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For 28 years, Michael Thompson smoked cigarettes. He stopped when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997. Following the diagnosis, he sued the manufacturers and distributors of the cigarettes in a personal injury action. A state court granted summary judgment for the distributors, but not for the manufacturers. The case against manufacturers R.J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson went to trial, and Thompson obtained a verdict of more than $1 million in his favor....

Petition for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying petitioner’s application for asylum is granted and remanded where substantial evidence does not support the BIA’s conclusion that petitioner did not experience past persecution in the Ivory Coast, as petitioner directly witnessed abduction of her father by a group that she can definitively identify as having directly and unambiguously threatened her with harm as well. Read Camara v....

Contributors to a creative work, whose contributions are inseparable from that work, cannot copyright their contribution alone, the Second Circuit ruled on Monday. The decision came from a dispute between an independent film’s producer and its director, after the director attempted to copyright the raw footage of the film and prevent the producer from using it. That film director cannot copyright his contribution to the collaborative work, the court ruled. The case is the first time the Second Circuit has taken up the issue and has large implications for media, film, and the creative arts....

The post-9/11 surveillance has not been without controversy – or litigation – and a case originating in New Jersey is now making its way to the Third Circuit. However, jurisdictional issues, as well as Supreme Court precedent, may stand in the way of this case getting very far. The Alleged Discriminatory Activity According to the compliant, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the New York Police Department “began a secret spying program to infiltrate and monitor Muslim life in and around New York City....

While we were away for the holidays, news surfaced that Robert McCulloch, the prosecutor who failed to secure an indictment against Darren Wilson for the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, may have withheld a teensy bit of information from the grand jury. McCulloch said on December 19 that he put anyone who claimed to have seen the event in front of the grand jury, even if they were knowingly lying, and even if McCulloch knew they were lying....

The defendant accused and convicted of mail fraud and tax evasion did not waive his right to an impartial jury when his attorneys suspected a biased and dishonest juror but failed to raise contemporaneous objections, the Second Circuit ruled Monday. That juror, Catherine Conrad, was a suspended New York lawyer and “a pathological liar and utterly untrustworthy” in the words of the district court, who rallied the jury to convict Parse and his codefendants....

Holschen v. Int’l. Union of Painters, No. 09-1122, concerned an action by a former union painter against the union alleging several violations of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), as well as a state law claim for intentional interference with a valid business expectancy. The court of appeals affirmed judgment for defendant, holding that 1) this was not a situation where the circumstances themselves presented a significant danger of bias such that plaintiff was excused from presenting at least some evidence of actual bias involving one or more trial board members in order to survive summary judgment; 2) evidence of ad hoc retaliation by an individual union member did not state a cause of action for a free speech violation under the LMRDA; and 3) there was no evidence the union itself formally disciplined plaintiff in retaliation for his exercise of free speech rights....

Judge Scott Gallina of Washington was arrested and charged with rape and other sexual crimes. According to reports, Gallina sexually assaulted a court employee in his chambers. In one incident, he allegedly approached her from behind, put her in a choke hold, and penetrated her with his fingers. Gallina denies the allegations, but other women also said he subjected them to unwanted sexual behavior. Some adopted a buddy system so that nobody would be alone with him in chambers....

Dismissal of Employment Discrimination Action by Navy Officer Affirmed In Munoz v. Mabus, No. 08-16374, a breach of contract and employment discrimination action claiming that a Title VII predetermination settlement agreement required the Navy to provide plaintiff a particular type of training, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendant in part where plaintiff was unable to produce evidence undermining the credibility or validity of the Navy’s proffered reasons for denying the training....

Jane Doe is the name of countless victims of rape and sex abuse. In Doe v. Madison Metropolitan School District, it’s also the name of an eighth-grader who lost her case. The appeals court did not say whether Doe was actually abused, but did say the school was not liable even if something bad happened there. The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said the plaintiff did not prove the school knew its security assistant was abusing the child....

