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The Supreme Court heard its final oral argument of the term this morning, and it was a fittingly weighty one: the case of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. McDonnell was convicted on corruption charges in 2014, stemming from his relationship with a Richmond businessman who gave him nearly $200,000 in gifts and loans. McDonnell currently faces two years in prison for public corruption, but he may end up going free without serving a single day, if today’s oral arguments are any indication....

The Child’s Online Privacy Protect Act, or COPPA, was passed in 2012, aimed at protecting the personal information of minors on the internet. Among its provisions, companies are prohibited from collecting children’s personal information without their parents’ consent. According to a recent settlement announced with the Federal Trade Commission, YouTube had been violating that law while tracking viewers of child-directed content, then selling that user information to advertisers. Under the settlement, YouTube (and parent company Google) will pay $170 million to the FTC and the State of New York....

A lesson of particular interest to class action civil procedure came out from a unanimous Second Circuit recently. That court of appeals affirmed a lower federal district court’s decision to decertify a class of debtors on grounds of lack of commonality and typicality, even though the jury returned a $32 million verdict in favor of plaintiffs. Missing Payments The case at hand involved a mortgage from The Money Story, which was Joseph Mazzei’s lender....

‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Faces a Legal Gambit “The Queen’s Gambit,” the fictional account of a woman’s rise to stardom in the world of chess, was a hit series for Netflix last year. Anya Taylor-Joy enjoyed critical acclaim for her performance as Beth Harmon, an orphaned prodigy who defeats one male challenger after another on her way to the top. Netflix also enjoyed acclaim for the series, but now it’s facing a legal challenge for allegedly playing fast and loose with historical facts....

In Izzo v. Wiley, No. 10-1195, a habeas petition challenging the decision of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) denying petitioner’s eligibility for the Elderly Offender Home Detention Pilot Program, the court affirmed the denial of the petition where the phrase “term of imprisonment to which the offender was sentenced” in 42 U.S.C. section 17541 unambiguously referred to the term imposed by the sentencing court, without any consideration of good time credit....

“When you’re a star, they let you do it – hit ’em right in the face.” Wojciech Cieszkowski’s lawsuit against Alec Baldwin certainly doesn’t pull any punches, alluding in its first sentence to President Donald Trump’s infamous quote about his alleged access to women. The suit, which details some of the hits of Baldwin’s past misbehavior, claims Cieszkowski continues to suffer mental and emotional distress and is seeking compensatory and punitive damages along with attorneys fees....

Antonin Scalia died one year ago today, yet his influence on American law, and the Supreme Court in particular, remains as large as it ever was. His originalist and textualist approach to the law remains well-established. That approach “changed the way almost all judges, and so almost all lawyers, thank and talk about the law,” Justice Kagan said when dedicating the Antonin Scalia Law School in October. Republicans successfully held off President Obama’s nomination for Scalia’s replacement in order to ensure that a jurist in Nino’s model was able to take “Scalia’s seat....

You should always respect the older adults in your life. But you might also want to fear them on the highway. While our older adult relatives may have a wealth of knowledge and compassion, they don’t always make the quickest or best decisions behind the wheel. And as Salon points out, getting older drivers to admit they’re not as safe as they once were is difficult, if not impossible. So if you cannot take an aging parent’s keys away, are you on the hook when they plow through a sidewalk full of bystanders?...

Hanging around with animals is said to be good for human health, reducing heart rate, decreasing blood pressure and cholesterol, improving emotional wellbeing, and even warding off the development of allergies in children. Pets can help people feel better and deal better. But there are certainly some risks to owning an animal, and there are some responsibilities you will have to accept. And you do have certain rights. So before you pick up your next pet, let’s talk about basic legal advice every pet owner should know....

John Olsen talked his way out of a $25,000 attorney sanction in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals this week, but he shouldn’t make plans to spend those Benjamins quite yet. The appellate court observed that the case, “started out ordinarily enough” with the plaintiff, Melissa Mellott, suing her former employer, MSN Communications, for discrimination, but it quickly morphed from ordinary litigation to extraordinary misconduct “of breathtaking proportions.” MSN Communications moved to dismiss the case....

