(WV Supreme Court of Appeals) - No. 18-0653

FOUR years ago, Olivia Mitchell joined her first soccer team. Now the 12 year old is set to represent NSW in the national primary schools competition.

SYDNEY is about to welcome the return of Odorama — a scratch and sniff movie experience that has to be smelled to be believed.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Dismissed an appeal from an inter partes review decision on grounds that the patent challenger lacked Article III standing. The challenger asserted that the patentee's claims for a motor vehicle drivetrain were invalid. On appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the challenger lacked standing because it had not established an actual injury; in particular, it had no product on the market or any concrete plans for future activity that would likely cause the patentee to complain of infringement.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision cancelling registration of plaintiff’s trademark for a green tea product due to the likelihood of confusion with defendant’s registered mark.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Reinstated a patent infringement claim upon finding that the district court's grant of summary judgment resulted from an erroneous claim construction. The patentee accused several telecommunications companies of infringing its patent for an application-aware resource allocator. On appeal, the Federal Circuit agreed with the patentee that the district court construed the patent incorrectly. The panel vacated in relevant part and remanded.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Granted a new trial in a copyright case involving a claim that Led Zeppelin copied key portions of its hit Stairway to Heaven from a song written by a musician named Randy Wolfe. Held that several jury instructions were erroneous and prejudicial, including the instructions on originality, and thus vacated the jury's verdict of no infringement.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that a manufacturer of cellphone cases did not hold a valid trademark in the term CAPSULE. Affirmed a summary judgment in favor of the defendant in this trademark infringement lawsuit.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - An El Salvadorian citizen's petition for review of or an order of removal is granted where the petitioner's right to be presented in the proceedings by retained counsel, established under 8 U.S.C. section 1362, was violated when his attorney failed to appear at a scheduled merits hearing before an Immigration Judge because his license to practice law had been temporarily suspended. Further, a petitioner so denied his right to counsel in an immigration proceeding is not required to demonstrate actual prejudice in order to obtain relief.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Plaintiff was convicted of second-degree murder, served over twenty-six years in custody, and was released in 2009 after a federal judge determined that falsified evidence had been introduced at trial and conditionally granted a writ of habeas corpus. The state then dismissed the charges against plaintiff, who subsequently filed this action against defendants, two police detectives, who plaintiff alleges fabricated police reports, investigative notes, and photographs of the crime scene during their homicide investigation. The district court's order denying absolute witness immunity to defendants is affirmed, where: 1) defendants' notes, investigative reports, and photographs of the crime scene were analogous to the sorts of documentary and physical evidence that fall outside the protection of absolute immunity; 2) policy interests behind absolute immunity for testimony do not apply to the investigative materials in this case; and 3) defendants plainly acted in an investigative capacity in producing the notes, reports, and crime-scene photographs, and qualified immunity provided sufficient protection for these activities.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Convictions against defendant, an attorney convicted of money laundering while representing a client charged with receiving stolen property, are affirmed where: 1) the prosecutor's failure to correct a grand jury witnesses' false testimony as to his motives for cooperating and failure to disclose impeachment evidence to the grand jury do not constitute structural error requiring automatic reversal; and 2) the prosecution's ex parte request that the district court decide in camera whether the government witness's informant activity needed to be disclosed at trial was not improper.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that the California Board of Registered Nursing could restrict a registered nurse's license (by making it probationary) based on her past misdemeanor petty theft convictions that were later dismissed. Reversed the issuance of a writ of administrative mandate.

(United States Second Circuit) - In an action arising out of the retention of policyholder information by former insurance agents for plaintiff, summary judgment dismissing both plaintiff's claims and defendants' counterclaims is affirmed where: 1) the policyholder information was readily available from another source, and thus did not qualify as a trade secret as a matter of law; 2) plaintiff effectively abandoned its breach of fiduciary duty claim on appeal because it failed to challenge the district court's determination that it could not prove damages on that claim; 3) the agents did not qualify as employees covered by ERISA as a matter of law; and 4) the agents pointed to no evidence showing that plaintiff's allegedly unfair trade practices resulted in an ascertainable loss.

