Second Circuit Rules Negligent Discovery Lapses Can't Undo a Final Verdict
A Second Circuit ruling in the adidas-Thom Browne stripe dispute resolves an open question about what counts as "misconduct" when withheld emails surface after trial.
Civil Procedure
Courts May Cut Punitive Damages and Enter Judgment Without Offering New Trial, Manhattan Judge Rules in Trade-Secrets Case
A Manhattan federal judge settled a procedural question that two Second Circuit panels had twice declined to answer, ruling that courts may slash a punitive damages award and enter judgment in the reduced amount without giving the prevailing party a choice...
Kratom Marketer Loses Bid to Bury Its Own Blog, Hit With Spoliation Sanctions
A San Diego federal judge found that Ashlynn Marketing Group deleted its kratom-product blog during active litigation and then watched Wayback Machine archives prove it.
Noose, Racial Slurs, and a Firing: Black Worker's Discrimination Claims Survive Cupertino Electric's Bid to Wipe Out Amended Complaint
A federal judge let a former safety coordinator's race discrimination case move forward after concluding the plaintiff had shown good cause to amend outside the scheduling-order deadline and that the liberal amendment standard of Rule 15 favored resolving...
New Jersey Appeals Court Rules IFCA Bad Faith Discovery Must Await Resolution of UIM Dispute — At Least on These Facts
A New Jersey appellate panel tackled the state's two-year-old Insurance Fair Conduct Act for the first time, ruling that the statute's novel private right of action does not automatically entitle policyholders to pursue bad faith discovery while an...
Rule 11 Sanctions Imposed on Attorney Who Flooded Briefs With AI-Hallucinated Citations
A New York federal magistrate concluded the attorney acted in bad faith after she submitted two opposition briefs packed with case citations that pointed to entirely unrelated decisions — or to nothing at all.
Kentucky Father Sanctioned for Forging Family Members' Signatures and Deceiving His Own Lawyers in Federal Harassment Suit
A magistrate judge found that a defendant forged his wife's and son's signatures on discovery verifications and fed his own lawyers false information for two years — but declined to end the case on the first swing.
Competing Retailers Can Be Joined in Patent Suit When Tied to Common Supplier, Texas Judge Rules
A Texas federal judge refused to break off H-E-B's case from a 17-defendant patent suit over Bang energy drinks, concluding the grocery chain's supply-chain ties to its co-defendants were too tangled to split.
Lemon-Law Firm With 10,000 Active Cases Faces Sanctions, Case-Transfer Freeze, and Mandatory Accounting After Cascade of Attorney Discipline
A California lemon law firm managing roughly 10,000 active cases is about to lose its second and final partner, leaving a single managing attorney to oversee a docket that a federal judge described as reflecting a systemic breakdown in professional...
State Pension Board Membership Kills Diversity Jurisdiction, Kansas Federal Judge Rules
A Kansas federal court sent an aviation services dispute back to state court after discovering the plaintiff had converted from a corporation to an LLC whose ownership chain runs through a New Mexico state pension board — and the judge used the occasion to...
Connecticut Supreme Court Applies Three-Year Tort Limitation to Repossession Notice Claims Under UCC Article 9 and RISFA
The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed a trial court’s summary judgment ruling in Connex Credit Union v. Madgic, holding that the three-year statute of limitations for tort actions, rather than the one-year period for penal statutes, governs...
New Jersey Judge Transfers Sex-Trafficking Suit Against Wyndham to Texas, Where the Alleged Abuse Occurred
A woman who says she was trafficked at two Days Inn hotels in San Antonio and Houston between 2010 and 2014 will now litigate her case in the state where she lives — and where the alleged crimes occurred.
Judge Blocks Ex Parte TRO in Milwaukee Electric Tool Suit, Orders Amazon, PayPal to Hand Over Defendant Data
A federal judge denied a toolmaker's emergency request to freeze assets of unnamed defendants while ordering major financial platforms to produce identifying information and account balances.
Ohio Court Rejects Late Immunity Defense in Sexual Assault Case, Finds Jury Question on Foreseeability
An Ohio appellate panel reversed summary judgment for a psychiatric facility that sought to invoke statutory immunity after the close of discovery and two weeks before trial, holding that the burden of proof in immunity cases falls on the injured patient...
School-Board Members Can Recover Attorney's Fees After Obtaining Document Injunction, Even After Terms Expire
Texas Supreme Court holds that an injunction compelling production of records constitutes prevailing-party status under Education Code Section 11.1512, even when the board members' terms expire before final judgment.
Texas Supreme Court Kills Helicopter Crash Suit, Ruling Manual Revisions Can't Restart GARA's 18-Year Clock
A pilot's family argued that routine edits to a Bell helicopter's preflight checklist reset federal aviation law's repose period — a theory every court to consider it has rejected.
Seventh Circuit Precedent Bars Consideration of Unreferenced Video Evidence at Motion to Dismiss Stage
Court Allows Strike 3 Early Discovery for Anonymous Copyright Defendants with Strict Anti-Coercion Safeguards
Snap Removal Cannot Cure Lack of Complete Diversity, Court Rules in Motorcycle Injury Case
Court Denies Summary Judgment in ADA Case Over Employee Aggregation Dispute
A Northern District of Alabama judge denied summary judgment to two related water filtration and plumbing companies in an ADA discrimination suit, ruling that genuine disputes of material fact exist regarding whether the entities should be aggregated to...