Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Appellate
-
September 11, 2025
2nd Circ. Says Kik Scans Don't Violate Fourth Amendment
Messaging applications like Kik are allowed to search users' conversations as part of due diligence into suspected cases of child sexual abuse material without violating users' Fourth Amendment rights, the Second Circuit has found.
-
September 11, 2025
Montana Tribe Members Ask To Join Justices' Tariff Suit Review
Members of the Blackfeet Nation have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to join its review of cases challenging President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs, telling the justices that their arguments' inclusion in the matter is essential to support tribal rights under federal law.
-
September 11, 2025
IRS Forfeits Opposition In $37M Easement Dispute, Court Told
Two partnerships seeking to reinstate their combined $37 million tax deductions for donating adjoining Georgia conservation easements told the Eleventh Circuit that the IRS has effectively forfeited its opposition to their claim that the U.S. Tax Court made valuation errors in reducing their tax breaks.
-
September 11, 2025
Fed. Circ. Keeps Google, Amazon Patent Fights In Calif.
The Federal Circuit on Thursday refused to send back to Texas federal court a pair of suits from a software company accusing Google and Amazon of patent infringement, refusing to undo findings that California was the better venue.
-
September 11, 2025
2nd Circ. Axes Hotel's Appeal After Town Drops Zoning Suit
The Second Circuit tossed a hotel's appeal bid for a district court order that remanded a New York town's zoning suit concerning asylum seekers staying at the hotel, ruling Thursday that it will also vacate the remand order because the town permanently dropped its suit against the hotel.
-
September 11, 2025
Calif. Panel Frees Walmart From Fatal Big Rig Crash Suit
A California appeals panel won't revive a woman's claims against Walmart Inc. and one of its suppliers over the death of her daughter in a collision with a delivery truck, finding her claims are preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act.
-
September 11, 2025
5th Circ. Won't Revisit Doctor's Captive Insurance Case
The Fifth Circuit rejected a Texas doctor's request for the full court to review a panel's July decision that he was not entitled to $1 million in tax deductions linked to his urgent care network's captive insurance company.
-
September 11, 2025
Italian Firm Adds Obama Counsel For Cross-Border Advice
A former senior U.S. Department of Justice lawyer and senior counsel for former President Barack Obama has joined Italian digital media technology and life sciences firm Portolano Cavallo to bolster its cross-border capabilities, it announced Thursday.
-
September 10, 2025
11th Circ. Tosses Gun Conviction Over Alabama Loophole
The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday threw out the conviction of an Alabama man charged with illegally having a gun after a prior felony, ruling that because the state offense to which he pled guilty did not require imprisonment, it did not trigger the federal firearm ban for felons.
-
September 10, 2025
Fed. Circ. Won't Revisit Double-Patenting, Soda TM Appeals
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday declined to revisit its decisions in a trio of intellectual property cases, including one where it upheld an Acadia Pharmaceuticals Parkinson's disease drug patent and addressed double-patenting, and another deeming "Kist" and "Sunkist" soft drink marks confusingly similar.
-
September 10, 2025
Pa. Court Upholds Defense Verdict In Throat Surgery Suit
The Pennsylvania Superior Court on Wednesday affirmed a jury verdict in favor of an anesthesiologist accused of causing a patient's trachea tear following throat surgery, saying the doctor's expert witness didn't introduce new testimony at trial.
-
September 10, 2025
Denver Fights $14M Verdict Over Protester Abuse Claims
A Tenth Circuit panel pressed both sides Wednesday over whether jurors should have heard testimony from an investigator that Denver says unfairly tainted a trial which yielded a nearly $14 million verdict to 12 protesters over clashes with police during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the city.
-
September 10, 2025
Cannabis Co. Says Battle With Activists Was Tossed Too Soon
A multistate cannabis company told a New Jersey state appeals court on Wednesday that its lawsuit against local opponents of a cultivation facility was prematurely dismissed, while the activists countered that the case amounted to a strategic lawsuit against public participation cloaked in land-use litigation.
-
September 10, 2025
2nd Circ. OKs Verizon's $47M FCC Fine, Splitting With 5th Circ.
The Second Circuit upheld Wednesday the Federal Communications Commission's $46.9 million fine against Verizon Communications Inc. for misuse of device-location data, rejecting Verizon's arguments that the data falls outside federal privacy protections and that such a penalty without a jury trial was unconstitutional, creating a split with the Fifth Circuit.
