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In a class action suit against Schering-Plough Corporation and certain of its officers and directors under ERISA section 502(a)(2) arising out of the offering and management of an ERISA plan, district court’s conclusion that a release signed by plaintiff-class representative in connection with her separation from the corporation violated ERISA and was therefore void, and an order certifying the class, is vacated and remanded where: 1) ERISA section 410(a) does not render plaintiff’s individual release and covenant not to sue void against public policy, and the effect of her release, therefore, must be considered as the section extends only to contractual or other devices that purports to alter the statutory obligations of a fiduciary under ERISA, and not to reach a release of claims signed by an individual claiming the breach of a fiduciary duty; 2) plaintiff’s release does not bar her from bringing the section 502(a)(2) claim on behalf of the Plan; 3) the district court must give further consideration to the interests of the members of the class, and the impact of the release and covenant not to sue, as bearing on plaintiff’s ability to be an adequate class representative; and 4) district court erred in granting an open-ended class period....

As recently as late March, public health authorities were saying people didn’t need to wear face masks. They were important for medical personnel and health workers, of course, but unnecessary for others. Then, on April 3, the Centers for Disease Control said that people should start using “cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials … as an additional, voluntary public health measure.” It was becoming apparent the coronavirus was being carried around by a great many people who show no symptoms of illness yet may be spreading it by the simple act of breathing....

In habeas proceedings arising from petitioner’s conviction of first degree sexual assault of a child, defendant’s petition for habeas relief is timely as his second section 974.06 motion did toll the time for filing this appeal. However, denial of habeas relief is affirmed where: 1) the district court did not err in dismissing defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel as he suffered no prejudice because the potential outcome at trial would have been the same; 2) it correctly concluded that defendant should be able to collaterally attack the performance of his counsel if he had no real opportunity to raise the issue on direct appeal; and 3) district court correctly dismissed defendant’s remaining ineffective assistance claims as his pleas were knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently entered, and objective evidence reveals that defendant would have accepted the plea deal even if he were aware of the truth-in-sentencing consequences of his crime....

In a petition for review of the BIA’s order removing petitioner to El Salvador, the petition is denied where: 1) petitioner’s prior state offense of felony menacing was a “particularly serious crime” under 8 U.S.C. section 1231; and 2) the Immigration Judge’s reliance on a Statement in Support of Warrantless Arrest detailing petitioner’s prior offense was not fundamentally unfair. Read N-A-M v. Holder, No. 07-9580 Appellate Information Filed November 20, 2009...

In an action seeking unpaid wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act, judgment pursuant to defendants’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 68 offer of judgment is affirmed where an offer of judgment that satisfies a plaintiff’s entire demand moots the case. Moreover, an order decertifying the proposed plaintiff class is affirmed where the alleged unlawful practices – making employees work off the clock and altering the time-sheets – were not alleged by all of the plaintiffs....

Hot on the heels of decisions from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Fourth Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma ruled today that Obamacare subsidies aren’t available to residents of states that didn’t establish their own state-run exchanges. If you’ll recall, there was a teensy bit of controversy over the Affordable Care Act. Republican-leaning states – including Oklahoma – opted out of running their own state insurance exchanges, meaning the federal government had to step in to operate the exchanges....

Bust out your American flag. Dust off your flag pole. Sunday is Flag Day! Did you know that Congress actually passed a law to make Flag Day a holiday? On June 14, 1977, the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States. In honor of Flag Day, here are some fun articles about flags: Flag Flying Rules You do not just stick the flag on the pole all willy-nilly....

In a class action challenging an airline’s collection of a tourism tax for the Mexican government from which plaintiffs were exempt, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where defendant did not make any contractual commitment to advise passengers about the Mexico tourism tax, not to collect it from exempt passengers, or to refund that portion of the price attributable to the tax. Read Sanchez v. Aerovias de Mexico, S.A., No. 08-55588...

As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court handed the City of Boston a resounding defeat May 2 over its 2017 decision to bar a Christian group from flying its flag at city hall. Boston refused to allow the group, Camp Constitution, to fly its flag on the grounds that it would amount to government endorsement of religion. The group countered that the city had created a public forum with its flagpole and therefore muzzled free speech....

Questions about race, intellectual disability, and the death penalty will return to the halls of the Supreme Court in the near future. Yesterday, the Court agreed to hear appeals in two capital punishment cases out of Texas. The first, Buck v. Stephens, involves a defendant who was sentenced to death after a psychologist, called to the stand by his own lawyer, testified that black defendants were more dangerous than white ones....

