(United States DC Circuit) - Revived Palestinian nationals' claims that pro-Israeli Americans engaged in a civil conspiracy to expel all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by funneling millions of dollars to Jewish settlements there. The defendants contended that the case raised nonjusticiable political questions and should be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Disagreeing, the D.C. Circuit reversed a dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Held that a Houston law firm should be allowed to intervene in a lawsuit to protect its right to a contingent fee. The firm's client and the opposing party had allegedly conspired to cheat it out of its deserved attorney fee for work on a matter involving a foreign arbitral award. Remanded with directions to permit intervention and consider the law firm's claims on the merits.

(United States Supreme Court) - Addressed a question concerning a method of serving civil process on a foreign state. The Republic of Sudan argued that a mailing must be sent directly to the foreign minister's office in the foreign state, not to the foreign state's U.S. embassy. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Sudan's argument in an 8-1 decision. Justice Alito delivered the Court's opinion, in this case arising out of the 2000 bombing of the Navy vessel USS Cole.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that eleven American families could not revive their lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority and others for various terror attacks in Israel that killed or wounded the plaintiffs or their family members. The plaintiffs relied on the 2018 enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, but the statute did not warrant the extraordinary remedy of recalling the mandate in this already completed case, which had been dismissed on procedural grounds.

(United States Supreme Court) - The whistleblower protection provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 contained in 18 U. S. C. section 1514A include employees of a public company's private contractors and subcontractors when they report covered forms of fraud.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - Summary judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiff's claims that he was unlawfully terminated from his employment in retaliation for protected activity under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is affirmed, where plaintiff failed to sufficiently establish that his alleged protected activities were a contributing factor to his termination.

(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.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirming the district court's dismissal of a shareholder derivative action for failure to show demand futility in a suit where shareholders of a company who brought suit for breach of fiduciary duties for failing to disclose manufacturing and design defects in the company's solar panels without making a demand to the board.

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

(NY Supreme Court) - 528980

(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 Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed a judgment in favor of a medical supplier in its lawsuit against a health insurance company that refused to pay for covered services. The supplier, which provides equipment and staffing to doctors who perform surgery in their own offices, prevailed in a jury trial.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that a policyholder who successfully sued a life insurance company was not entitled to an award of attorney fees. Reversed the fee award, in this diversity jurisdiction case.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - In a dispute over life insurance coverage, held that a policy exclusion was applicable because a man's death from engaging in an act known as autoerotic asphyxiation qualified as intentionally self-inflicted injury.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that an insurance company may not proceed with a negligence lawsuit against an adjuster for allegedly botching a claim for hurricane damage. The lawsuit was not filed within the statute of limitations.

(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 Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. A company found, during a random audit by the Indiana Department of Insurance, to have committed hundreds of regulatory violations that entered into an agreement to pay a fine and relinquish its licenses could not subsequently sue the Department's commissioner alleging discrimination for their out-of-state residency without providing a valid reason to void the agreement.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Petition denied. A company's petition for review of an administrative law judge's finding of violations and imposition of a monetary penalty against a poultry processing plant following a worker injury was upheld.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed. The district court's dismissal of claims for interference and retaliation in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act in the case of a man reprimanded for swearing, quoting the bible, and generally being abrasive in colleague interactions.

(Supreme Court of California) - Affirmed in part and reversed in part. Plaintiff filed suit for employment discrimination, retaliation and defamation. Defendant filed an anti—SLAPP motion, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16. The Supreme court held that the anti-SLAPP statute is applicable to the claims of discrimination and retaliation, but not to the defamation cause of action because it was not made in connection with any issue of public significance.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirmed. Held that Division I football players were not employees of the NCAA because the economic realities for student-athletes do not match an employer/employee relationship. The district court’s dismissal of an athlete’s Fair Labor Standards Act claim is affirmed.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed. The district court's grant of a defense motion for summary judgment in an Age Discrimination Employment Act claim was proper because the plaintiff failed to raise a genuine question of material fact about the company's reasons for firing him during a period in which the company halved its workforce and fired thousands of workers.

