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Good morning. We’re expecting fast-moving litigation this week in U.S. courts over continued access to the abortion pill mifepristone, following two major rulings in conflict with each other. Meanwhile, Tesla was hit with a privacy class action, and the U.S. Supreme Court is facing new questions about ethics protocols after it was revealed Justice Clarence Thomas did not disclose years of luxury trips. Plus, jury selection is set to start this week in Dominion Voting’s defamation suit against Fox. Thanks for choosing us — let’s dive in.
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Litigation over the abortion pill mifepristone is expected to move quickly in the U.S. courts this week, following a pair of competing rulings over FDA regulatory approval. Mifepristone, approved 22 years ago, is part of a two-drug regimen that accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions.
The DOJ was expected soon to ask the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit to pause enforcement of the Texas federal judge’s order suspending approval of mifepristone. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointee who long had opposed abortion rights prior to his confirmation, put his ruling on hold until Friday to give the government a chance to appeal.
The 5th Circuit has a conservative reputation, with more than two-thirds of its judges appointed by Republican presidents. A three-judge panel would decide whether to grant a stay to Kacsmaryk’s ruling sought by the government, and its decision will depend partly on whether it believes the FDA is likely to succeed on the merits of the case, our colleague Brendan Pierson writes.
Just minutes after Kacsmaryk’s order hit the docket in Amarillo, Texas, former federal prosecutor and Obama-appointee U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Rice in Spokane, Washington, in a separate lawsuit issued a preliminary order blocking the FDA from making any changes to the current availability of mifepristone. His ruling applied to the 17 states that sued. The DOJ had not yet said whether, or when, it might appeal Rice’s order to the 9th Circuit.
>>> Read more: Analysis: Texas abortion pill ruling could undermine US drug regulator
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- A ProPublica report that said Justice Clarence Thomas for years had accepted luxury travel and accommodations from GOP donor Harlan Crow raised new questions over potential conflicts of interest involving the justices and the court, which has received escalating criticism for its lack of a formal ethics code. The report prompted Senate Democrats to call for an investigation. Thomas said in a statement he has always sought to comply with disclosure guidelines. (Reuters)
- The federal judge in Ohio overseeing Norfolk Southern derailment litigation appointed a coalition of national law firms to lead more than 30 lawsuits. Jayne Conroy of Simmons Hanly Conroy, Seth Katz of Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh Jardine and Elizabeth Graham of Grant & Eisenhofer were named interim class counsel. They will be joined by Michael Morgan of Morgan & Morgan as co-lead counsel. (Reuters)
- The Republican-led U.S. House judiciary committee issued a deposition subpoena to Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who led the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of now-indicted Donald Trump. A spokesperson for the DA’s office has said House Republicans were trying to undermine the criminal case against Trump with “an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation.” (Reuters)
- Trial law firm Glenn Agre Bergman & Fuentes has grown nearly five times bigger since its founding two years ago. The firm’s latest hire, David Callaway, a former Goodwin Procter partner, joined Glenn Agre’s San Francisco office. With Callaway onboard, Glenn Agre now has 34 lawyers and staffers. (Reuters)
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That’s the number of legal services sector jobs that were lost in March, marking the first monthly employment decline in the industry since September, according to new U.S. Labor figures. Legal sector jobs totaled 1,180,900 last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. The count includes lawyers, paralegals and other legal professionals. Across U.S. industries, the economy continued to add jobs in March.
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Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn of Delaware Chancery Court last week refused to go along with a plan that would have allowed movie theater operator AMC Entertainment to resolve class action litigation over its novel equity restructuring without waiting for the judge formally to approve the settlement. AMC and shareholder plaintiffs — who were slated to receive a quick award of new shares worth more than $100 million under the proposed settlement — had told the judge that an accelerated process that would take days, not months, was good for everyone. Let’s just say that Zurn did not agree. Alison Frankel has the details.
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“[The deal] may have saddled Chicago with the most expensive street parking in the country … but that is not enough to state a claim for a violation of the antitrust laws.”
