5/4/22
By: Michael M. Hill In a sea change for antidiscrimination laws, the Supreme Court ruled in Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C. that, under certain federal statutes, plaintiffs cannot obtain damages for mental or emotional distress. The statutes implicated by this ruling are Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the Education…
U.S. Supreme Court Addresses Parameters of Free Speech
5/3/22
By: Doug Holthus On May 2, 2022, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision in Shurtleff v. City of Boston, et al., 596 U.S. _ (2022). The primary issue presented: the parameters of freedom of speech. The City of Boston, MA has a tradition. For many years, a flagpole erected outside of Boston’s City…
D.C. Circuit: The Second Most Important Court in America
4/5/22
By: Sun Choy With the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is in the spotlight once again. If confirmed, Judge Jackson will join Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Brett Kavanaugh as former D.C. Circuit judges.…
SCOTUS has granted certiorari in The Andy Warhol Foundation case
3/29/22
By: Patrick Eckler The Supreme Court of the United States has granted certiorari in The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Lynn Goldsmith, et al., on the following question: Whether a work of art is “transformative” when it conveys a different meaning or message from its source material (as this Court, the…
BREAKING – Supreme Court Severs Government-Debt Exception From TCPA
7/7/20
By: Matt Foree Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Barr vs American Association of Political Consultants, Inc. As we reported earlier here, this case deals with the constitutionality of the government-debt exception to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). In a 2015 amendment to the TCPA, Congress exempted from…
Can Governments be Liable for Mass Shootings under the Constitution?
2/11/19
By: Phil Savrin The recent tragedies of mass shootings have spawned litigation over the civil liabilities of state governments for failing to protect members of the public from harm, particularly when there were advance warning signs that police departments overlooked or ignored. To evaluate whether States can be liable under the Constitution for such conduct…
Federal Securities Laws: Has the 9th Circuit Gone Rogue Again?
2/4/19
By: John Goselin On January 4, 2019, the United States Supreme Court decided to hear an appeal from the Ninth Circuit’s April 20, 2018 decision in Varjabedian v. Emulex Corporation, 888 F.3d 399 (9th Cir. 2018). The Supreme Court is hearing this case to resolve a circuit split regarding whether a claim under Section 14(e)…
The Supreme Court Weighs in on Arbitrability, But Questions Remain
1/31/19
By: Ted Peters As reflected in a prior article, the United States Supreme Court recently agreed to take another look at the issue of arbitrability. In the case of Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., the Fifth Circuit concluded that the court, and not an arbitrator, had the power to decide the…
Yelp Can’t Be Ordered to Remove Defamatory Reviews by A California Lawyer’s Unhappy Former Clients
12/3/18
By: Frank Olah On July 2, 2018, in Hassell v. Bird (2018) 5 Cal.5th 522, the California Supreme Court held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 prohibits courts from ordering Yelp to remove defamatory consumer reviews posted by an attorney’s former client. Section 230 states that “[n]o provider or user of…
Supreme Court Revisits Interplay Between First and Fourth Amendments
11/29/18
By: Wes Jackson Imagine you commit a minor crime and an officer approaches you. The interaction goes south when you call the officer a “pig” and remind him that your tax dollars pay his salary. He then arrests you. Were your constitutional rights violated? That’s the question the Supreme Court considered Monday, November 26, 2018…
Who’s Liable for Letting the Dogs Out?
10/23/18
By: Wes Jackson “Cry ‘Havoc!,’ and let slip the dogs of war.” William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar act 3, sc. 1. Havoc indeed—in a case argued before the Georgia Supreme Court on October 10, two pit bulls slipped out of a tenant’s backyard gate with a broken latch and then mauled a woman walking her…
Employment Arbitration Agreements are Still Alive in California, At Least For Now
10/4/18
By: Rebecca Smith As Freeman Mathis & Gary brought out in its August 24, 2018 Blog by attorney Dave Daniels, the California Senate had voted to approve Assembly Bill 3080 (“AB 3080”) intended to combat the use of mandatory arbitration agreements and confidentiality clauses to prevent the public disclosure of workplace sexual harassment. September 30,…