In plaintiff’s suit against his employer under the Jones Act and general maritime law for injuries he suffered while working as a deckhand, defendant-employer’s appeal of a district court’s denial of its motion to stay the suit in favor of arbitration is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction under 9 U.S.C. section 16(a)(1)(A) as: 1) section 16 is part of the Federal Arbitration Act, and as such, under the language of section 1, does not apply to any employment contract involving a seaman; and 2) section also is inapplicable, and defendant’s motion for a stay did not rely on it....

In plaintiffs’ class action suit against an Illinois town and a subdivision therein alleging violation of the Equal Protection Clause and state negligence laws by discriminating against them by expanding its water services to other subdivisions within the town but not to theirs, district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the town on the equal protection claim and denial of plaintiffs’ motion for supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs have failed to establish that they have a cognizable claim under Enquist; and 2) even if the plaintiffs’ claim was cognizable, they have failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether they are similarly situated to like individuals and whether the town had a rational basis for its disparate treatment of plaintiffs....

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a person can be found guilty of a Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act (SORNA) violation, even if SORNA wasn’t technically implemented in his state at the time he was convicted of the SORNA violation. Sure, this sounds like an ex post facto conviction, but the Sixth Circuit assures us that it’s not, and that the conviction stands. David Wayne Felts served 15 years in prison for rape and aggravated sexual battery....

Quentin Tarantino wrote a script. He gave the script, without any security precautions (such as watermarking or armed guards) to six people in Hollywood. One of the six people leaked it. Shocking. It made it onto the Internet. Again, shocking. Tarantino complained to Deadline Hollywood about the leak. At this point, the story became newsworthy. Even without his statements to Deadline Hollywood, his next movie would be newsworthy, but doubly so when he complains about it and tells a media outlet that he’s considering postponing or cancelling the movie due to the leak....

Crack Conviction and Sentence Affirmed In US v. Spires, No. 09-3663, the court affirmed defendant’s conviction and sentence for possession with intent to distribute 50 or more grams of cocaine base where 1) the district court did not abuse its discretion when it refused defendant’s request to attach a “cautionary tail” to the instructions pertaining to cooperating witness testimony; 2) defendant’s mandatory life sentence did not violate the Eighth Amendment; and 3) the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 was not retroactive....

Rick Santorum wants to break the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals into pieces. And maybe banish the circuit’s judges to Guam. “Realistically, we can probably do something that’s actually been proposed a lot in the past, which is to take the Ninth Circuit … and cut it in two, and take maybe all the judges and stick them in California, and then give all these states who have had to suffer under the reign of terror of California judges and give them their own court so they can actually reflect the values of the Western states,” Santorum told the Huffington Post....

The Second Circuit has reversed a lower federal court decision that had first determined that widespread collusion amongst international banks to price-fix the London Interbank Offered Rate (aka Libor) was not a violation of antitrust law for want of competition. The Second Circuit’s decision gives some clarity as to what conduct is regulated under international and American anti-trust rules. The district court judge, Naomi Rice Buchwalk dismissed plaintiffs’ case against Barclays, UBS, and Deutsche Bank because upon a look-see of the evidence, she was convinced that the Libor rate setting process was a “collaborative” process and not a competitive one....

In what is certainly a confounding jumble of legal issues indeed, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower district court’s decision to deny habeas relief to a man who’d been convicted of numerous crimes arising out of his early 2000s Washington state crime spree. In what was not presented as a petitioned issue, the circuit concluded that although it had affirmed on the issue of habeas, the defendant was free to appeal possible constitutional violations....

Presidential politicking has hit new lows following the recent ISIS attacks on Paris. Last Thursday, GOP front-runner Donald Trump told reporters that the U.S. should implement a database for tracking Muslims. The comments followed Ben Carson’s earlier statements that Muslims should not be president, and both candidates’ brief insistence that they saw American Muslims celebrating on 9/11. (Both have stepped back from their comments.) Others have called for Syrian refugees to be “rounded up” and deported....

Action Alleging Termination of Government Employee Based on Speech In Anemone v. Metro. Trans. Auth., No. 08-2646, action alleging that defendants took a series of adverse employment actions against plaintiff in response to plaintiff’s protected speech concerning corruption at the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the court affirmed summary judgment for defendants where 1) any reasonable jury would have to find that plaintiff would have been suspended and then terminated even absent any retaliatory intent on defendants’ part engendered by his allegedly protected speech, such that defendants were entitled, under Mt....