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Erik Thomas/Pool via REUTERS
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A jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico, found “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez guilty of involuntary manslaughter yesterday, and experts say several elements of the prosecutors’ case against Gutierrez are also likely to come up in the July manslaughter trial against actor Alec Baldwin, our colleague Andrew Hay reports.
Baldwin’s role in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the filming of his movie “Rust” loomed large in the trial against Gutierrez, who was convicted after three hours of deliberations. Prosecutors had alleged there was a breakdown of movie-industry firearm safety on set, with some of the testimony at Gutierrez’s trial suggesting Baldwin was negligent and held a disproportionate amount of power while serving as a producer, writer and lead actor.
Baldwin has said he was only a creative producer on the movie, rather than a manager of on-set operations, and as an actor he was not responsible for gun safety. He said he was directed to point his revolver at the camera when it fired the round. Baldwin’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
State prosecutors — and even Baldwin’s defense lawyers — are expected to lean on some of the evidence introduced in the case against Gutierrez when Baldwin faces a July 10 manslaughter trial over Hutchins death, legal experts told Hay.
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- A group of U.S. health insurers has asked a judge to deny a renewed request from law firm Quinn Emanuel for $185 million in class action legal fees, calling the demand “indefensible” after an appeals court last year struck it down. Quinn Emanuel secured a $3.7 billion class action judgment for private insurers in 2020 over claims that the U.S. government failed to meet its obligations under an Obamacare provision aimed at encouraging medical coverage to uninsured Americans.
- The 2nd Circuit upheld the conviction of disgraced celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti for defrauding former client Stormy Daniels, rejecting his arguments that the trial judge improperly instructed jurors that the misappropriation of client funds was a “particularly serious” violation, and wrongly “shamed” a holdout juror in open court to change her mind.
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That’s how many minutes are at the heart of a securities class action accusing Lyft of making an error in an earnings report that sent the ride-hailing company’s stock soaring up 67%, then back down. The lawsuit in San Francisco federal court from the firm Wolf Popper seeks damages for investors who bought Lyft shares at “inflated prices” between 4:05 p.m. and 4:51 p.m. on Feb. 13. The error was tied to a company statement about the expansion of one of its profit margins. Lyft CEO David Risher called the metrics mistake a “bad error, and that’s on me.”
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In the latest case to pose the question of precisely how rigorous trial courts must be in certifying gargantuan class actions, Apple is asking the 9th Circuit to grant review of a ruling that certifies an antitrust class of tens of millions of iPhone and iPad users — even though the expert economist who developed the class model acknowledges that millions of class members suffered no injury. Plaintiffs lawyers fired back on Tuesday, arguing that there’s no need for the appeals court to double-check the trial court’s fact-specific analysis. Alison Frankel has the story.
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“It isn’t the Court’s job to mine a 4,456-page record to find better evidence for the Agency.”
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—U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, who barred the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency, which is tasked with providing assistance to minority-owned businesses, from turning away applicants based on race. Pittman said that because of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring race-conscious college admissions, race-based government action could only be justified under the U.S. Constitution in specific instances of illegal discrimination. While Pittman said racial minorities have less access to loans, receive less funding when they apply and pay higher interest rates, “the record does not show government participation contributed to such disparities.”
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- The Democratic-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on several of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. They include Amir Ali, president and executive director of the MacArthur Justice Center, who would become the first Muslim American judge to serve on the D.C. federal trial court; and Melissa DuBose, a Black state court judge in Rhode Island who would become the first person of color and openly LGBTQ individual to serve as a life-tenured federal judge in the state.
- The Board of Ethics in Fulton County, Georgia, will hold a special meeting to consider two complaints brought against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over allegations she had a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to oversee the election interference case against former President Donald Trump. The judge in the criminal case is considering whether to disqualify Willis from the case over the relationship, which she has admitted but said began after she selected the prosecutor.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- German drug giant Boehringer Ingelheim was hit with an antitrust class-action in Boston federal court accusing it of a scheme to delay generic competition and inflate prices for its asthma drug Combivent Respimat and COPD drug Spiriva Respimat. The FTC last year said it was disputing more than 100 medical patents listed with the FDA’s Orange Book of approved products.
- A 2nd Circuit panel upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by a group opposed to diversity initiatives in medicine that challenged a Pfizer fellowship program designed to boost the pipeline of racial minority leaders at the drugmaker. The appeals court said nonprofit Do No Harm lacked standing to challenge the drugmaker’s program.
- A former Google software engineer has been indicted on charges he stole trade secrets related to artificial intelligence from the Alphabet unit, in order to benefit Chinese companies. Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, was charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets. A lawyer for Ding could not immediately be identified and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
- U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan has ordered a Florida-seller of unfinished gun bodies without serial numbers, used to make untraceable “ghost guns,” to pay $7.8 million to New York and stop selling its products in the state. Furman entered the judgment against Indie Guns after the company failed to respond to a lawsuit by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James against it and nine other companies.
- Internet service provider Cox Communications and a group of major record labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music have each asked the 4th Circuit to rehear an appeal of a $1 billion copyright verdict that the labels won against Cox after a panel said the large judgment was not justified. The labels now argue that Cox had waived its arguments against the award, while Cox argued that it should not have been held liable at all.
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