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In plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the US government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the government is affirmed as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) did not owe a duty to the plaintiffs under Michigan law where there is insufficient evidence that plaintiff’s husband presented the VA with symptoms of Leishmaniasis such that a reasonable physician should have known that he was infected with the disease, and where there is also insufficient evidence that the VA should have known that the disease was readily transmissible from the husband to his family members, and thus, the plaintiffs were not foreseeable victims of any failure by the VA to diagnose the husband with the disease....

US v. LaFaive, 09-2344, concerned a challenge to a conviction of defendant on two counts of bank fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft for assuming the identity of her deceased sister and opening checking accounts in her name and using counterfeited checks. In affirming the conviction, the court held that the district court did not plainly err in entering the jury’s conviction of defendant for violating 18 U.S.C. section 1028A(a)(1) as the statute criminalizes the misuse of another person’s identity, whether that other person is living or deceased....

While the debate over whether Judge Kavanaugh should or shouldn’t be confirmed may be raging on along partisan lines, taking a look at one of his more curious dissents might provide a little bit of a different perspective on the High Court hopeful. Though much of the coverage tends to focus on his partisan views reflected in various cases, the Fogo de Chao v. Dept. of Homeland Security case will probably forever haunt him as much as the fact that he put ketchup on pasta....

If you are going to CVS for aspirin, just know the company has a big headache of its own. According to a new lawsuit, CVS Health mailed 6,000 letters in envelopes that showed the recipients’ HIV status on the outside. If you live in Ohio, you might want to double-check your mail. That’s the problem with those window envelopes. You never know what’s going to peek through. Patient Privacy Three plaintiffs, who are not identified by name, are suing on behalf of anyone whose name appeared on one of the envelopes....

Justice Thomas isn’t the most verbose Supreme Court Justice. But of the little he says, much of it is not his own. That’s the implication of a recent piece by The New York Times’ veteran court reporter, Adam Liptak, which examines the Justice’s frequent use of “borrowed language” from Supreme Court merits briefs. That story didn’t sit well with plenty of legal commentators, however. George Washington Law professor Orin Kerr, for example, noted that Justice Thomas’s rate of shared language is not nearly as high as Liptak makes it seem....

If a divorced man fails to remove his ex-wife as a beneficiary of his 401(k) plan, does she get the proceeds, despite the fact that she may have waived those rights in divorce? And if she gets the proceeds by virtue of the operation of the plan, can the estate sue her to recover those proceeds? Here’s a case where two areas of law collide– family law and estate planning. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals looked at this case and the lower court’s ruling, reversing in part and affirming in part....

The litigation between Airbnb and New York City is starting to heat up as the like-Uber-but-for-hotels company won a rather and significant motion in federal court. Airbnb successfully moved for a preliminary injunction blocking NYC’s latest anti-Airbnb law that would have required the company to send monthly reports to city investigators, providing private data on their hosts. And while the newly emerged short-term rental market is a big problem in places suffering from an affordable housing shortage, a federal judge ruled that the law goes too far, and appears to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the Airbnb hosts....

In an action for tortious interference by an insurance broker against an insurer (Prudential), district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Prudential is affirmed as Prudential’s interference was privileged as a matter of Ohio law. Read Havensure, LLC v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., No 09-3367 Appellate Information Argued: January 12, 2010 Decided and Filed: February 12, 2010 Judges Opinion by Circuit Judge Boggs Counsel For Appellant: Robert R....

Using a rarely exercised bit of appellate procedure, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to take up an interlocutory appeal of the Trump campaign rally incitement case. The lower court had denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the incitement claim, but then certified the opinion so that the order could be appealed (as normally orders on a motion to dismiss are not eligible for interlocutory appeals). But, as the circuit court noted, the procedural circumstances, like the facts, in this case, are rather unique....

This was a ruling nearly 20 years in the making, but is the battle actually over? Back in 1997, a Hare Krishna group challenged a new panhandling ordinance at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The ordinance prohibits in-person solicitation or sales in the name of religion or charity, but leaves open the door to distributing envelopes for mail-in or online donations at a later time. The new ordinance followed from a ban on all free speech activity, struck down by the U....

