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In an ERISA action challenging defendant-insurer’s decision to terminate plaintiff’s long-term disability benefits, summary judgment for defendant is reversed where a modicum of evidence in the record supporting the plan administrator’s decision will not alone suffice in the face of the administrator’s conflict of interest. Read Montour v. Hartford Life & Accident Ins. Co., No. 08-55803 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted February 10, 2009 Filed September 14, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Clifton...

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action based on plaintiff’s detention at a hospital based on a finding by hospital staff that there was reasonable cause to believe she suffered from a mental illness rendering her dangerous to herself or others, dismissal of the action based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is vacated and remanded where Rooker-Feldman is inapplicable as the suit challenges decisions made by hospital personnel which were not compelled by a family court order....

During the summers, everyone’s so starved for Supreme Court news that any utterance from one of the Nine is met with excitement. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent discussion about the intersection of music and law was no exception. If you haven’t read about Justice Ginsburg’s talk on opera and the Constitution at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting, The Wall Street Journal has more on her “Arias of Law” panel here....

In plaintiff’s suit under 42 U.S.C. section 1993 against the city of New Albany that its ordinance regulating adult establishments violates his First Amendment rights, district court’s judgment is reversed and remanded where the injunction remains but should not have been issued on the ground that the ordinance is not narrowly tailored. Therefore, on remand, the court should take evidence of secondary effects caused by adult establishments that only carry books and DVDs and apply intermediate scrutiny to the ordinance....

US v. Webb, 09-5719, concerned a challenge to the district court’s imposition of an above-Guidelines sentence of 37 months’ imprisonment, in a prosecution of defendant for producing counterfeit bills and using the bills to purchase merchandise at several businesses. In affirming, the court held that the district court did not clearly err in refusing to apply the Application Note 4 exception for bills that are so obviously counterfeit that they are unlikely to be accepted even if subjected to only minimal scrutiny....

Whether you have been there and done that or not, conducting an internal investigation is almost always new. That’s because you are looking for compliance, violations, or other liabilities. If you don’t find something bad or good, you are not really doing your job. In the end, your company should have a report that helps it move along. As they say, it’s about the journey. Starting an Internal Investigation First of all, don’t put off investigating a problem....

We occasionally like to take a gander at the FindLaw Answers board to see which legal issues are trending. Criminal law is always popular; especially when parents are upset about their kids’ encounters with police. We suspect that if parents are posting questions for our Answers community about excessive force, they’re probably calling local attorneys with these questions as well. With that in mind, today we’re looking at a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals qualified immunity case involving three siblings who claim that Dearborn police used excessive force in apprehending and questioning them about an armed robbery....

In Swarna v. Al-Awadi, No. 09-2525, defendants’ appeal from interlocutory orders and cross-appeal from a final judgment, granting plaintiff’s motion for default judgment based on various claims based on the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and New York labor laws, dismissing plaintiff’s claims against defendant-Kuwait on sovereign immunity grounds, and denying plaintiff’s and defendants’ motions for reconsideration, the court affirmed the orders in part where, while residual diplomatic immunity applied to the “acts performed by such a person in the exercise of his functions as a member of the mission,” Vienna Convention art....

In a motion by an Indian tribe pursuant to a prior consent decree seeking a determination that the tribe possessed fishing rights in a certain area, summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where the fact that the judge who initially issued the decree defined “Puget Sound” in one order as including Skagit Bay and Saratoga Passage did not mean that references to “Puget Sound” in other orders always included those same areas....

Often, startups fail because the entrepreneurs who launch them have made common mistakes. First-time founders may have miscalculated demand for their product and assumed that early adopters would stick with them. They may have stumbled with faulty messaging. They may have overestimated their capabilities to handle e-commerce, and myriad early-stage tasks. However, startup founders can also fall prey to legal risks that can emerge when they rush to launch a new business too quickly....