-
September 10, 2025
NC Justice Probes 'Scalia-Style' View Of Waste Fee Law
A North Carolina Supreme Court justice probed the expansiveness of counsel's argument over a county's solid waste ordinance Wednesday, wondering if channeling a "Justice Scalia"-style reading of the text suggests that a property owner could hire a private waste collector just once a year to sidestep an annual fee.
-
September 10, 2025
En Banc 11th Circ. Ruling Hints At Broad Reach For Skrmetti
The Eleventh Circuit invoking a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that backed a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors to rule against a transgender Georgia sheriff's deputy who challenged her health plan's coverage exclusions invites lower courts to import the justices' rationale into workplace discrimination cases, experts say. 聽
-
September 10, 2025
Ga. Stroke Patient Seeks New Trial Over Misdiagnosis Claims
A woman who says that an emergency room doctor at an Atlanta-area hospital failed to diagnose her stroke in time to save her from lifelong brain damage urged the Georgia Court of Appeals Wednesday to grant her a new trial, telling the court that "the record is absolutely silent" about the doctor's purported ordering of exams that might have turned the tide.
-
September 10, 2025
Ga. Panel Says Privilege Can Cover Unlicensed In-House Atty
The Georgia Court of Appeals said a trial court rightly found that Church's Chicken and its chief legal officer were protected by attorney-client privilege in a franchisee's contract suit, finding privilege can sometimes cover communications between a corporation and unlicensed in-house counsel.
-
September 10, 2025
6th Circ. Splits In Racial Bias Suit Over Hearsay Evidence
A divided Sixth Circuit panel upheld an elevator manufacturer's defeat of a former employee's retaliation suit Wednesday, saying a human resources representative's secondhand statement about the reason for the employee's termination was correctly kept out of the case.
-
September 10, 2025
Del. Justices Urged To Revive $10.5B Zendesk Deal Challenge
An attorney for stockholders of software-as-a-service business Zendesk Inc. told Delaware's Supreme Court Wednesday that a conflict at the heart of a challenge to the company's $10.5 billion take-private deal with a private equity consortium was undisclosed at the time of its approval.
-
September 10, 2025
State AGs Back Trans Worker In Liberty U.'s 4th Circ. Appeal
A group of 19 states and Washington, D.C., urged the Fourth Circuit to back a trial court's decision to keep a former Liberty University employee's transgender bias case in court, arguing the religious university's interpretation of the First Amendment would decimate anti-discrimination efforts.
-
September 10, 2025
Md. Appeals Court Says Psychoactive Hemp Wares Illegal
A Maryland appeals court on Tuesday ruled that products containing psychoactive compounds derived from hemp are illegal, delivering a blow to a coalition of hemp interests that brought a constitutional challenge to the state's recreational marijuana legalization law.
-
September 10, 2025
Texas Panel Says Expert Not Qualified In Facelift Suit
A panel of the Texas appellate court聽has excluded an expert report offered by a woman suing her plastic surgeon over an allegedly botched facelift, saying the anesthesiologist did not establish that he is qualified to opine on the surgery and claims in question.
-
September 10, 2025
3rd Circ. Questions NJ's Bid To Block Kalshi's Sports Bets
The Third Circuit seemed prepared on Wednesday to block New Jersey from enforcing a sports gambling ban on trading platform KalshiEx, with at least one judge arguing the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's authority to regulate the event contracts space "seems quite broad."
-
September 10, 2025
FTC Warns Healthcare Employers About Noncompetes
The Federal Trade Commission has sent letters warning healthcare employers and staffing companies not to include overly broad noncompete restrictions in their employment contracts and urged them to conduct a review to ensure they comply with the law.
Expert Analysis
-
2nd Circ. Reinforces Consensus On Vacating Foreign Awards
In Molecular Dynamics v. Spectrum Dynamics Medical, the Second Circuit recently affirmed that federal district courts do not possess subject matter jurisdiction to vacate foreign arbitral awards, strengthening this consensus across the circuits most active in recognition and enforcement actions, says Ed Mullins at Reed Smith.