(California Court of Appeal) - Reversed order denying Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration. Plaintiff filed a complaint against his employer for unfair competition under the Business and Professions Code section 17200 and also brought wage and hour claims. The Defendant moved to compel arbitration. The trial court granted arbitration for all claims, but for the unfair competition claim. The appeals court held that the unfair competition claim could also be subject to arbitration.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development did not fail to reasonably accommodate an employee that had previously taken advantage of a telecommute policy following hand surgery when, following restructuring and performance deficiencies, they revoked her telecommute privileges.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reversed. The district court dismissed an action brought by exotic dancers for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Reversing, the panel held the statutory requirement that plaintiffs must be employees as defined in the FLSA is a merits-based determination, not a jurisdictional limitation.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Summary judgment affirmed, award of costs vacated and remanded, where Plaintiff making FLSA claim for unpaid overtime was exempt. But because district court did not provide reasons for declining to award costs to prevailing party, award of costs vacated and that issue remanded back to district court.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. The district court dismissal of a workplace harassment suit was affirmed because after harassment was reported the company swiftly investigated and fired the harasser. No evidence was presented to support allegations of harassment in the victim's subsequent dismissal.

(California Court of Appeal) - Reinstated an unjust enrichment claim brought by a tax specialist that had helped a landowner reduce delinquent property taxes. Held that a foreclosure sale purchaser of the land had reason to know that the tax specialist had a contractual interest in a percentage of the tax refund. Reversed dismissal of the tax specialist's unjust enrichment claim against the foreclosure sale purchaser.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that a county appeals board erred in denying a hotel's request for a property tax refund. The hotel contended that the property valuation was incorrect. Reversed and remanded to the board for a new hearing.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that a husband and wife were not liable for a 2008 tax deficiency. The IRS had applied the substance‐over‐form doctrine to recharacterize various lawful tax‐avoiding transactions as tax‐generating events for the taxpayers, their adult sons, a family trust, and a family‐controlled corporation. Reversed the tax court.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed a restitution order against a defendant who was convicted of preparing false tax returns for clients.

(United States Supreme Court) - Held that West Virginia unlawfully discriminated against a U.S. Marshalls Service retiree when it gave a generous pension tax benefit only to state or local retirees who served in law enforcement. The plaintiff relied on a federal statute that, broadly speaking, bars states from taxing the compensation of federal employees differently from state employees. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with him that West Virginia's tax rule unlawfully disfavored federal retirees.

(California Court of Appeal) - Affirmed. The court found that Senate Bill No. 1107 directly conflicts with Political Reform Act of 1974 and does not further the purposes of the Act.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In an ethics and professional responsibility action, arising out of a dispute between class plaintiffs over conflicts of interest among class counsel, the district court's rejection of the motion to disqualify counsel is affirmed where California does not apply a rule of automatic disqualification for conflicts of simultaneous representation in the class action context and the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that counsel will adequately represent the class.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - In a challenge to the conditions placed on the privilege of admission to the Bar of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in Local Rule 701, the District Court's grant of the Government's motion to dismiss is affirmed where Rule 701 violates neither the Constitution nor federal law.

(Supreme Court of California) - In an action that implicates the public‘s interest in transparency and a public agency‘s interest in confidential communications with its legal counsel, the Court of Appeal’s judgment concerning whether billing invoices are privileged is reversed where invoices for work in pending and active legal matters are so closely related to attorney-client communications that they implicate the heart of the privilege rule.