For decades, a group of local politicians allegedly conspired to buy and trade votes in order to control Clay County, Kentucky. The operation came to a halt when eight people were indicted in 2009, and many other alleged co-conspirators flipped and testified on the government’s behalf. The conspiracy was allegedly led by two men: elected Judge Russell Cletus Maricle and School Superintendant Douglas C. Adams. According to the evidence presented at trial, the duo began fixing elections in the 1980s as vote brokers....

A day after the New Year’s drinking ended, a federal appeals court ended a life insurance company’s attempt to deny coverage to a drunk driver. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal did not condone the driver’s behavior – he partied, crashed and suffered severe injuries. But the appeals court also did not let the insurer escape the terms of its own policy. “This matter is about whether a contract should mean what it says,” wrote Judge R....

Move over, McDonald’s. There are Dunkin’ Donuts lawsuits in town. Over the years there have been many lawsuits against fast service industries. These range from fast food chains, drive-thrus, coffee franchises, doughnut shops, gas stations, and mom-and-pop store owners. Almost every company has been affected from Subway to Starbucks – and almost every menu item from happy meals to ice cream. But when do you actually have a case? When is it worth your time to sue a fast service franchise or fast food company?...

In recent years, big oil has faced increasing pressure from state and local governments due to potential violations of environmental laws and due to the increasing visibility of climate change. Massachusetts has been pursuing an investigation against Exxon since 2016. Unfortunately for the state’s AG, Exxon isn’t being cooperative. And after the state secured a victory before the State’s Supreme Court demanding the oil company respond to the state’s investigatory demand, Exxon recently petitioned SCOTUS, seeking review of the state High Court decision....

The Eighth Circuit has pulled the plug on a putative class action against GameStop, the video gaming store and publisher of magazines like Game Informer. Game aficionado Matthew Carlsen had sued the company, alleging that GameStop’s Game Informer website shared user information with Facebook, in violation of its own privacy policy and Minnesota consumer fraud laws. A district court tossed Carlsen’s suit last summer for lack of standing. In a decision released yesterday, the Eighth Circuit briefly revived Carlsen’s hopes of videogame class action success, ruling that he indeed had standing to sue – only to toss his lawsuit for failure to state a claim....

District court’s denial of defendant’s petition for habeas relief is affirmed as the Bureau of Prisons (BOP)articulated sufficient rationale for 28 C.F.R. section 550.58(a)(1)(vi)(B) to satisfy the arbitrary and capricious standard set forth in APA section 706(2)(A). Furthermore, although the BOP’s public safety rationale was not explicit in the Federal Register notices for the 1997 or 2000 regulations, the rationale may reasonably be discerned from the regulatory history and attendant litigation....

George Ryan has to serve the rest of his prison term, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The Chicago-based court denied the former Illinois governor’s appeal seeking release from prison on Monday, reports The Associated Press. Ryan was convicted of racketeering, mail fraud, tax evasion, and lying to the FBI in 2006. The mail-fraud charge alleged that Ryan defrauded Illinois of its intangible right to his honest services by covertly acting in the interests of some private supporters rather than as a fiduciary for the state’s citizens....

This post was updated on March 28, 2022 If you have the right tools, estate planning is something you can do on your own. Online resources like FindLaw’s Legal Forms and Services may provide everything you need to create a solid estate plan. Although it may make sense to touch base with a lawyer at some point, you can start the estate planning process by doing some research on your own....

As the saying goes, you can’t un-ring a bell. That maxim rings true for judicial conference planning, as well. Once the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals planned a Hawaiian spectacular judicial conference, it was pointless (and wasteful) to cancel it. But that doesn’t mean that the circuit can’t try to make amends. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions even suggested to Politico that all the courts should consider cancelling their judicial conferences. “If the courts can justify it being important to their work product, conducting them in a lean, efficient, cost effective way, perhaps it can be justified … but I think the courts ought to look at whether they even need to do those, whether it needs to be done every year, and how it can be done cheaper....

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment in favor of two New York State Troopers this week, finding that the district court did not err in instructing the jury to consider whether the Troopers’ actions were objectively reasonable. John Terranova, Devin Baldwin, and Lamar Oliver (the Bikers) sued New York State Troopers Raphael Torres and Aaron Riley (the Troopers), claiming that the Troopers violated their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable seizure through the use of excessive force....