SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 3 denied an insurer’s motion to reconsider the court’s denial of a joint motion to vacate an Aug. 25 memorandum decision that affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in an insurer’s subrogation lawsuit arising from property damage incurred by the insured’s privately owned noncommercial aircraft while it was parked and stored at the petitioner’s facility.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Court of Federal Claims ruling, holding that contributions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Transitional Reinsurance Program (TRP) are a statutory obligation to pay money rather than a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment, and that two self-insured group health plan trusts failed to show that the U.S. government appropriated their property.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a Delaware federal jury’s finding that a medical technology company and affiliated entities infringed a single claim of a competitor’s patent on a surgical stapling product and also affirmed the judge’s decision to reduce the jury’s damages award from $10 million to only $1.

WASHINGTON, D.C.  — Insurance and business interests told the U.S. Supreme Court that jurisdiction ends at a state’s borders and urged the court to reject a South Carolina justice’s appointment of a receiver over the assets of a solvent Canadian company as a discovery sanction in an asbestos case.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 refused to hear a case brought by chemical companies that sought review of a ruling in a product liability case related to exposure to the pesticide paraquat on grounds that questions from the Supreme Court’s prior ruling in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. pertaining to the commerce clause and the scope of due process limits remain unresolved.  The companies maintained that their case was “the necessary sequel to Mallory.”

BOSTON — Overruling objections from each party in a putative class action that is part of a wave of challenges to pension risk transfers (PRTs), a Massachusetts federal judge granted dismissal motions upon concluding that the plaintiff retirees narrowly have standing because of allegations that they “received an inferior financial benefit than that to which they were entitled” — but failed to state their claims.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Education replaced workers’ federal government shutdown out-of-office messages “with partisan language that blames ‘Democrat Senators’ for the shutdown,” forcing those workers “to involuntarily parrot the Trump Administration’s talking points with emails sent out in their names,” alleges an Oct. 3 complaint filed by American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in a federal court in the District of Columbia.

SAN FRANCISCO — A split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 2 said that it cannot overrule its own precedent holding that the National Bank Act (NBA) does not preempt a California state law requiring a minimum 2% interest on certain mortgage escrow accounts and affirmed a more than $9 million judgment in favor of a class of borrowers, while a dissenting judge said the precedent at issue was “‘effectively overruled’” by the U.S. Supreme Court.