Calling something a legal “technicality” is like calling a judge an “activist” or, in George Orwell’s formulation, anyone a “fascist.” The word doesn’t mean anything except “I don’t like that person.” In the law, “technicality” just means “I lost.” The Tenth Circuit emphasized the importance of process, though, as it decided a district court in Kansas was correct in refusing to consider 700 pages of documents not filed in compliance with local rules....

Bryan Chappell meets anyone’s reasonable definition of a career criminal. His past accomplishments include arson, murder, burglary, at least one drug offense, possessing counterfeit currency, and of course, being a felon in possession of a firearm. The answer isn’t exactly “duh,” but it’s pretty close. Chappell concedes the drug offense. Heck, he concedes all of the offenses at this point. The question is, on a fateful day in 1991 when he committed a trio of crimes, do those count as one really long spree, or multiple distinct criminal episodes?...

Deutsch v. Jordan, No. 09-8042, involved an action bringing federal civil-rights and state-law claims against the City of Laramie, Wyoming, based on plaintiff’s termination as police chief. The court affirmed in part the denial of summary judgment for defendant, holding that 1) not only was speech alleging that the police chief misused city funds ordinarily speech on a matter of public concern, but so, too, was speech defending against such allegations; and 2) the court of appeals could not rule in defendant’s favor without reversing the district court’s determination that there was a factual dispute regarding her state of mind....

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that Amtrak was not liable in a wrongful death action brought by the deceased’s estate. His son sued Amtrak on theories of negligence when Mr. Haukeroid’s body was found near the rails of the Amtrak line, although the exact nature of his exiting the vehicle remained a mystery. The case also touches on the issue of due care owed to passengers in common carrier vehicles....

President Joe Biden announced an end to Trump-era hard-line immigration policies on his first day in office. That includes throwing his support behind a legislative overhaul of U.S. immigration laws, something former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were unable to pull off during their administrations. As we noted in a previous post, Biden signed a series of immigration-related executive orders in the early hours of his tenure. However, the following proposals must go through Congress before Biden can sign them into law....

A parent’s love may be unconditional, but they are also legally obligated to house, feed, and pay for their children’s needs — that is, until they reach a certain age. So what does that mean if your child is overstaying their welcome at home and not trying to make it in the world on their own? When can you give them the boot? If you are planning on evicting your adult child, there are some legal pitfalls to be aware of....

Leveraging Powerful Platforms Existing antitrust laws primarily focus on the impact on consumers. Because Big Tech is much different than Big Steel and other monopolies targeted in centuries-old rules, some have argued new or updated legislation is needed to break up outsized tech companies. Not everyone on the committee expressed this view, however. Political Censorship Republicans on the committee focused their attention on anti-conservative bias online. According to Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, both Google and Facebook censor conservative voices....

The courts are in a delicate situation when it comes to discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace. “It’s not about sex per se – it doesn’t matter who you slept with last night,” attorney Susan Chana Lask argued on Jan. 20 in a case pending before the Second Circuit Court of Appeal. It’s Not About Sex Lask represents plaintiff Matthew Christiansen, who alleges that his supervisor ridiculed and abused him by making extreme anti-gay comments, passed around a picture of Christiansen’s face pasted over a woman in a bikini in the “gay sexual receiving position,” and drew offensive pictures of Christiansen on an office whiteboard with comments about AIDS addressed to Christiansen, who is HIV-positive....

In US v. Allen, No. 09-2539, the Seventh Circuit faced a challenge to a conviction of defendant for advertising, transporting, and possessing child pornography, claiming that the district court erred in denying his for-cause challenge to a prospective juror and for admitting portion of his chat log where he claimed to have molested minors. In affirming the conviction, the court held that the district court was within its discretion in determining that the prospective juror’s prior experience of a kidnapping attempt on her daughter would not impede her ability to decide the case fairly....

Dog lovers out there that get unreasonably outraged when bad things happen to good dogs and the court just doesn’t seem to understand, might be happier looking at my dog’s Instagram than reading this. (She’s a good dog). Mister was surely a good dog. His story is really sad. He sat in the backseat and watched his human get car-jacked. Then, he rode in the backseat until the car was crashed....