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A federal appeals court turned back a lawsuit that said Genentech concealed health risks about Avastin in seeking government approval for the cancer drug. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the plaintiff did not show how Genentech’s actions would have made any difference under the False Claims Act. In fact, the court said Gerasimos Petratos, the former head of analytics for the company and whistleblower in the suit, acknowledged that the government would have deemed any of the alleged violations insubsubstantial....

Love your lawyer day is upon us. But if Love Your Lawyer Day is news to you, you might ask: Do people even know Love Your Lawyer Day exists? Do lawyers even know if it exists? By all odds, most people probably don’t. It was created in 2001 by legal marketers as a campaign to soften the appearance of lawyers in the public’s eyes. The idea is to provide a day where people can share positive experiences with lawyers....

In an appeal from the bankruptcy court’s decision confirming appellees’ joint bankruptcy reorganization plan and denying appellants’ competing plan, dismissal of the appeal as moot is reversed where: 1) the competing plan could theoretically be confirmed without requiring disgorgement of payments made to third-party creditors; and 2) reversal of the existing plan would not require the undoing of complex transactions. Read In re: Paige, No. 08-4104 Appellate Information Filed November 3, 2009...

Petition for review of an order denying asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture is denied where: 1) plaintiff did not prove a likelihood that he would be tortured upon return to Pakistan by government officials; and 2) the Board of Immigration Appeals properly concluded that he did not identify an appropriate social group as his indebtedness to a creditor is not an immutable characteristic since it is not innate or fundamental to his identity....

In a capital habeas matter, grant of petitioner’s habeas petition is reversed where: 1) to the extent that certain excluded testimony regarding petitioner’s family’s abuse of a dog was offered to show a pattern of physical violence, it was contradicted by other evidence showing that petitioner himself was not abused; 2) it was not unreasonable for the Arkansas Supreme Court to conclude that petitioner was not prejudiced by the trial judge’s decision to sustain an objection to a witness’s testimony about the abuse of petitioner’s sister; and 3) the absence of any prejudice was particularly apparent given the horrific nature of the crime....

In 1973, Clark Edward Squire was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the murder of a New Jersey state trooper during a traffic stop. Last year, Squire – now known as Sundiata Acoli – successfully petitioned a New Jersey appellate court to release him on parole. The state attorney general appealed that decision, and the New Jersey Supreme Court announced it would hear the case....

Courts will let reasonable mistakes in search warrant applications slide. Egregious errors or intentional omissions, on the other hand, will not be condoned. Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a civil rights lawsuit against Santa Maria Police Department Detective Louis Tanore, finding that Tanore was not protected by qualified immunity for a reckless or intentional omission in a search warrant application. Hope and Javier Bravo Sr., along with their minor granddaughter E....

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Sandifer, et al. v. United States Steel Corp., a case originating in the Seventh Circuit. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the Seventh Circuit’s decision. As the Court’s most outspoken Originalist, it comes as no surprise that Justice Scalia authored the opinion of the Court which turned on statutory construction, which all Justices joined, with Justice Sotomayor’s exception to one footnote....

Five years after John Oliver’s expose on civil asset forfeiture, SCOTUS is chiming in to explain that a state’s civil in rem forfeiture is subject to the Eighth Amendment’s protections against excessive fines. In the recently issued opinion in Timbs v. Indiana, the appellant sought to overturn the state’s taking of his Land Rover under civil asset forfeiture. Tyson Timbs had pleaded guilty to selling drugs, and the state seized his vehicle....

If tweetstorms are real, then judicial nominee David Porter must feel like a lightning rod in the twitterverse right now. Sen. Bob Casey fired off a series of Twitter attacks at Porter, who is a nominee for the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Porter is a Pennsylvania attorney like Casey, but they are clearly on opposing political sides. Porter barely made it out of a Senate judiciary committee, and now Casey aims to take him down before the confirmation hearing....