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—7th Circuit Judge Diane Wood, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel in rejecting a lawsuit that challenged Chicago’s 75-year, $1.1 billion contract to privatize metered parking in the city. The city’s contract with Chicago Parking Meters, which does business as ParkChicago, did not run afoul of U.S. antitrust law, the panel said. Winston & Strawn represented Chicago Parking Meters, the defendant in the case. Chicago’s parking meter operations are the third-largest in the U.S.
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- In Minnesota federal court, U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez will weigh a request from the state to pause her order striking down a state law that said gun permits can only be granted to individuals 21 or older. “The issue will likely be determined by the Supreme Court, and therefore certainly involves the determination of both substantial and novel legal questions,” Minnesota’s lawyers told Menendez last week, in asking her to pause enforcement of her ruling. The Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and other plaintiffs have opposed Minnesota’s effort to put the order on hold pending appeal. Attorneys from Cooper & Kirk are on the plaintiffs’ team.
- JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank are expected to formally respond to lawsuits seeking to hold them liable over their dealings with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. Both have been sued in proposed class actions by women who claim they were victims of Epstein’s abuse, and JPMorgan has been sued by the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein had a home. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan has already rejected the banks’ efforts to dismiss those lawsuits. Both banks have said they had no legal duty to protect women from Epstein and denied accusations they knew about his abuses.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- On Tuesday, a school board in Oklahoma is set to consider whether to approve the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school, in a move that could ultimately test the U.S. Supreme Court’s willingness to expand religious rights. Supporters and critics of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School have indicated the board’s vote could spur a significant legal fight over church-state separation. The Supreme Court’s conservative justices have widened religious rights in a series of rulings in recent years including cases involving schools in Maine and Montana.
- On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn in East St. Louis, Illinois, will hold a hearing in a consolidated group of lawsuits challenging Illinois’ new gun control laws, brought by gun rights organizations like the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Oral argument is scheduled on the gun groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the state’s ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, which is based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling limiting state laws regulating guns. Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy is representing the gun groups.
- On Thursday, the 3rd Circuit will hear a dispute over a Pennsylvania bar rule that prohibits lawyers from discriminatory or harassing conduct. The state bar’s disciplinary board, represented by Williams & Connolly’s Lisa Blatt, brought the appeal after losing a lower court ruling. Blatt contends the trial court was wrong to conclude the rule violated attorneys’ free-speech rights. The American Bar Association and other groups are backing the state bar. Conservative legal and religious groups lined up in the appeals court against the rule.
- Also on Thursday, jury selection is scheduled to begin ahead of the April 17 trial in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox over its coverage of debunked election-rigging claims. Dominion is hoping to prove that Fox ruined its reputation by repeatedly airing false claims by former President Donald Trump and others that its voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden. Fox has argued that its coverage was protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The trial already features a parade of Fox’s biggest on-air personalities, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo. Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis will oversee the trial.
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- A U.S. judge in Hawaii rejected a bid by the state’s transportation agency to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of 14 young people who claim it is violating the state constitution by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Judge Jeffrey Crabtree in Honolulu ruled the youth plaintiffs could pursue their claims the agency is shirking its duty to protect the environment by promoting and funding highway projects that lead to more fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Supreme Court refused to let West Virginia enforce a state law banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools. The justices denied West Virginia’s request to lift an injunction against the law that a lower court had imposed while litigation continues in a challenge brought by a 12-year-old transgender girl. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. (Reuters)
- The Biden administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a lower court ruling against a federal ban on “bump stock” devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire like machine guns. The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit in January said the ATF impermissibly reclassified bump stocks as machine guns, which are forbidden under U.S. law. (Reuters)
- Lawyers for the NFL are trying to block a bid from class attorneys seeking to inspect internal league records about negotiations over the “Sunday Ticket” broadcast rights, the center of long-running antitrust litigation in Los Angeles federal court. Plaintiffs’ lawyers contend they want the records to help argue their claims that the NFL’s broadcast restrictions have artificially inflated the cost of Sunday Ticket. (Reuters)
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