(United States First Circuit) - In dispute arising from a district court order preliminarily enjoining defendants from misappropriating plaintiff's trade secrets by selling computer mouse products similar to or derived from those made by plaintiff, order is affirmed where court properly upheld the validity of a non-disclosure agreement between the parties.

(United States First Circuit) - In an action for trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract, involving certain ergonomic computer mouse products, district court's judgment is: 1) reversed where the it erred in extending the injunction to defendant's ErgoRoller product because the record does not support the finding that defendant breached the NDA in producing this product; 2) affirmed where it did not err in the duration of the injunction as applied to the other enjoined products; and 3) affirmed where it did not err in jury instructions on lost profits, as but for the breach, plaintiff could have recovered the lost profits by employing another company to manufacture the products and selling them.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Dismissing the appeal of a district court's denial of an application for writ of mandamus seeking to avoid the production of a report produced at the direction of counsel in a case involving the alleged theft of driverless vehicle technology where attorney-client and work-product privilege were claimed because alternative means of relief were available, the petitioner could not establish a clear and indisputable right to mandamus relief, and the district court properly determined that privilege did not apply to the discovery document at issue.

FINDING the net for the Wanderers fulfilled one of teenage soccer star Ben Morrison’s dreams — but he has higher goals in his sights.

(Supreme Court of California) - Reversed appeal court ruling. The parties entered into a confidential settlement agreement following a tort action. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant, counsel for the injured party in the tort action, breached the settlement agreement by making public statements. Defendant claimed he was not bound by the agreement, but only recommended his clients sign it. California Supreme Court made a factual finding that the Defendant intended to be bound by the settlement agreement.

(California Court of Appeal) - Affirmed. Plaintiff sued for negligence and premises liability for an assault that injured him in the Defendant's parking lot. The trial court found that Plaintiff had not met his burden of showing foreseeability of violent criminal assaults. Therefore, Defendant did not have a legal duty to implement additional security measures to prevent possible third-party conduct.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Reversed. The substitution of the guardians of the children of a deceased man discovered a year after the filing of a wrongful death action by his mother was proper despite the substitution occurring after the statutory limitations period. The substitution relates back to the date of the initial complaint.

(California Court of Appeal) - Dismissed appeal. Plaintiff and Defendant agreed to an expedited jury trial process pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 630.01. As part of the expedited process, the parties agree to waive the right to appeal. Plaintiff sought to appeal the amount of the damages award, but by executing the consent to expedited jury trial she voluntarily waived her right to appeal.

(United States Second Circuit) - Reversed an order which had allowed the plaintiff to subpoena documents from a U.S. law firm for use in litigation against Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands. The appeals court held that Shell's American counsel should not be compelled to deliver documents that would not be discoverable abroad and that were in counsel's hands solely because they were sent to the U.S. for the purpose of American litigation. The appeals court further determined that the district court abused its discretion under 28 U.S.C. section 1782 when it permitted the plaintiff to subpoena the documents.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirmed an art museum's title to two oil paintings that the Nazis had stolen from the plaintiff's father-in-law during World War II. The plaintiff sued the museum to recover the two Renaissance masterpieces, but the museum insisted it had good title because the Dutch government validly conveyed the paintings after the war to the person who sold them to the museum. Concluding that the act-of-state doctrine applied here, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the museum.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that a torture victim who had obtained a court judgment against a terrorist organization was not entitled to attach funds from the organization's blocked electronic fund transfers. The torture victim wanted several banks to turn over $36 million to him in order to satisfy a court judgment he had obtained against the terrorist organization in a U.S. court. In a 2-1 decision affirming the district court, the Second Circuit held that the punitively sanctioned organization's blocked assets were not subject to attachment.

(United States DC Circuit) - Held that 14 Holocaust survivors could proceed with their lawsuit against the Republic of Hungary seeking compensation for the seizure and expropriation of their property during the Holocaust. Reversed the district court, which had dismissed their complaint based on principles of international comity and on grounds of forum non conveniens.