-
What Dismissal Rulings May Mean For ERISA Forfeiture Cases
Following an influx of Employee Retirement Income Security Act class actions challenging the long-standing practice of plan sponsors using plan forfeitures to offset employer contributions, recent motion to dismiss rulings and a U.S. Department of Labor amicus brief may encourage more courts to reject plaintiffs' forfeiture theories, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.
-
Justices' Age Verification Ruling May Lead To More State Laws
The U.S. Supreme Court鈥檚 recent Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton ruling, permitting a Texas law requiring certain websites to verify users鈥 ages, significantly expands states' ability to regulate minors鈥 social media access, further complicating the patchwork of internet privacy laws, say attorneys at Troutman.
-
E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Relevance Redactions
In recent cases addressing redactions that parties sought to apply based on the relevance of information 鈥 as opposed to considerations of privilege 鈥 courts have generally limited a party鈥檚 ability to withhold nonresponsive or irrelevant material, providing a few lessons for discovery strategy, say attorneys at Sidley.
-
Opinion
Section 1983 Has Promise After End Of Nationwide Injunctions
After the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down the practice of nationwide injunctions in Trump v. Casa, Section 1983 civil rights suits can provide a better pathway to hold the government accountable 鈥 but this will require reforms to qualified immunity, says Marc Levin at the Council on Criminal Justice.
-
Reel Justice: 'Oh, Hi!' Teaches Attys To Return To The Statute
The new dark comedy film 鈥淥h, Hi!鈥 鈥 depicting a romantic vacation that turns into an inadvertent kidnapping 鈥 should remind criminal practitioners to always reread the statute to avoid assumptions, meet their ethical duties and finesse their trial strategy, says Veronica Finkelstein at Wilmington University School of Law.
-
Patent Ambiguity Persists After Justices Nix Eligibility Appeal
The Supreme Court recently declined to revisit the contentious framework governing patent eligibility by denying certiorari in Audio Evolution Diagnostics v. U.S., suggesting a necessary recalibration of both patent application and litigation strategies, say attorneys at Skadden.
-
Justices' Decision Axing Retiree's ADA Claim Offers Clarity
The U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Stanley v. City of Sanford that protections under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act don't extend to retirees potentially limits liability by giving employers additional support to challenge complaints, and highlights the need for proactive policy management to mitigate risk, say attorneys at Jackson Lewis.
-
Fed. Circ. In June: Transitional Phrases In Patent Claims
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Eye Therapies v. Slayback Pharma takes on the rarely addressed topic of transitional phrases in patent claims, providing some useful lessons regarding restating claim language and broadly distinguishing prior art, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.
-
Series
Playing Soccer Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Soccer has become a key contributor to how I approach my work, and the lessons I鈥檝e learned on the pitch about leadership, adaptability, resilience and communication make me better at what I do every day in my legal career, says Whitney O鈥橞yrne at MoFo.
-
What To Do When Congress And DOJ Both Come Knocking
As recently seen in the news, clients may find themselves facing parallel U.S. Department of Justice and congressional investigations, requiring a comprehensive response that considers the different challenges posed by each, say attorneys at Friedman Kaplan.
-
Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: Learning From Failure
While law school often focuses on the importance of precision, correctness and perfection, mistakes are inevitable in real-world practice 鈥 but failure is not the opposite of progress, and real talent comes from the ability to recover, rethink and reshape, says Brooke Pauley at Tucker Ellis.
-
Eye Drop Ruling Clarifies Importance Of Patent Phrasing
The Federal Circuit's recent ruling in Eye Therapies v. Slayback, rejecting the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's interpretation of "consisting essentially of," highlights the importance of using clear and consistent terms throughout a patent's filing history to shield it against future challenges, says Liliana Di Nola-Baron at Panitch Schwarze.
-
Midyear Rewind: How Courts Are Reshaping VPPA Standards
The first half of 2025 saw a series of cases interpreting the Video Privacy Protection Act as applied to website tracking technologies, including three appellate rulings deepening circuit splits on what qualifies as personally identifiable information and who qualifies as a consumer under the statute, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
-
How Justices' Ruling On NEPA Reviews Is Playing Out
Since the U.S. Supreme Court's May decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, narrowing the scope of agencies' required reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, the effects of the ruling are starting to become visible in the actions of lower courts and the agencies themselves, say attorneys at Saul Ewing.