WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 25 about whether workers who locally deliver goods without crossing state borders are characterized as “transportation workers” who are “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” and therefore exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in a dispute regarding the classification of an employee of a national bakery products corporation.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Maryland Supreme Court, in answering a certified question from a district court, held “that the licensed dispensing of, or administration of benefit plans for, a controlled substance does not constitute an actionable public nuisance.”

NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 24 refused to reconsider its holding that a professional liability insurance policy’s fee exclusion bars coverage for a financial services company insured’s liability in two underlying class actions alleging that certain mortgage loan fees were unlawful and that the insured was derivatively liable under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a gaming company’s petition for rehearing en banc or panel rehearing, leaving in place a panel’s January opinion that held that Nintendo Co. Ltd. does not infringe the plaintiff-appellant’s patent.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 25 held that an internet service provider (ISP) could not be found contributorily liable for users’ piracy of material from a group of record labels and music publishers without a showing of intent through inducement of infringement or providing of a service designed for infringement, reversing a finding by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that drew warnings from the U.S. government of potential negative impacts to widely available internet access.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Only someone who “arrives in the United States” may seek asylum, and that phrase, as used in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), only refers to someone in the United States and not someone at the border standing in Mexico, Assistant to the Solicitor General Vivek Suri argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 24 in a case in which the federal government is challenging a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that partially upheld a permanent injunction in a class case over a now-rescinded border metering policy.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a real estate entity’s petition for a writ of certiorari, declining to hear arguments that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly revived antitrust counterclaims filed against the entity in response to copyright claims it brought against another real estate entity; the petitioner had also argued that the Ninth Circuit wrongly created a novel theory of exclusive dealing based on customer misunderstanding.

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 23 held that an insured failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether she timely filed her lawsuit seeking coverage for her alleged loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal belongings that were destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in October 2017, affirming a lower federal court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurers in her five-year-old pro se lawsuit alleging claims for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, misrepresentation, emotional distress and violations of the Unruh Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and California Business and Professions Code Section 17200.