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned former New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno’s conviction on Wednesday, granting the fallen leader a retrial on federal corruption charges. Bruno was convicted in 2009 on two counts of honest services mail fraud, but acquitted of five other honest services mail fraud counts. The court declared a mistrial on one count after a jury deadlock. Prior to trial, Bruno moved to dismiss the indictment against him on the ground that the honest services statute was unconstitutionally vague as applied to cases charging only the nondisclosure of conflicts of interest....

Hui v. Castaneda, No. 08-1529, involved an action raising medical negligence claims against the U.S. under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and the Bivens doctrine. The Supreme Court reversed the denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss the Bivens claims, holding that the immunity provided by 42 U.S.C. section 233(a) precluded Bivens actions against individual Public Health Service officers or employees for harms arising out of constitutional violations committed while acting within the scope of their office or employment....

In the wake of the most deadly mass shooting in America’s history, the US Supreme Court has declined to hear new challenges brought against assault weapons bans out of New York and Connecticut. Those bans were put into place following the tragic Sandy Hook shooting. It seems to be a predictable pattern. A mass shooting takes place and the courts, for better or worse, refuse to hear challenges. Connecticut and New York It’s difficult to believe that it has already been two years since we heard the news that a mass shooting had taken the lives of 20 students and several educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut....

President-elect Donald Trump released a list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees last May, then nearly doubled it a few months later, putting up ten more jurists as possible Supreme Court justices. He pledged to pick from those 21 in September, a claim Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, reiterated after the election. Now, Trump has narrowed his choices down even further, according to a report by Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr. And he could be announcing his pick soon – before, even, he’s inaugurated on January 20th....

Sex Trafficking Conviction Partially Affirmed In US v. Doss, No. 07-50334, the court affirmed in part defendant’s conviction and life sentence for sex trafficking of children, transportation of minors into prostitution, conspiracy to commit those offenses, and two counts of witness tampering where 1) the jury reasonably found that defendant’s remarks were intended to encourage a witness to lie when she was to provide testimony; and 2) even if some of the government’s comments were improper vouching, the government’s unobjected-to comments did not rise to the level of plain error resulting in a miscarriage of justice....

In a prosecution against pharmacy employees for dispensing unlawful controlled substances, one defendant’s conviction is affirmed where: 1) Gonzales v. Oregon did not apply because there was no interpretive rule seeking to define a practice as lacking any legitimate medical purpose; and 2) the government adduced sufficient proof at trial that defendant’s practices were not within the usual course of professional pharmaceutical practice. However, another defendant’s conviction is reversed where there was no evidence that he knew the pharmacy’s managers and pharmacists filled prescriptions issued without a legitimate medical purpose or in defiance of professional standards....

Defendant’s conviction for possession of a firearm “in furtherance of” a drug trafficking offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 924(c) is affirmed where, when one accepts a gun in exchange for drugs, the gun is an integral part of the drug sale because without the gun – the “currency” for the purchase – the drug sale would not take place. Read US v. Mahan, No. 08-30475 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted October 6, 2009...

In a prosecution for impermissibly dispensing controlled drugs, an order excluding evidence of all but one of the eighteen deaths charged in one count of the indictment and the court’s placement of a ten-day limitation on the government’s time to present its case is vacated where the district court’s ruling effectively dismissed separately charged conduct brought by the government against defendants, and thus impermissibly intruded upon the authority of the executive branch to design a criminal prosecution in the way it deemed most prudent....

Back in the day, birthday cards from grandparents came with cash. Typically, a $10 or a $20 bill. Sometimes, for milestones, a $50. Times have changed. Now, money is transferred electronically through online banking or PayPal, and gift cards have replaced cold, hard cash. But if you don’t use those gift cards, should the state be able to collect the value? That could be a question for the Supreme Court....

The White House suspended the press credentials of Playboy’s White House correspondent after an incident during the 2019 Social Media Summit. Brian Karem, who is also a political analyst for CNN, and former Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka got into two heated arguments in the Rose Garden and the White House Palm Room after President Trump’s remarks. Subsequently, then-Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham suspended Karem’s hard pass, which allows on-demand access to the White House....