In a breach of contract action, district court judgment is affirmed where: 1) any error the district court made in submitting jury instructions concerning material breach and inclusion of language relating to notice of termination was harmless as it did not affect substantial rights; and 2) the court did not abuse its discretion in declining to limit damages to foreseeable losses. Read M.M. Silta, Inc. v. Cleveland Cliffs, Inc., No. 08-2620...

Letter of the law or spirit of the law: How should the U.S. Supreme Court look at the U.S. Constitution? Should the United States Supreme Court apply the Constitution in light of current-day trends and events, or should it apply the document based entirely on the way it was originally written? Americans are divided on these questions. Fifty percent of Americans who were questioned in a survey by the Pew Research Center say that the Supreme Court’s rulings and review should be based on a current-day understanding of what the U....

In a man-bites-dog story, prosecutors are suing to stop arrests at Massachusetts courthouses. You read that right. The state’s district attorneys want federal immigration officials to stop arresting undocumented immigrants at the courthouse. The prosecutors, joined by public defenders, say customs agents are disrupting the administration of justice by patrolling the courthouses. It gets stranger; a judge allegedly helped one illegal alien escape out a rear door. States v. ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been chasing immigrants at courthouses around the country....

Prosecutors who mislead grand juries aren’t protected by qualified immunity and can be sued, the Second Circuit ruled last Friday. The case involved a former New York State Special Assistant Attorney General who submitted fraudulent and misleading evidence to a grand jury in order to indict a dentist accused of Medicaid fraud. After the dentist, Dr. Leonard Morse, was acquitted, he returned to court to sue the prosecutors, alleging that their manipulation of evidence before the grand jury denied him his constitutional right to a fair trial....

Chief Justice Roberts recused himself from a patent case yesterday, long after one might expect. The belated withdrawal came almost a month after the Court heard oral arguments in the case, Life Technologies v. Promega, following the tardy discovery that Roberts owned stock in Life Technologies’ parent company. This isn’t the first failed conflict check in recent Supreme Court history. It’s not even the first involving the chief justice. Roberts owns 1,212 shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc....

Petition for review of an order affirming the immigration court’s determination that it lacked jurisdiction to consider de novo plaintiff’s Temporary Protected Status eligibility is granted and remanded to the Board of Immigration Appeals to review and interpret applicable statutes and decide whether an alien must exhaust administrative remedies before being able to rely on Temporary Protected Status eligibility in removal proceedings. Read Salguero-Fuentes v. Holder, No. 08-2320 Appellate InformationPetition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals....

In an action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for sending unsolicited text messages, summary judgment for Defendant is reversed, where a genuine issue of material fact existed concerning whether the equipment used by Defendant had the capacity to store or produce numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator and to dial such numbers. Read Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., No. 07-16356. Appellate Information Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California....

District court’s dismissal on summary judgment of plaintiff’s claims of employment retaliation and violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff failed to show he provided adequate notice to his employer that he had a serious health condition rendering him unable to work; 2) plaintiff’s claim that defendant interfered with his FMLA rights by demoting him for unexcused absences must fail; 3) plaintiff’s retaliation claim fails for the same reasons as his interference claim....

In a pair of decisions addressing perhaps the most discussed topic in America, the Supreme Court weighed in on same-sex marriage and federal benefits for legally married same-sex couples. California’s Proposition 8 was defeated for the reason many thought it would – standing – while the Defense of Marriage Act fell in a narrow 5-4 decision that produced multiple dissents. The ramifications of these decisions are huge. Because of the DOMA ruling, federal benefits will now be extended to legally married same-sex couples throughout this nation....

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is popping up throughout the circuits lately. It’s like she’s the judicial groundhog, telling us we’re in for six more weeks of legal winter. For part-time New York residents seeking a gun license in the state, that legal winter will be spent waiting for the New York Court of Appeals to answer a certified question. Justice O’Connor is part of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel that will evaluate the constitutionality of New York’s handgun licensing law, which only awards licenses to New York residents or persons employed in New York....