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The Ninth Circuit has declined to rehear an ERISA case from 2014 which held that a lawsuit by employees of the biotech company Amgen can go forward. Those employees accuse Amgen of violating its fiduciary duties by including the company’s own stock in retirement holdings when plan administrators should have known that stock was overvalued. The decision is one of the first ERISA-related rulings since the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the presumption of prudence for Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) fiduciaries....

While the Supreme Court may be in a bit of upheaval with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Justices have already scheduled oral arguments for several notable cases this Fall. In October, they will take up the 10 cases they pushed back to this term using the same format as the end of last term. Namely, that oral arguments will be done remotely and a live stream of the arguments will be broadcast live....

A recurring battle over a controversial abortion procedure is headed back to court, this time in Kentucky. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued to stop a law there that bans a procedure known as “dilation and evacuation.” Anti-abortion activists call the second-trimester surgery “dismemberment abortion.” Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas have passed similar bans on the practice, but the courts have struck them down. The ACLU says the Kentucky law is “shameless, insulting and dangerous....

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Arkansas Green Party’s First and Fourteenth Amendment challenge to the state’s ballot access policy this week, demonstrating that the court will not haphazardly overturn state laws to assist political parties in gaining access to election ballots. A candidate in Arkansas has two main ways to get her name on the ballot as a party’s candidate: She could run as the nominee of a state-certified political party, or she could declare herself part of a new political party and file a petition of 10,000 registered Arkansas voters’ signatures collected within a 90-day period....

A Utah environmental activist who was sentenced to two years in prison last week will appeal his sentence to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Tim DeChristopher, sentenced on July 26 to two years in prison and ordered to pay $10,000 in fines, gained notoriety as Bidder Number 70 at a federal drilling rights auction in 2008. DeChristopher claimed that he went to the 2008 auction for Utah drilling rights with the intention of protesting or disrupting the auction in the name of environmental activism....

In a personal injury action involving an auto accident, judgment for defendant is affirmed in part where all claims of common-law gross negligence were barred under Michigan law except in certain contexts in which Michigan law exculpated actors for mere negligent conduct; but reversed in part where there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether plaintiff’s negligence exceeded that of defendant’s driver. Read Biegas v. Quickway Carriers, Inc....

In student borrowers’ claims challenging loan servicer methods of calculating interest, assessing late fees and setting the repayment start date on their loans, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where the statutes and regulations governing lenders and third-party loan servicers under the Federal Family Education Loan Program of the Higher Education Act preempted plaintiffs’ claims. Read Chae v. SLM Corp., No. 08-56154 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted November 5, 2009...

What could be the upcoming term’s most interesting case isn’t a dispute over controversial subjects like gay rights or immigration. It doesn’t involve boldface names or the continued existence of massive government programs. No one’s life hangs in the balance. It’s Trinity Lutheran v. Pauley, and it’s a battle over used tires and religion – or rather, whether a church in Missouri can have access to a state program that helps resurface playgrounds with rubber from ground up scrap tires....

Alan Zaleski likes his firepower. After discovering a large cache of firearms, ammunition, and explosives at Zaleski’s home in Berlin, Conn., police arrested Zaleski and seized the weapons. Zaleski was indicted and ultimately convicted of 15 counts of possessing machine guns, one count of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, and 12 counts of possessing firearms, silencers, and destructive devices that were not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record....

When a defendant receives an arguably-light sentence for a conviction, she should be thankful. She should not, however, express her gratitude by telling the gathered masses on the courthouse steps that she could do the prison term standing on her head. That’s because she could be subject to re-sentencing pending an appeal. Lynne Stewart learned that lesson the hard way after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals instructed the district court to re-sentence her to determine whether she had committed perjury during her trial, and whether her conduct as a lawyer triggers the special-skill/abuse-of-trust enhancement under the Sentencing Guidelines....

In remanding a closely-watched data breach case, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that it solved little. It addressed only whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue in Diefenbach v. Barnes & Noble, Inc. They do, the appeals court said, because they alleged sufficient damages. But that issue has taken almost six years to resolve, and the biggest practical question remains: can they be certified as a class?...

In an action challenging a bank’s categorization of underwriters as administrative employees exempt from the Fair Labor Standard Act’s overtime pay requirements, summary judgment for defendant is reversed where plaintiff’s work was not related either to setting “management policies” nor to “general business operations” such as human relations or advertising, 29 C.F.R. section 541.2, but rather concerned the “production” of loans – the fundamental service provided by the bank. Read Davis v....

In a federal action claiming breach of the Anti-Kickback Act, district court order dismissing the case for failure to state a claim is vacated where the litigation is simply a state-law contract dispute between nondiverse parties and on remand should be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Read DeBartolo v. HealthSouth Corp., No. 07-1272 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division....

Today, the Seventh Circuit decided a case involving an Indian tribe’s sawmill operations on its reservation and whether it was subject to OSHA review, and another case involving the issue of whether a litigant who initiates a lawsuit in state court can remove the case after becoming a counterclaim defendant. In Menominee Tribal Enter. v. Solis, No. 09-2806, the court addressed an Indian Tribe’s petition for reivew of an order of the Occupations Safety and Health Review Commission, citing the tribe for violations of OSHA in operation of a sawmill on its reservation....

Lawrence Shaw was convicted of federal bank fraud after he stole $300,000 from the checking account of Stanley Hsu. Shaw doesn’t deny that he took the cash, but he does object to the bank fraud conviction. He can’t, Shaw argues, have defrauded a bank, since he had no specific intent to cheat the bank itself. He just wanted Hsu’s cash. The Supreme Court rejected that argument on Monday, ruling unanimously that Shaw’s contention that he wasn’t cheating the bank, only the bank’s customer, didn’t save him from the reach of the bank fraud law....

In US v. Centra Bank, Inc., No. 08-5172, the Fourth Circuit addressed the district court’s denial of government’s request for the forfeiture of approximately $358,390.22 in criminal proceeds from a motel owner following his conviction for conspiracy to violate the anti-prostitution provision of the Mann Act. First, in addressing the government’s contention that forfeiture of particular types of property, such as the criminal proceeds in this case, is nonpunitive, the court cited Supreme Court precedents in rejecting that contention....

History is unfolding, as the U.S. Senate begins just its third impeachment trial of a president in our nation’s history. President Trump’s hold on the White House hangs in the balance. You’ve already heard complaints about “due process,” witness testimony, and Senate rules over the last few months. Lawmakers and pundits will try to spin their arguments to either make it sound like the president’s rights are being violated or he is trampling over lawmakers....

Given all the controversy leading up to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, many legal commentators and pundits have asserted various opinions on whether Justice Kavanaugh will need to recuse himself from various cases. This week, Kavanaugh may have surprised many of the partisan pundits on both sides who believed he wouldn’t recuse himself from anything, when he recused himself from three cases pending before the High Court. Notably though, there was nothing partisan about it....

For entrepreneurs and small business folk, one of the biggest and most important aspects of starting a business is coming up with that all-important name. Names are really important, but can involve some tricky legal stuff, so it’s critical that businesses get it right. Sure, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, but if roses were called dung-buds, florists would sell a lot less. How to Name Your Business Choosing a name isn’t as simple as just sitting around with your business partners or friends and brainstorming....

The public rarely seems interested in judicial conferences, but the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in August will be an exception. As you’ve probably heard by now, the 2012 Judicial Conference will be August 13-16 at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa in Maui, Hawaii. In light of the recent fallout at the General Services Administration (GSA) over that agency’s 2010 extravaganza in Las Vegas, it’s understandable that a trip to Maui would raise a few eyebrows....