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Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate Ins. Co., No. 08-1008, involved a class action seeking to recover interest due under New York law on plaintiff’s insurance claim. The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit’s order affirming the district court’s dismissal of the action for lack of jurisdiction based on a New York law precluding class actions to recover a “penalty” such as statutory interest, on the ground that Fed. R....

In a dispute involving plaintiff’s claim for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income, district court judgment is affirmed where: 1) the ALJ did not err in declining to place significant weight on plaintiff’s doctor’s findings regarding the intensity of plaintiff’s impairments as the ALJ discerned and discussed the evidence and found that it failed to support the doctor’s conclusions; 2) the ALJ’s determination of plaintiff’s credibility was not patently wrong as the judge properly considered plaintiff’s subjective complaints and the evidence undermining the credibility of those complaints; 3) the ALJ’s hypothetical questions to the vocational expert did not omit key facts and incorporated all of plaintiff’s credible limitation; and 4) the court properly decided against remand where plaintiff’s doctor’s letter clarifying his prior opinion was not new and material evidence....

The Nine are not fans of social media, and they’re not ready to consider arguments that students’ free speech rights do not extend to cyberspace. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied cert in three free speech rights challenges involving comments that students made about administrators or peers on MySpace. Unlike its northerly sister circuit, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a school punishment against a West Virginia high school student, who created and invited classmates to a questionable MySpace group....

A criminal record of violence coupled with questionable driving can transform a run-of-the-mill traffic into an excuse for a full-body pat-down. But are the fruits of said search admissible in court? Last week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that can be, depending on the totality of the circumstances. Judkins stopped behind the Explorer, turned on his squad car lights, and approached the driver. While speaking with the nervous-looking occupants of the car – none of whom could produce a valid driver’s license – he realized that he recognized one of the passengers: Anthony Preston....

Donald Trump’s former campaign finance chairperson and current Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused congressional Democrats’ request for the president’s tax returns, and he did so in the most lawyerly way possible – a sternly worded letter. “I have determined that the Committee’s request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose,” Mnuchin wrote, “the Department is therefore not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.” What else did the letter say?...

Sentence and conviction of defendant for drug related crimes is affirmed where: 1) district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s request for new appointed counsel as the court addressed his motion in a manner fully consistent with the three-part inquiry set forth in settled case law; 2) admission of video recordings of controlled buys did not violate the Confrontation Clause as they were not offered for their truth and were not testimonial; 3) evidence was adequate to support the jury’s finding that defendant possessed a gun found; 4) video was not ambiguous in showing that the person captured on video distributing heroin was defendant; 5) district court did not commit clear error in finding that cash found in a house was the product of heroin sales when applying an enhancement; and 6) the sentence imposed was reasonable....

In an action by an insurer seeking a declaration that it had no obligation to defend or indemnify defendant against a certain claim because he failed to give proper notice of the claim to insurer, default judgment for plaintiffs is reversed where intervenor-Northwest Airlines should have been permitted to defend the declaratory relief action on its own. Read Westchester Fire Ins. Co. v. Mendez, No. 07-17383 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted April 17, 2009...

In an action challenging the Forest Service’s approval of the venting of methane gas from a mine on the ground that it violated the National Environmental Policy Act, denial of mine owner’s motion to intervene is reversed where the owner was entitled to intervene as of right because it had a direct economic stake in the subject of the litigation. Read WildEarth Guardians v. US Forest Serv., No. 09-1089 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado....

Guerrero-Silva v. Holder, No. 05-77420, involved a petition for review of the BIA’s order removing petitioner from the U.S. The court of appeals dismissed the petition, holding that petitioner’s drug conviction under California Health and Safety Code section 11361(b) qualified as a controlled substance offense under 8 U.S.C. section 1227(a)(2)(B)(i). Geographic Expeditions, Inc. v. Estate of Lhotka, No. 09-15069, concerned proceedings arising from an individual’s death from high altitude sickness while on an expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro....

