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Counterfeit sellers are not the only ones on the hook for trademark infringement. The facilitators like flea markets operators are also liable, according to the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit upheld a jury award to Coach of over $5 million for trademark infringement. A Memphis flea market operator was held contributorialy liable for its vendors who sold counterfeit Coach products violating trademarks. The jury awarded Coach $240,000 per mark for a total of 21 infringed marks....

This week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui’s conviction and sentence for shooting at FBI agents and soldiers after her arrest in Afghanistan, Reuters reports. The court, in a decision issued Monday, concluded that a trial court judge had not erred in allowing Siddiqui to take the stand in her own defense at trial. Afghan authorities brought Siddiqui to an ANP facility for questioning, and later delivered the materials found in Siddiqui’s possession to the U....

In Adrian v. Yorktown, No. 09-5062, an action alleging that defendant-town, through its town supervisor and other policy-making officials, maintained an official policy under which the plaintiffs were denied the right to develop their property, and subsequently retaliated against for their exercise of their First Amendment rights, the district court’s order denying post-verdict interest is vacated where, if a mandate reinstating a jury verdict does not order entry of a judgment in a specific dollar amount, and also makes no mention of interest, the district court retains the power to award post-verdict interest on remand....

American Atheists, Inc. v. Duncan, No. 08-4061, involved an Establishment Clause Challenge to the decision of the Utah Highway Patrol Association, with the permission of Utah state authorities, to erect a number of twelve-foot high crosses on public land to memorialize fallen Utah Highway Patrol troopers. The court reversed summary judgment for defendants on the ground that the memorials had the impermissible effect of conveying to the reasonable observer the message that the state preferred or otherwise endorsed a certain religion....

Over the years the processes for the production of alcohol have changed greatly. A recent class action lawsuit filed in Florida’s Eleventh Circuit has revived a 150-year-old law that was enacted because one ingredient was thought to be poisonous at the time. Marrache v. Bacardi USA accuses the maker of Bombay Sapphire Gin of using grains of paradise in their distillation process. Grains of paradise are a spice made from the seeds of a West African plant in the ginger family....

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is often overlooked as a national precedential trendsetter. The Ninth Circuit gets buzz for its “activist judges.” The Second Circuit gets the high-profile New York cases. Isn’t it about time the Tenth Circuit got some attention? Pending the outcome of an Andover, Mass. town meeting vote this spring, the First Circuit Court of Appeals could be looking to the Tenth Circuit for advice on how taxpayer income should be evaluated in the courts....

Oscar Alexander Granados Gaitan, a native and citizen of El Salvador, entered the United States to escape recruitment into a gang in his home country. Five years later, the U.S. initiated removal proceedings against him. Gaitan sought asylum. This week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Gaitan didn’t qualify as a member of an articulated social group entitled to asylum, and rejected his removal appeal. In April 2002, Gaitan entered the United States without inspection in order to escape recruitment into the notorious gang “Mara Salvatrucha” or “MS-13....

When Justice Stephen Breyer celebrated his twentieth year on the U.S. Supreme Court, his former clerks applauded his eternal optimism. They had gathered to mark the anniversary for the “raging pragmatist,” as USA Today called him. He was a problem-solver, perhaps more willing to compromise than argue with his colleagues. His dissents, by number, were in the middle of the pack. Five years later, things have changed at the Supreme Court....

The practice of “stealthing” — secretly removing a condom during sex — has gained more notoriety in recent years. Some studies have found that 10% of men have admitted to the practice and about the same number of women report being victims of it. Because stealthing can lead to sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and psychological trauma, victims’ rights advocates have called for the act to be defined as a type of sexual assault....

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a two-level sentencing enhancement to a knowing possession of child porn conviction this week, finding that a district court had properly applied the sentencing enhancement for distribution because the appellant shared the images through a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program on his computer. Tommy K. Bolton pleaded guilty to knowing possession of child pornography, which he downloaded using Ares, a P2P file-sharing program. He was sentenced to six years in prison and eight years of supervised release....

