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Earlier this month we posted about the Third Circuit’s opinion in Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, that held that secular, for-profit corporations can’t exercise religion under the First Amendment. The question arose in the context of a family-owned company having to provide birth control under the “Obamacare” contraception mandates. The Conestoga case is significant (and controversial) because it creates two circuit splits: one on the issue of the “passed through” theory and second on whether a secular, for-profit corporation can pursue a free exercise claim....

Gatimi v. Holder, No. 08-3197, concerned a plaintiffs’ suit for attorneys’ fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act, arising from a reversal of the BIA’s denial of the Kenyan couple and their daughter’s application for asylum and related relief. In denying the request, the court held that the government’s position was substantially justified as a whole, and the request for an award of costs was untimely. Pettitt v....

Here at FindLaw, we understand the pressures of being a legal professional - most of us are recovering lawyers - so we want to help by tossing you that preferred life preserver of the legal profession, the short list. Today’s offering: Five things to know about Third Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Theodore McKee. Early Years. Judge McKee was born in Rochester in 1947. Education. Judge McKee attended State University of New York at Cortland (BA, 1969) and Syracuse University College of Law (JD, 1975)....

Usually when a cop cuts you a break by issuing a lesser violation after pulling you over for whatever it was that you were doing, most of us are in such shock that we’re almost thankful for the ticket. Then there are those modern day heroes like Debra Cruise-Gulyas, who after getting one those “breaks,” flipped the cop the bird while driving off. Debra was then pulled over again, and that break vanished....

The House of Representatives passed a new and allegedly improved version of the Stolen Valor Act on Thursday by a vote of 410-3. So are we headed for another Supreme Court Stolen Valor battle? Congress adopted the original Stolen Valor Act in 2005, making it a crime to falsely claim receipt of military decorations or medals, and providing an enhanced penalty for false claims involving the Congressional Medal of Honor. In June, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced that the Act was an unconstitutional limit on free speech....

Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA, No. 08-1200, involved an action contending that, by sending a notice requiring her to dispute the debt in writing, defendant law firm violated section 1692g(a) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which governed the contents of notices to debtors. The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit’s affirmance of summary judgment for defendant, holding that the bona fide error defense in section 1692k(c) of the FDCPA did not apply to a violation resulting from a debt collector’s mistaken interpretation of the legal requirements of the FDCPA....

Decision by the National Labor Relations Board to order petitioner-manufacturing company to cease and desist engaging in a number of unfair labor practices against its employees in their efforts to unionize the workforce and to take several affirmative steps to remedy its past violations is enforced in its entirety where: 1) the company violated section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act when, against a backdrop of a corporate policy that permitted employees to use the bulletin boards for a variety of non-work purposes, it shut off access in response to union organizing activity; 2) company restriction on union organizing in the company parking lot constituted an unfair labor practice under section 8(a)(1); 3) company’s prohibition on passing out union buttons was overbroad....

Barring a successful appeal by Republicans, Maine voters will be the first in U.S. history to use ranked-choice voting in the November general election. On July 15, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap announced that a Republican effort to put the question to a vote of the people this fall had failed to secure enough signatures. Therefore, ranked-choice voting will proceed in November because voters approved the method in 2016 in a statewide vote....

In an action alleging fraud in connection with the demutualization of defendant life insurance company, disqualification of defense counsel on the ground that it represented defendant in the underlying demutualization is reversed where: 1) the firm did not have an attorney-client relationship with the policyholders by virtue of its representation of defendant in the transaction; and 2) plaintiffs failed to establish that the purported violation of the witness-advocate rule in this case would warrant disqualification....

Bracic v. Holder, No. 08-2843, concerned a Muslim Albanian’s petition for review of the BIA’s order denying petitioner’s claims for asylum and withholding of removal. The court of appeals granted the petition, holding that 1) the mistreatment that petitioner claimed to have suffered, when considered on a cumulative basis, compelled the conclusion that he suffered past persecution; and 2) further, the government failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that conditions in Montenegro have changed to such an extent that a reasonable person in the petitioner’s position would no longer have a well-founded fear of persecution....