Yoshua Bengio, an award-winner in technological achievement, lent his name to the letter. Other experts include Microsoft’s Hal Daume III and Caltech’s Anima Anandkumar. It wasn’t the first time AI experts have questioned the technology. In January, MIT’s Deborah Raji and Joy Buolamwini revealed their findings that facial recognition misidentifies women and people with darker skin more often than other subjects. The American Civil Liberties Union has been beating a similar drum for a year....

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, a Boston-based gay rights advocacy firm, filed a petition for certiorari last week with the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The case is Pedersen et al. v. Office of Personnel Management et al. The firm, representing six married same-sex couples and one gay widower from Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire, asked the Court to take the case directly from the district court in Connecticut, bypassing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, reports SCOTUSblog....

A recent appeal out of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals is sure to upset pit bull advocates. The appellate court refused to overturn a dismissal of a federal lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against Sioux City, Iowa, from enforcing their ban on pit bulls. And if you don’t know why this is a big deal, you may want to read up pit bulls (cause it’s not the dogs who are bad, it’s the owners)....

The Eighth Circuit decides two cases today, one involving an alleged breach of a settlement agreement reached in bankruptcy proceedings, and another the appropriate sentence for a “walkaway escape” from a federal prison camp. American Prairie Constr. Co. v. Hoich, No. 08-1288, concerned an action to enforce a settlement agreement allegedly reached by the parties in a bankruptcy proceeding. After a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for plaintiff....

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action making a Fourth Amendment facial challenge to San Francisco’s policy requiring a strip search of all arrestees who were to be introduced into San Francisco’s general jail population for custodial housing, denial of summary judgment to defendants based on qualified immunity is reversed where the balance between the need for the strip search policy, due to contraband problems in the jail system, and the invasion of personal rights that the search entailed, weighed in favor of the jail system’s institutional concerns....

Last week, California’s notoriously difficult bar exam got even more complicated. Just a few days before the test, the six topic areas set to appear on the essay portion of the exam leaked to the deans of 16 law schools. Many thought the email was a hoax or assumed the information was confidential. Once bar officials were alerted to the mistake, they elected to then reveal the topics to the roughly 9,000 people registered to take the July exam....

Transcript Panel 1: A turquoise character in a ghost costume stands next to a green round character wearing a witch hat and holds a broom. A text bubble comes from the green character with the title, which says: “Could my Halloween fun be against the law?” By Maddy Buck Panel 2: Four characters of different colors, including the ghost and the witch from before, are standing on a street, with exclamation points above their heads....

An Illinois campaign finance law limiting contributions to political campaign can remain in force through the November 6 election, Reuters reports. The challenged provisions were enacted in 2009 as part of the Illinois Disclosure and Regulation of Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Act, which recognizes three classes of political contributors: individuals, political committees and corporations, labor unions, or other associations. The Illinois campaign law imposes a $5,000 limit on contributions from individuals, a $10,000 limit on unions and corporations, and a $50,000 limit on political action committees....

The term “artificial intelligence” covers a wide range of software or computers mimicking human cognition. But as the limits of AI get pushed, it seems like machines are doing some things that human could never do. And, because both criminals and cops are the ones testing the boundaries of AI, the legal limits of its use will become a hot topic. Here’s a look at two recent cases in both crime and crimefighting where AI and similar technology could play a crucial role....

Deposition documents that revealed Bill Cosby’s extramarital affairs and use of Quaaludes as a seduction technique will not be resealed, the Third Circuit ruled on Monday. Those documents, which included a series of damaging admissions by the comedian, had been so widely disseminated that resealing the documents would do nothing to stop their public disclosure. Cosby’s admissions were made during depositions in a 2005 civil suit against Cosby, brought Andrea Constand, who accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her....

In a murder prosecution, the dismissal of Petitioner’s habeas petition as a sanction is reversed where, because the District Court entered an order requiring Petitioner to file an amended petition the day after Respondent was served with the original petition, there was no chance Respondent was prejudiced by exerting effort to reply to the initial petition. Read Davis v. Miller, No. 07-7062 Appellate Information Filed July 7, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Seymour...