know To Avoid VPPA Class Actions
Divergent rulings by the Second, Sixth and Seventh Circuits about the scope of the Video Privacy Protection Act have highlighted the difficulty of applying a statute conceived to regulate the now-obsolete brick-and-mortar video store sector in today's internet economy, say attorneys at DTO Law.
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Series
Adapting To Private Practice: From US Rep. To Boutique Firm
My transition from serving as a member of Congress to becoming a partner at a boutique firm has been remarkably smooth, in part because I never stopped exercising my legal muscles, maintained relationships with my former colleagues and set the right tone at the outset, says Mondaire Jones at Friedman Kaplan.
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Opinion
IRS Should Work With Industry On Microcaptive Regs
The IRS should engage with microcaptive insurance owners to develop better regulations on these arrangements or risk the emergence of common law guidance as taxpayers with legitimate programs seek relief in the federal courts, says Dustin Carlson at SRA 831(b) Admin.
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FLSA Interpretation Patterns Emerge 1 Year After Loper Bright
One year after the U.S. Supreme Court's monumental decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, four distinct avenues of judicial decision-making have taken shape among lower courts that are responding to their newfound freedom in interpreting the Fair Labor Standards Act through U.S. Department of Labor regulations, say attorneys at Kutak Rock.
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A Pattern Emerges In Justices' Evaluation Of Veteran Statute
The recent Soto v. U.S. decision that the statute of limitations for certain military-related claims does not apply to combat-related special compensation exemplifies the U.S. Supreme Court's view, emerging in two other recent opinions, that it is a reviewing court's obligation to determine the best interpretation of the language used by Congress, says attorney Kenneth Carpenter.
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Fed. Circ. In May: Evaluating Opportunistic Trademark Filings
The Federal Circuit's decision last month in the "US Space Force" trademark case gives the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board additional clarity when working through opportunistic trademark filings, particularly when the mark's value is primarily due to the potential value of a false connection, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.
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Opinion
Senate's 41% Litigation Finance Tax Would Hurt Legal System
The Senate’s latest version of the Big Beautiful Bill Act would impose a 41% tax on the litigation finance industry, but the tax is totally disconnected from the concerns it purports to address, and it would set the country back to a time when small plaintiffs had little recourse against big defendants, says Anthony Sebok at Cardozo School of Law.
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Drawbacks For Taxpayers From Justices' Levy Dispute Ruling
The Supreme Court's June decision in Commissioner v. Zuch, holding the Tax Court lacks jurisdiction to resolve disputes where the IRS has stopped pursuing a levy, may require taxpayers to explore new tactics for mitigating the increased difficulty of appealing their liability via collection due process hearings, says Matthew Roberts at Meadows Collier.
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In NRC Ruling, Justices Affirm Hearing Process Still Matters
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas safeguards the fairness, clarity and predictability of the regulatory system by affirming that to challenge an agency's decision in court, litigants must first meaningfully participate in the hearing process that Congress and the agency have established, says Jonathan Rund at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
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What Baseball Can Teach Criminal Attys About Rule Of Lenity
Judges tend to assess ambiguous criminal laws not unlike how baseball umpires approach checked swings, so defense attorneys should consider how to best frame their arguments to maximize courts' willingness to invoke the rule of lenity, wherein a tie goes to the defendant, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.
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Tips For Litigating Apex Doctrine Disputes Amid Controversy
Litigants once took for granted that deposition requests of high-ranking corporate officers required a greater showing of need than for lower-level witnesses, but the apex doctrine has proven controversial in recent years, and fights over such depositions will be won by creative lawyers adapting their arguments to this particular moment, say attorneys at Hangley Aronchick.