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5th Circuit Judge James Ho. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin
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A new U.S. court rule aimed at curtailing “judge shopping” was the result of political pressure and conflicted with federal law, two conservative federal appeals court judges said. U.S. Circuit Judges James Ho and Edith Jones of the 5th Circuit in separate statements criticized judicial policymakers for adopting the rule, our colleague Nate Raymond reports.
The new rule will require lawsuits challenging state and federal laws to be assigned a judge randomly throughout a federal district, rather than remaining within the specific court, or division, they were filed in. Previously, a plaintiff could file such a lawsuit in courthouses where one or two potentially sympathetic judges hear most cases.
Jones said the new policy appeared to clash with a federal statute that gives district courts control over the allocation of cases on their dockets. Ho said if “reformers are sincerely troubled by venue shopping, they can start by examining the serious concerns that have been voiced about our Nation’s bankruptcy and patent dockets.”
The chief judge of Texas’ Western District, Alia Moses, said she had concerns about the logistics of transferring cases in her large district. Still, Moses said the “mission or objective of the rule is laudable given the dynamics of what we are seeing in the courts.” A spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts had no comment.
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- Legal technology startup DraftWise, which offers an AI-powered contracts tool for lawyers, said today it raised a $20 million Series A round led by venture capital firm Index Ventures. Existing backers Y Combinator and Earlybird Digital East Ventures also participated in DraftWise’s latest capital raise, which comes amid sustained investor interest in companies that use AI to help lawyers speed up tasks.
- Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced she was seeking to pardon hundreds of thousands of people convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession in the years before the state legalized cannabis in 2016. Healey’s action followed President Joe Biden’s earlier moves to pardon thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession offenses under federal law and in Washington, D.C., a step he urged governors to follow for state offenses.
- Patrick Byrne, founder and former chief executive of Overstock.com, hired Stefanie Lambert — a lawyer facing criminal charges in Michigan for allegedly tampering with voting machines — to defend him in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. Lambert filed an appearance in D.C., federal court on behalf of Byrne, who has been fighting a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. Lambert did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment, nor did her lawyer.
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That’s the number of class actions filed so far against UnitedHealth accusing it of failing to protect millions of people’s personal data from last month’s hack of Change Healthcare, its payment processing unit. Plaintiffs’ lawyers asked a federal judicial panel to consolidate the cases in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, where Change is headquartered. UnitedHealth has called the attack “unprecedented” and said the company was focused on “mitigating the impact to consumers and care providers.” Plaintiffs’ lawyers told the judicial panel that more lawsuits are likely to come.
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A first-ever empirical study of corporate tactics to fend off mass arbitration demands found that companies are embracing contract provisions requiring consumers and employees to engage in “informal” dispute resolution programs before they are permitted to file formal — and costly — arbitration demands. The point of this and other recent corporate strategies, said Drexel law prof Richard Frankel in a forthcoming article for the Vanderbilt Law Review, is not to facilitate individual arbitration but to suppress it. That’s not a surprise, according to Alison Frankel (no relation) in light of longstanding corporate criticism of mass arbitration. But the Vanderbilt law review article warns of a surprise twist for companies: They may have just strategized themselves out of the protection of the Federal Arbitration Act.
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“I had never read the case, and I stood up
and I spoke for 10 minutes.“
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—President Joe Biden shared about his first torts class when his professor at Syracuse University College of Law called on him at random to discuss a legal case, which Biden hadn’t read. The story came up during Biden’s October interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, who investigated his handling of government documents, for which Congress this week released a transcript. Biden’s professor responded at the time that Biden would be “a hell of a trial lawyer” but that none of his comments were relevant to the case at hand, said Biden, who added that he “didn’t take law school very seriously.”
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- A group of 25 Republican-led states will urge the 8th Circuit to block a rule adopted by the Biden administration that restricts ownership of gun accessories known as pistol braces. The 5th Circuit in August said in a decision that the ATF rule was likely illegal. Several federal judges have issued preliminary orders blocking enforcement of the rule, but those orders apply only to members of the groups, and only in those judges’ jurisdictions.
- Also in the 8th Circuit, a panel will consider whether to revive a lawsuit by two students and a group called Viewpoint Neutrality Now! alleging the University of Minnesota was unlawfully favoring clubs representing racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ community in its distribution of student fee revenue. Erick Kaardal of Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson will argue for the challengers, facing off against Carrie Ryan Gallia of the university’s legal department.
- U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter in Philadelphia will hold an initial conference in the multidistrict litigation against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly over the drugmakers alleged failure to warn people about harsh side effects associated with their blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs Ozempic and Mounjaro. At least 55 lawsuits were centralized in the Pennsylvania federal court last month.
- Denise Lodge, the wife of Harvard Medical School’s former morgue manager, is scheduled to plead guilty before U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann to transporting human remains stolen from donor bodies. Her husband, Cedric Lodge, is slated to face trial in August for his alleged role in the scandal. Reuters has previously reported on abuses in the body trade business.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Meta cannot stop the FTC from reopening a probe into its Facebook unit’s privacy practices for now, a D.C. Circuit panel ruled, despite Meta’s objections that it already paid a $5 billion fine and agreed to a range of safeguards. The appeals court said the FTC’s stated privacy concerns “implicate important public interests” and that Meta would have an opportunity to contest any final action by the agency.
- Microsoft agreed to settle a patent infringement lawsuit brought by the California Institute of Technology, which earlier won a billion-dollar jury verdict against Apple and Broadcom over some of the same Wi-Fi patents. Microsoft and Caltech told a Texas federal judge that they had settled the case and asked to pause the proceedings while they finalize an agreement.
- Eggland’s Best, one of the largest U.S. egg producers, has been sued for falsely claiming that its eggs contain less saturated fat than other eggs. The proposed class action challenges Eggland’s Best’s claim on its packaging that its eggs contain “25% less saturated fat than regular eggs.”
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- Orrick hired D.C.-based employment litigation partner Esther Lander, who focuses on employment discrimination and government investigations. She arrives from Akin. (Orrick)
- Goodwin added Lori Gordon in D.C. as an IP litigation partner. She most recently was at Perkins Coie. (Goodwin)
- Steptoe hired D.C.-based partner Tim Moran and New York-based partner Phil Corsello to its energy and transaction practices. They previously were at Holland & Knight. (Steptoe)
- McGlinchey Stafford brought on Jim Donelon, Louisiana’s former insurance commissioner, as a partner in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. (McGlinchey Stafford)
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