High Court Denies U.S.’s Injunction Bid To Segregate California Mail Ballots
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 2 denied the federal government’s emergency application to require California to segregate mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters identified as suspected noncitizens pending verification of their citizenship, leaving in place a Ninth Circuit ruling that federal law prohibiting noncitizen voting does not preempt California’s election procedures and that the government failed to establish irreparable harm (United States v. California, et al., No. 26A624, U.S. Sup.).
Mississippi Federal Judge Denies Dismissal Of NAACP CAA Data Center Suit
OXFORD, Miss. — Holding that the NAACP has statutory standing under the Clean Air Act (CAA), that gas combustion turbines are not “mobile sources” under Mississippi’s State Implementation Plan (SIP) and that citizen suit provisions do not violate the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against xAI Corp. and an energy infrastructure affiliate over the construction and operation of dozens of turbines that power a Memphis, Tenn., data center.
Unpleaded Title VII Exemption That Nixed Pregnancy Bias Suit Argued In High Court
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Nov. 2 in a dispute over whether a defendant can obtain summary judgment based on an affirmative defense regarding Title VII’s personal staff exclusion that was never pleaded in a fired pregnant woman’s pregnancy discrimination case against the Fulton Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office in Georgia.
9th Circuit Affirms Denial Of Arbitration With Minors In ‘Robux’ Gambling Case
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 30 rebuffed all arguments brought by the developer of a third-party gambling app that allegedly accepted “Robux,” the in-game digital currency used on Roblox Corp.’s online gaming platform, including from minors, for enforcing the app’s arbitration agreement included in its terms of service (TOS), writing that there was “no evidence” players received notice of the TOS.
Federal Circuit Vacates PTAB IPR Decision On Planter Patent Nonobviousness
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly found that a prior art patent did not disclose a disputed thrust-bearing element when considering if a challenged patent’s claims would have been obvious in view of the prior art, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in an Oct. 30 opinion.
Judge Dismisses Trump’s $10B Wall Street Journal Defamation Suit With Prejudice
MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on Oct. 31 dismissed with prejudice a suit filed by President Donald J. Trump seeking $10 billion in damages and alleging that he was defamed when the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published and then republished on the WSJ X account “to all 20,800,000 of its followers” a story on a purported “bawdy” card Trump allegedly sent to now-deceased Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, finding that Trump failed to plausibly allege that the defendants “acted with actual malice when they published an article in the Wall Street Journal linking him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
Bad Faith Claim Against Life Insurer Will Proceed, Utah Federal Judge Says
SALT LAKE CITY — A bad faith claim alleged against a life insurer following the denial of a beneficiary’s claim for accidental death benefits can proceed because the life insurer did not raise its primary argument regarding the bad faith in its motion to dismiss, a Utah federal judge said in partially denying the life insurer’s motion.
5th Circuit Reverses Grant Of Discovery For Foreign Patent Litigation
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Texas federal court’s decision to allow Motorola Mobility LLC and related parties to obtain a defendant-appellant’s patent purchase agreement for use in European patent litigation, holding that the court improperly required the defendant-appellant to disprove the foreign courts’ receptivity and gave insufficient weight to the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) earlier refusal to order the same discovery.
Missouri Jury Returns Verdict For Monsanto In Month-Long Glyphosate Injury Trial
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri jury on Oct. 29 returned a verdict in favor of Monsanto Co. on claims by three individuals who alleged that their or their decedents’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) was caused by use of Roundup products containing glyphosate; the verdict was filed nearly a week after a Missouri judge partially granted and partially denied Monsanto’s motion for directed verdict.
10th Circuit Again Revives Fired School Official’s Religious Bias Claims Over Play
DENVER — Following a different panel’s reversal of the dismissal of discrimination claims and remand of those claims filed by a Colorado high school assistant principal who was fired after citing religious beliefs when expressing reservations about the production of a play that was to be put on by students, a 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a summary judgment order and once again remanded the claims brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), finding that the record contains a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the school district’s stated reasons for firing him were pretextual.
Rescoring Settlement OK’d, Objections Overruled In Former NFL Players’ Suit
BALTIMORE — Overruling objections, a Maryland federal judge granted final approval to a class settlement implementing rescoring of neuropsychological test scores to resolve a suit former NFL players filed over what they alleged was “race-norming” of the scores used to determine whether they receive disability and related benefits.