(California Court of Appeal) - In a writ proceeding to determine whether attorney work conduct privilege attaches to documents created by an attorney employee during their employment with an employer law firm, the lower court's judgment is vacated where the privilege attaches to the firm, rather than the employee.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirming the district court's denial of a California inmate's habeas corpus petition alleging the denial of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel because his trial attorney held deeply racist beliefs about African Americans in general and him in particular because he conceded he was unaware of his attorney's racism until years after the conviction was final and couldn't identify any acts or admissions by his attorney that fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that an attorney was not entitled to a new trial after a jury found him liable to a client for intentional torts. The attorney argued that the client failed to prove causation. Disagreeing, the Fourth Appellate District concluded that claims of fraudulent concealment and intentional breach of fiduciary duty brought against an attorney are subject to the substantial-factor causation standard, not the trial-within-a-trial or but-for standard employed in cases of legal malpractice based on negligence. The panel also held that the testimony of the client alone sufficed here to support her emotional distress damages.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that a lawyer should not have been disqualified from representing a student-employee at a community college in a sexual harassment case. He did not violate California State Bar Rules of Professional Conduct concerning communications with represented parties when he contacted another student-employee seeking a witness statement. Granted writ relief.

(California Court of Appeal) - Reversing a trial court judgment granting writ of mandate and the award of attorney's fees in the case of a real estate salesperson who sued a state agency for publicizing her three misdemeanor convictions because they had no mandatory duty to remove from their website information about a licensee's convictions even if they were eventually dismissed.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirmed that magazine publishers did not violate antitrust laws by trying to drive a wholesaler out of business. The wholesaler delivered magazines to retail stores and it alleged that when it tried to impose a surcharge on the publishers in 2009, they conspired to boycott and drive the wholesaler out of business. On appeal, the Second Circuit found that the wholesaler had presented insufficient evidence of a boycott scheme to survive summary judgment. The panel also affirmed summary judgment against the publishers' counterclaims.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirmed the dismissal of a defamation suit brought by a hedge fund manager who claimed Bloomberg News falsely reported that he was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The plaintiff brought suit against Bloomberg, as well as the reporter and editor of the story, alleging that they had defamed him and committed other common-law torts. Agreeing with the district court, the First Circuit held that the plaintiff was required to plausibly allege actual malice because he was at least a limited-purpose public figure and that he had failed to allege such facts.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Held that an African American-owned operator of television networks sufficiently pleaded a claim that a cable television operator refused to enter into a carriage contract based on racial bias, in violation of 42 U.S.C. section 1981. Also, the section 1981 claim was not barred by the First Amendment. On interlocutory appeal, affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In an en banc opinion, addressed the constitutionality of a San Francisco ordinance that requires health warnings to be included in advertisements for certain sugar-sweetened beverages. Industry groups challenged the ordinance, contending that it violates freedom of commercial speech. Finding this argument persuasive, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court should have granted a preliminary injunction against the ordinance.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In an amended opinion, held that an African American-owned operator of television networks sufficiently pleaded that a cable television operator unlawfully refused to enter into a carriage contract based on racial bias, in violation of 42 U.S.C. section 1981. Affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss, on interlocutory appeal.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that a newspaper's anti-SLAPP motion should have been granted to block a libel suit. The plaintiffs failed to make a prima-facie showing that statements regarding them in a series of articles about campaign contributions were false. Reversed in relevant part.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that an organization may not proceed with its defamation action alleging reputational harm from an article published in an American Bar Association law journal. The author's statements were non-actionable expressions of opinion. Affirmed a dismissal.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that a media company was not a "consumer reporting agency" subject to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. A job applicant alleged that the company's subscription‐based online research platform erroneously showed that he had been previously convicted of theft. Affirmed summary judgment in favor of the media company.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirmed the denial of a motion to dismiss based on foreign sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereignty Immunity Act in a securities lawsuit filed by the shareholder of an Argentine petroleum company against the Argentine Republic which held a majority of shares in the company. In affirming the denial and rejecting the claim of sovereign immunity, the appeals court noted that the plaintiff was seeking relief for injuries caused by commercial, rather than sovereign, activity.