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A California high school student won’t be going to prison for 30 months for shooting a laser pointer at a small aircraft, the Ninth Circuit ruled on Thursday. Adam Gardenhire, the kid who shined his friend’s laser pointer at a Cessna airplane as it approached L.A.’s Burbank Airport in 2012, wasn’t reckless, the court said, since he lacked knowledge of the risks he was creating. Gardenhire will now face no more than ten months for his crime of endangering an aircraft....

Some people will tell you that bar brawls add character to a neighborhood drinking hole. Wisconsin, however, classifies alcohol-fueled fisticuffs as grounds to yank an establishment’s liquor license under the “disorderly house” statute. When Eau Claire’s Nasty Habit Saloon lost its liquor license in 2006, Scott Hegwood challenged the disorderly house statute, arguing that it was unconstitutionally vague as applied to the Nasty Habit. This week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument, finding that face-kicking, chokeholds, and dog piles of fighting patrons epitomized a disorderly house....

In US v. Straw, No. 09-3298, the court affirmed defendant’s sentence for wire fraud, mail fraud, making, possessing, and uttering a forged security, and money laundering, holding that ) it was not plain error for the district court to hear defendant’s family member’s statement because the statement concerned defendant’s background, character, and conduct; 2) given the fact that the victims of defendant’s wills-and-estate-planning scheme overlapped with the victims of other schemes, and that defendant used those seminars to find new victims for his other crimes and assess their financial situations, it was not clearly erroneous for the district court to determine they were part of the same course of conduct; and 3) the district court was aware of defendant’s mental health issues and there was no evidence it disregarded them in varying upward....

Last week, the Supreme Court added five new cases to its current term, including two that ask the question: To what extent are religious organizations immune from lawsuits by employees? Agnes Morrissey-Beru, a teacher at Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Hermosa Beach, accused the school of age discrimination after her contract was not renewed. Another teacher, Kristen Biel, sued St. James School in Torrence under the Americans With Disabilities Act when the school failed to renew her contract in 2014....

Imposition of a 70-month sentence on a 60 year-old nurse practitioner for prescribing a variety of controlled substances to people, whom she knew did not have a legitimate need for the medications, is affirmed where, although the government did not systematically address every prescription the defendant wrote to the patients, it presented ample evidence to prove that the prescriptions had no legitimate medical purpose and were written outside the usual course of appropriate medical practice....

Conviction of defendant for dealing crack cocaine is affirmed where: 1) the district court did not commit error in allowing a forensic chemist’s testimony at defendant’s trial; and 2) the court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of drugs without witness testimony as to how the drugs were handled during testing. Read US v. Turner, No. 08-3109 Appellate Information Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin...

Kyle Rittenhouse is going on trial this week for the alleged murder and attempted murder of protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. A controversial ruling by the presiding judge is sure to bring more attention to the politically explosive case. Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled that prosecutors in the case would be unable to refer to the dead and injured as “victims” in the case, while the defense could refer to those same people as “looters,” “rioters,” and “arsonists....

In a Bivens action based on the exclusion of plaintiffs, by volunteers acting under government supervision, from a speech by then-President Bush, dismissal of the complaint based on qualified immunity is affirmed where plaintiffs failed to identify any First Amendment doctrine that prohibited the government from excluding them from an official speech on private property. Read Weise v. Casper, No. 09-1085 Appellate Information Filed January 27, 2010 Judges Opinion by Judge Kelly...

SCOTUS heard oral arguments this week, in the closely watched Lucia v. SEC case. The petitioner is seeking to invalidate a judgment against him affirmed by an SEC administrative law judge by claiming that the SEC overstepped when it hired ALJs because they should have been appointed by the president or SEC pursuant to the president’s constitutional appointment power. Though Justice Gorsuch only seemed concerned with what sort of remedy the petitioner sought, several other justices seemed rather curious about how invalidating the SEC’s current selection process for judges would affect those judges’ impartiality and independence....

Life Insurance Benefit Dispute In Wilson v. Northwestern Mut. Ins. Co., No. 09-1895, an action claiming that plaintiff was the beneficiary of two life insurance policies issued by defendant to her late husband, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendant-insurer in part, where there were no modifications, oral or otherwise, of the written terms of the Term Life Policy. However, the court reversed in part where a reasonable jury could find that the retroactive refund by defendant was a self-serving afterthought, designed to reduce the length of the decedent’s policy coverage....

