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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Saying that the government’s “inability to convince the jury of the merits of its case does not change the substantial justification of its position,” a Florida federal judge on Nov. 19 denied the corporate plaintiffs’ motion for approximately $600,000 in attorney fees and costs in consolidated cases where they successfully challenged penalties imposed because the Internal Revenue Service deemed their involvement with purported microcaptive insurance companies to be promotion of abusive tax shelters.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The petitioners who seek reversal of a lower court ruling that held that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) failed to adequately examine the risk of wildfires and the impact on groundwater posed by the construction of a proposed rail line in Utah that would carry products related to hydraulic fracturing to and from the shale formation in the Uinta Basin have filed a reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that reversal of the lower court’s decision is required because that ruling “went well beyond the project’s legal relevant effects and demanded consideration of non-proximate and non-environmental effects.” The same day, the U.S. government filed a reply brief that supports the petitioners but differs slightly in that it argues that the petitioners “go too far to the extent they ask this Court to impose the same standard of proximate cause that applies in tort suits.”
SAN FRANCISCO — Affirming summary judgment in favor of the owners of a Montana mountain resort, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in an unpublished memorandum disposition that the ruling by a federal district court shutting down Clean Water Act (CWA) claims asserted by an environmental law center arising from alleged discharges of treated wastewater was correct because a consent order from a previous case bars the claims through a combination of res judicata and release.
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge largely denied dismissal of public nuisance claims under the laws of 19 states in a product liability multidistrict ligation over the purported addictive qualities for adolescents of several of the largest social media platforms, finding “that plaintiffs have successfully established unreasonable interference with the public’s right to health and safety.”
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied a motion from the plaintiff estate of a late singer to dismiss a breach of contract counterclaim from defendant record labels in a dispute stemming from copyrights and trademarks associated with the singer’s work and likeness, holding that the motion was untimely brought.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A special master abused his discretion when he ruled in a National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (Vaccine Act) case that a special master’s decision in Boatmon v. Sec’y of Health & Hum. Servs. regarding a pathologist’s model linking vaccines and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) did not support a finding of reasonable basis, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opined, vacating the denial of an attorney fees request by a father who sued following his son’s death and later voluntarily dismissed his claim when the model was found to be “unreliable.”
SHERMAN, Texas — A federal judge in Texas set aside and vacated a U.S. Department of Labor rule raising the minimum salary at which executive, administrative and professional (EAP) employees are exempt from minimum wage and overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), opining that the DOL’s authority to “define and delimit” the exemption is limited.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred when it determined that a trial court must accept the Federal Communications Commission’s interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (TCPA) prohibited faxes, a chiropractic practice argues in its petitioner brief filed Nov. 18 in the U.S. Supreme Court.
CINCINNATI — There was no error in a ruling that excluded an expert retained by a veteran convicted of lying about the extent of disabilities to obtain more benefits, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in affirming the conviction, but the court remanded the case to the district court to recalculate the amount of restitution owed.
WHEELING, W.Va. — A federal judge in West Virginia has granted preliminary approval to a $6.5 million class settlement in a protracted dispute over abandoned wells between hydraulic fracturing operators and landowners, with the deal calling for the fracking defendants to plug 2,600 wells across West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Tennessee through the end of 2034.
AKRON, Ohio — An Ohio appeals panel on Nov. 18 affirmed a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of an insurer that intervened in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against its insured, finding that the insured’s intentional shooting that resulted in a fatality did not constitute an “occurrence” or “loss” to trigger coverage under his homeowners and umbrella insurance policies.