11/7/25
On October 31, 2025, Judge Edith Jones wrote for the Fifth Circuit in Hiran Management, Inc. v. NLRB: “Ninety years after Congress created the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) the NLRB claimed for the …
Category: Appellate Advocacy
Vertical stare decisis: Can a District Court of Appeal overrule Florida Supreme Court precedent?
11/4/25
The First District Court of Appeal recently struck down a Florida law that prohibited people from openly carrying firearms in public. The court held that section 790.053 violated the Second Amendment as applied to the states …
Half-sheet, whole problem: A lesson in appellate timeliness
10/10/25
By: Donald Patrick Eckler and Ryne Sack
In National Collegiate Student Loan Trust v. Phelps, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a notice of appeal was untimely filed, where the half-sheet shows that the court entered judgment more than …
Illinois Appellate Court looks beyond label to apply shorter statute of limitations
10/8/25
The Illinois Appellate Court recently held that a breach of fiduciary duty claim, brought by one sibling against another, was in effect a claim against their father’s estate and therefore time-barred.
In Smith v. Connor, …
California court declines to compel arbitration without evidence of plaintiff consent
9/29/25
By: Rachel E. Hobbs
In the Third Appellate District decision of Brockman v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the plaintiff was a biological female who sued the defendants for medical malpractice in connection with her gender-affirming treatment. She alleged that her …
9/15/25
By: William H. Buechner, Jr. and Philip W. Savrin
FMG Attorneys Phil Savrin and Bill Buechner prevailed upon the Eleventh Circuit to affirm the grant of summary judgment to the insurer on novel issues of Georgia insurance law. The case …
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! – U.S. Supreme Court preview
9/10/25
The United States Supreme Court’s October 2025 term begins on October 6, 2025. The Court will cover a lot of ground this term, but three cases stand out as having broad applicability in civil actions across …
Third Circuit reverses class certification in insurance underpayment suit
9/3/25
By: Sean R. Riley
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s decision to certify two classes against an insurance carrier, holding that individualized issues predominated over common ones. See Drummond …
Preservation of error: To rehear or not to rehear, that is the question
8/28/25
There is some confusion about when a motion for rehearing is required to preserve an issue for appeal under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530. The rule requires a motion when a trial court fails to …
The prior panel rule: Uniformity or chaos
8/21/25
Can a three-judge appellate panel overrule or “recede from” prior-panel precedent? In Florida, it likely depends on which district court hears the appeal.
The prior-panel rule, or horizontal stare decisis, dictates that a three-judge appellate panel …
Georgia court confronts lawyers’ apparent use of AI
7/17/25
By: P. Michael Freed
Courts throughout the country have been wrestling with litigants’ use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) in drafting legal briefs. Courts have discovered citations to fictitious cases in parties’ legal briefs in several highly publicized cases. The Court …
7/2/25
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. CASA, Inc., — S. Ct. —, 2025 WL 1773631 (June 27, 2025) that district courts likely do not have the equitable authority to issue nationwide …