Tired of Prenda Law news? Yeah, we didn’t think so. We’re not either. Prenda Law is appealing a hilarious, Star Trek-themed order written by District Judge Otis Wright requiring Prenda Law’s principals to pay sanctions and attorneys fees for their vexatious and evasive conduct. Even though the contempt proceedings at the district court were civil contempt proceedings, Daniel Voelker, attorney for Prenda Law and the rest of the appellants, took the risky step of claiming the proceedings were actually criminal contempt proceedings....

In a petition for review of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s refusal to include the threat of air attacks in its final revised Design Basis Threat rule, the petition is denied where the Commission was not departing from an established standard but is merely elaborating on the interpretation of its own regulation, and its elaboration was not arbitrary or capricious. Read Public Citizen v. Nuclear Reg. Comm., No. 07-71868 Appellate Information...

Kaufman v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., No. 08-1491, concerned plaintiff’s counsel’s appeal from the district court’s order imposing sanctions against them for discovery misconduct, and the district court’s refusal to order discovery into the extent of ex parte communications between defense counsel and the court. As the court wrote: “The Silvern Law Offices, P.C. and its attorneys Steven Silvern and Jennifer Hicks (“Silvern”) appeal from the district court’s order imposing sanctions against them for discovery misconduct....

Justice Scalia’s reputation precedes him. He’s a bit crass, a bit of a grouch, and during oral arguments, he makes Professor Charles Kingsfield seem milder than Elle Woods. Still, his actions during oral arguments in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, a case no one except Property Law professors cares about, even managed to surprise regular SCOTUS watchers. Appearing before the Supreme Court is, for many, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity....

At what point does a robot become a person? There have been plenty of articles, scholarly and otherwise, that have asked that question. Does a robot become a real person when they achieve self-awareness? Think independently? Develop actual emotions? But don’t worry; we’re not going to delve into the complexities of theoretical speculation here. What we are going to talk about here is something more tangible: Delivery robots, aka “personal delivery devices," or PDDs....

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a Morgan Keegan class action lawsuit last week, finding that the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA) precluded the action. The plaintiffs in the case held shares in three mutual funds issued by Morgan Keegan Select Fund, Inc., an open-end investment company. Morgan Keegan structured these shares as “redeemable securities,” entitling the holders to redemption at any time for their “proportionate share of the issuer’s current net assets....

The Supreme Court released three new opinions this morning, slowly chipping away at the now 17 remaining cases it has to decide before the term’s end two weeks from today. Chief among those three was Kerry v. Din, in which the Justices ruled that an American woman could not challenge the denial of a visa to her foreign-born husband on due process grounds. Fauzia Din, an American citizen, had requested a visa for her husband, Kanishka Berashk, but her request was denied....

With legal troubles hanging overhead, President Trump got some good news in one case. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit that alleged he incited a riot when he had protesters forcibly removed from a campaign rally. In Nwanguma v. Trump, the appeals court said Trump’s call to “get ’em out of here” was protected by the First Amendment. Trump must be happy about the respite from litigation....

It’s the landmark civil right battle of our time, and if you thought we’d go a week, or even a few days, without another legal maneuver in a gay marriage case, you were sadly mistaken. If you’re suffering from coverage fatigue, take solace in this: we’re only covering the most interesting and odd battles out of the dozens of cases that are proceeding nationwide. In this batch of updates, a non-party reaches out to SCOTUS to put a hold on gay marriages in a state where nobody (or at least, nobody in the litigation) is opposing gay marriage, while in Idaho, the impatient state is asking to fast forward to an en banc hearing and actually has a compelling argument for doing so....

Defendant’s sentence for violating the terms of her supervised release is reversed, where the District Court’s oral pronouncement of Defendant’s sentence at an earlier sentence hearing unambiguously imposed a term of supervised release, and thus the court erred by sentencing Defendant to five years’ imprisonment when it revoked that earlier sentence. Read the full decision in US v. Barwig, No. 08-3062. Appellate Information: Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas(D....