The Ninth Circuit reaffirmed a law that has been fundamental to criminal law for an entire generation of criminal attorneys: “No” means just that – no. In its opinion, the circuit court vacated the trial court’s ruling as being established on inadmissible evidence, and affirmed the lower appeal’s court grant of habeas corpus. This case underscores the limits of police custodial interrogations. The best tip for a would-be criminal about to be questioned by the police?...

We haven’t heard the term forum non conveniens since our days as a 1L in Civil Procedure, but the Third Circuit recently wrote a precedential opinion devoted to that one issue. Factual Background A claim that originated as an action between companies, through successive motions and allegations, actually boiled down to an action between two parties: Vadim Shulman and Akiva Sapir. Though both reside in Israel, because some of the business transactions touch on U....

If you are injured in a car accident, consulting with an attorney who handles car accident injury lawsuits may be the best way to ensure that you are compensated for your injuries and other financial losses caused by the crash. In order to help you, however, an attorney will first need you to help him understand the facts surrounding your accident and your injuries. An attorney may know the law, but can only apply the law once he knows the key details of your particular case....

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that corporations can be held liable under the Alien Tort Act, raising the circuit-level are-they-or-aren’t-they-liable decision count to 7 to 1. The Second Circuit’s Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. remains the lone outlier. Writing for a unanimous panel in Flomo v. Firestone Natural Rubber Co., Judge Richard Posner criticized the Kiobel decision’s underlying premise that there is no principle of customary international law that binds a corporation as “incorrect....

Most of us are waiting to hear the Supreme Court’s thoughts on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Prop. 8 ban on gay marriage. Judge Harry Pregerson, however, already has an opinion. Judge Pregerson is the chair of the Ninth Circuit’s Standing Committee on Federal Public Defenders. Last week, he issued an unpublished opinion addressing DOMA and a similar Oregon law, finding both laws unconstitutional and ordering that the Administrative Office of the U....

The case of Stapleton et al. v. Health Care Network was reviewed and its decision affirmed at the Seventh Circuit recently, further solidifying the opinions of appellate courts that Advocate Health Care’s retirement plan is not church-exempt from ERISA. The named plaintiff in the class action suit at bar, Ms. Maria Stapleton as well as her other colleagues. They filed a class action suit against their employer AHC in early 2014, claiming that AHC failed to maintain their retirement plans in accordance with ERISA....

Singer Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v. Milgram, 09-2238, concerned a challenge to the district court’s denial of plaintiff’s request for attorney’s fees, arising from plaintiff’s suit seeking a TRO and preliminary injunction to restrain the Attorney General of the State of New Jersey from her allegedly unconstitutional enforcement of the New Jersey Deceptive Practices in Musical Performances Statute (Truth in Music Act). In vacating the decision, the court remanded the matter for an order awarding reasonable attorney’s fees and costs as the district court erred in holding that plaintiff was not a prevailing party because it “voluntarily” changed its interpretation of the Truth in Music Act....

The 1991 Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill sexual harassment claims produced sensational headlines and introduced sexual harassment into the national dialogue. The subject has now returned to the spotlight as October marks the 20th anniversary of the hearings. While Americans became more conscious of sexual harassment claims in the wake of Justice Thomas’s confirmation hearings, the first Supreme Court sexual harassment opinion, Meritor v. Vinson, was issued in 1986. In that case, the court found that sexual harassment was sex discrimination....

A divided Supreme Court blocked implementation of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan on Tuesday. The stay, issued in response to five challenges to the plan, means that the Obama administration may not take any steps to implement its key climate change strategy, which would have drastically limited greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. It’s unusual for the Court to stay federal regulations in response to a challenge and the move may indicate that many justices hold serious doubts about the Clean Power Plan’s legality....

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet. The United States is a country where people often pick up their roots and plant them elsewhere for various reasons – employment opportunities, the weather, pleasure, or to be closer (or farther) from family and friends. At times, we might wonder about general trends in terms of where people are going. Most of what we know is anecdotal in nature....