(United States Second Circuit) - In a derivative action against JPMorgan Chase & Co., alleging that the company's board wrongfully refused to investigate misstatements made by corporate executives regarding the "London Whale" trading incident, the district court's dismissal is affirmed where plaintiff failed to meet the burden to please sufficient facts to rebut the strong presumption that the board's decision was valid under the business judgment rule.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a tort action brought by a court-appointed receiver against defendant accountants who audited the financial statements of PEMGroup, whose former directors and managers defrauded $950 million from investors, the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants is affirmed where the receiver failed to raise a genuine issues as to causation by failing to show that the involved companies or its investors relied on the audits at issue.

(NY Supreme Court) - 2017–04429 2018–04808 Index No. 4054/13

(NY Supreme Court) - 527667

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirmed that an insurance company timely removed an insurance coverage case to federal court by filing a notice of removal within the statutory 30-day time limit. The clock began to run only when the insurance company actually received the insured's complaint, not when its statutorily designated agent did.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Held that a health insurance company did not violate the Affordable Care Act's Medical Loss Ratio provision, which requires an insurer to pay a rebate to enrollees if it uses less than 80 percent of the revenue it takes in to pay medical claims. Affirmed a dismissal, in this proposed class action lawsuit brought by health insurance enrollees.

(California Court of Appeal) - In an insurance coverage dispute, addressed whether the daughter of an insured car crash victim was entitled to benefits under an uninsured motorist policy. Affirmed a judgment on the pleadings.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. The subject of a legal judgment sought to pursue the doctrine of estoppel to compel their insurer to pay out on the judgment against them from a decade before the policy's active date. They suffered no prejudice from the insurer's action and their case was dismissed.

(United States Second Circuit) - Reversed and remanded. Defendants claimed they were erroneously denied qualified immunity in a discrimination suit brought by a former employee. Because the District court conflated the standards under Title VII and Section 1983, the court reversed, entered judgment for the defendants, and remanded.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. A former employee alleging discrimination could be compelled to arbitrate his claims because he didn't opt out of the company's arbitration agreement.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Vacated and remanded. The district court dismissal of a suit for failure to exhaust remedies was vacated because the claims of discrimination had been exhausted before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that a property owner could not proceed with a lawsuit seeking to recover tax overpayments. Affirmed a dismissal, in a case involving the determination of the real property's base-year value, a core metric for assessing property taxes in California.

(California Court of Appeal) - Revived a business owner's lawsuit accusing a certified public accountant of professional negligence. Held that the statute of limitations did not bar this suit concerning alleged erroneous tax advice about how to structure a business deal. Reversed a summary judgment ruling.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Convictions against defendant, an attorney convicted of money laundering while representing a client charged with receiving stolen property, are affirmed where: 1) the prosecutor's failure to correct a grand jury witnesses' false testimony as to his motives for cooperating and failure to disclose impeachment evidence to the grand jury do not constitute structural error requiring automatic reversal; and 2) the prosecution's ex parte request that the district court decide in camera whether the government witness's informant activity needed to be disclosed at trial was not improper.

(California Court of Appeal) - In defendants' petition for a writ of mandate directing the trial court to vacate both its order finding real-party-in-interest did not waive the attorney-client privilege as it applied to an e-mail inadvertently turned over during discovery, and the court's order disqualifying a law firm from representing defendants in the underlying lawsuits, the petition is denied where, regardless of how the attorney obtained the documents, whenever a reasonably competent attorney would conclude the documents obviously or clearly appear to be privileged and it is reasonably apparent they were inadvertently disclosed, the State Fund rule requires the attorney to review the documents no more than necessary to determine whether they are privileged, notify the privilege holder the attorney has documents that appear to be privileged, and refrain from using the documents until the parties or the court resolves any dispute about their privileged nature.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that plaintiff's counsel was not liable for breaching a provision in a settlement agreement requiring him to keep the settlement confidential. Upon being sued by the other settling party for speaking with the online news media about this product liability case, the plaintiff's counsel filed a SLAPP motion. On appeal, the Fourth Appellate District held that the settlement agreement's language purporting to impose a confidentiality obligation on the attorney was unenforceable in this case.