When a criminal defendant waives his right to appeal, the courts take him at his word that he is, in fact, waiving appeals. A lot of the defendants don’t think that “waiving appeal” means what the courts think it means (Inconceivable!) and they appeal anyway. It usually doesn’t work. But a Third Circuit concluded this week that a waiver of appeal did not bar an appeal of an order modifying the terms and conditions of supervised release....

Recent child sex abuse scandals – from churches to billionaires – have put an increased focus on the statute of limitations when it comes to lawsuits involving past sexual assault. An array of factors can keep child victims from speaking out about abuse until years later, and while they can theoretically sue their abusers, in practice, the time limits on those lawsuits can vary significantly from state to state. Case in point: New York’s Child Victims Act will go into effect this week, and legal experts expect that it will unleash a “tidal wave of litigation....

Sure, we’d all love to have an experienced tax lawyer look over our financial situation before we file our taxes. But let’s be honest, most of us just end up furiously clicking through a TurboTax or H&R Block website just to make the April deadline. But how much money are we losing by doing our own taxes? And when is it worth it to hire a tax attorney? Past Performance If you haven’t filed your taxes in a previous year, or owe the IRS a substantial amount of money, you might want an experienced lawyer on your side....

“Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.” So goes the quote often attributed to Mark Twain, but historians say the expression predated the witty writer. In any case, there is some relative truth in numbers. For example, some folks say the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the most reversed appeals court. But according to statistics from the U.S. Supreme Court, that depends on when you count the decisions....

How many lawsuits have been brought as a result of a vague, poorly-drafted statue? Here is another one. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 contained a provision that authorized the military to imprison anyone suspected of providing “substantial” assistance or support to terrorist groups “until the end of hostilities.” What is “substantial”? And when, oh when is it the “end of hostilities”? Hedges stated, “I have had dinner more times than I can count with people whom this country brands as terrorists … but that does not make me one....

Two more briefs, addressing the merits of the Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby dispute, hit our inboxes this morning, including Hobby Lobby’s response brief. Washington University in St. Louis also took the time to highlight a brief by “Church State Scholars,” to which they added a handy accompanying video. These briefs, and the dozens of others that we haven’t read, got us wondering: how many briefs have been filed so far? And does anybody read them?...

September 7 is National Beer Lover’s Day, and in addition to enjoying a few brews, we thought we’d take this opportunity to explore a unique legal practice area. The number of breweries in the US reached a new high last year with over 7,000 breweries operating across the country. And craft brewing’s share of that number continues to grow, taking up close to 25% of the overall $111 billion industry....

In plaintiff’s action seeking to set aside a judgment enforcing an arbitration award against her initiated by a law firm hired by her credit card company to collect the debt, district court’s decision to remand the case after defendants removed the case under the Class Action Fairness Act is vacated and remanded where: 1) the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply to plaintiff’s claim where she is no longer a state-court loser, as the state judiciary itself vacated its decision enforcing the arbitration award; and 2) the district court must determine whether the jurisdictional requirements of the 2005 Act have been met and, if they have been, for the certification of an appropriate class and decision on the merits....

In Med. Assurance Co., Inc. v. Hellman, No. 08-2887, the Seventh Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s order issuing a stay of the federal proceedings in an insurer’s request for declaratory judgment, claiming that it no longer has a duty to defend or indemnify a doctor due to his disappearance in more than 350 medical malpractice claims. In reversing, the court held that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to stay the action, and on remand, instructed the court to proceed on the merits....

Today was another bad day for the Author’s Guild, the collective of copyright holders who are suing both the HathiTrust Digital Library and Google Books over their online mega-catalogs. Both services scan the text of books, in-copyright or out-of-copyright, and stores that information online, in a massive searchable database. A user’s query brings up an excerpt of the book, along with page number, title, and author. Like we said, because it only provides excerpts, it’s essentially a mega-catalog....