For a prayerful people, there sure is a lot of bickering about prayer in government chambers these days – and in the courts of appeal in particular. In Bormuth v. County of Jackson, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals split over the issue of county commissioners leading prayer to open their meetings. Nine justices approved; six didn’t. “[A]lthough the prayers offered before the board generally espouse the Christian faith, this does not make the practice incompatible with the Establishment Clause,” Judge Richard Allen Griffin wrote for the majority....

In Miller v. Herman, No. 08-3093, the Seventh Circuit dealt with the district court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s action against a homebuilder under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act and state law in connection with defendant’s installation of windows in plaintiff’s newly constructed home causing personal and property damage due to water leaks. In affirming the district court’s dismissal of the Magnuson-Moss claims with modification, the court held that the claim is dismissed under Rule 56 as the determination that windows are not consumer products is properly understood as a merit-based rather than a jurisdictional determination....

In a gender discrimination and retaliation action under Title VII, district court’s judgment is affirmed as to liability where the district court did not abuse its discretion and met its responsibility to provide the jury with a clear articulation of the relevant law. The damages ruling is vacated and remanded as the court abused its discretion in allowing plaintiff’s testimony regarding the pension component of her back pay damages and her front pay where the testimony was of a specialized or technical nature and was not within plaintiff’s personal knowledge, and furthermore, the error was not harmless since her testimony constituted a significant share of the damages evidence presented at trial....

It is a rare benchslap that lasts seven pages. It’s not uncommon to see a paragraph or two that mocks a party’s unreasonable position. And we’ve seen Judge Kethledge mock parties’ unreasonable stances before, but a full seven pages? Well done, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – you’ve surpassed the “golden sombrero” to reach a whole new level of ineptitude. What caused the seven page rant/affirmed dismissal? Only a hypocritical lawsuit supported by a comical attempt at producing scientific methodology in support a frivolous case of alleged disparate impact discrimination....

District court judgment denying plaintiff’s motion for a writ of execution to enforce a wrongful death judgment against third party defendant St. Joseph County is affirmed where the subsequent amendment to Ind. Code. sec. 34-13-4-1 does not apply retroactively, and thus St. Joseph County is not required to indemnify its public employees and compensate plaintiff for the conduct of its officers. Read Estate of Moreland v. Dieter, No. 08-1478 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division....

They’re icky. They’re itchy. They make you want to burn everything you own. They’re bed bugs, and if you have them, you’re likely miserable to be around and covered in bed bug bites. And if you got them from a hotel room, you’re probably feeling angry right about now. You may want to know whether you can sue a hotel for bed bugs. The answer is a resounding “Yes!” But not everyone will have successful bed bug cases....

Some of the most attentive students can miss an important point during a class or lecture. Then there are parents who are worried about what a teacher is saying or doing in their child’s classroom. Recording is easier than ever before – digital recorders are small and inexpensive, and every cell phone has multiple recording options. As it turns out, however, many states have laws prohibiting recording someone without their consent....

Buried among the dozens of denials of petitions for writs of certiorari was this one: docket number 14-534, Rajat K. Gupta v. United States. It appears to be the end of the road for Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs director convicted for insider trading in hedge funds. Gupta’s 2012 conviction also implicated another prominent hedge fund manager, Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of a hedge funder company called Galleon Group. Gupta apparently leaked information about Goldman’s finances to Rajaratnam, reported Reuters, and Rajaratnam traded on that information....

In Gagne v. Booker, No. 07-1970, the Sixth Circuit addressed a criminal defendant’s challenge to the trial court’s exclusion of certain evidence in violation of his due process rights. In affirming district court’s grant of habeas relief, the court held that a state appellate court’s affirmance of the trial court’s exclusion of evidence was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law that deprived the defendant of a constitutional right to a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense....

This week, SCOTUS ruled in perhaps the most closely watched case this term, the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. The 7 to 2 ruling came down in favor of the baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. But that ruling was rather narrow, seeming to exclusively rest on the state’s civil rights commission’s hostility toward the baker’s claim, rather than constitutional problems with the state’s civil rights law....