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District court judgment is affirmed where: 1) the New York Court of Appeals determined that N.Y. Jud. Law sec. 487 permits the award of treble damages for an attempted deceit of the New York courts; 2) thus, the district court correctly assumed that defendant committed actionable fraud for purposes of sec. 487 from the commencement of the litigation at which time defendant was merely attempting to deceive and had not yet successfully deceived the Appellate Division into reversing a default judgment, and correctly assumed that the fraud was a proximate cause of the defendants’ incurring legal fees to defend against the entire litigation....

A recent case handed down by the California Supreme Court will hopefully allow seasonal employees of the SF Giants to have the merits of their case heard in the Superior Court … eventually. The decision explains that despite the collective bargaining agreement calling for disputes to be arbitrated, the particular issue in this case was a matter properly before the state courts. What’s This Case About? While the state Supreme Court hasn’t touched the actual merits of the Melendez v....

Petition for review of an order denying asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture is denied where: 1) the present does not have jurisdiction to review the agency’s decision that plaintiff’s asylum application was untimely; and 2) the agency did not err in denying their request for withholding of removal, as plaintiff’s failed to cite any evidence in the record which would support a finding that they faced a threat because of their membership in a particular social group or any other relevant statutory ground if they were returned to their home country....

In 1990, paleontologist Pete Larson discovered the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex on record in the badlands of South Dakota. But Larson’s honeymoon period following his stunning discovery was short-lived. A legal battle of equally epic proportions ensued with multiple parties jumping at ownership of the 65-million-year-old bones – even the federal government. The historic discovery – and equally historic legal battle – is the subject of a new documentary titled “Dinosaur 13” that was top-featured at this year’s Sundance Film Festival....

Look, we know prison inmates don’t enjoy the same kind of freedoms as the rest of us. But when the commercial tells you to seek medical attention for an erection lasting more than four hours, and you seek that medical attention, you should get it, even if you’re incarcerated. But according to a $5 million dollar lawsuit that looks like it’s about to settle, Oklahoma sheriff’s officers ignored one inmate’s pleas for medical attention for “unbearable pain” from a prolonged erection that lasted four days....

American diners love their chicken. Consumption of chicken has surpassed that of red meat and pork and for good reason: Chicken is healthier and generally cheaper. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, however, some diners have been paying too much for their chicken. In 2019, DOJ began uncovering evidence of a conspiracy to fix prices on broiler chickens, and in June and October last year, the agency filed charges against several chicken-industry executives....

What do you do if the only exculpatory witness in your client’s case is a recently-deported illegal alien? Start appealing. Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government may not deport an illegal alien who can provide exculpatory evidence for a criminal defendant, The Wall Street Journal reports. Jonathan Leal-Del Carmen hadn’t been arraigned for alien smuggling – and wasn’t yet represented by counsel – when Ana Maria Garcia-Garcia was deported....

As California considers the constitutionality of Prop 8 in the state Supreme Court, we suspect the national debate over same-sex marriage will only grow louder. And it should. Recently, SCOTUSblog hosted a symposium on the same-sex marriage debate. Most of the contributors on the symposium theorized that, if the court were to hear Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the California same-sex marriage challenge, the law should side with marriage equality. Maybe we’re cynics, but we’ve never believed that the party that should win necessarily prevails in court....

Calls for cameras in the Supreme Court have been repeated ad nauseum over the years. And we laughed when Justice Elena Kagan addressed the issue of email earlier this year, noting that her fellow justices aren’t exactly tech-savvy, and that they send memorandums back-and-forth on ivory paper. If the court’s 19th century procedures make them sound like inaccessible luddites, well, we wouldn’t exactly disagree with you, nor might the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which held a panel highlighting the Supreme Court’s transparency shortcomings....

Preemption Issue in Medical Device Tort Case In In re: Medtronic, Inc., Sprint Fidelis Leads Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 09-2290, consolidated actions by patients with implanted Sprint Fidelis Leads, an implanted defibrillator component, asserting tort and breach of warranty claims for injuries allegedly caused by the defective leads, the court affirmed the dismissal of the action where the claims were preempted by 21 U.S.C. section 360k(a), which preempts certain state law claims concerning medical devices that had received FDA approval....

In an appeal from an order approving a settlement agreement in a class action challenging policies adopted by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services relating to the removal of children from their homes in cases of abuse and neglect, the order is affirmed in part where: 1) the district court erred in finding that the objector had opted out and, consequently, in removing her as class representative, but the error was harmless; and 2) the agreement was fair, adequate, and reasonable....

Can justice be served if there aren’t enough judges to hear cases? As of July 28, 2011, there are 90 vacancies in the U.S. Courts, but only 53 pending nominations. Of those vacancies, 37 are classified as judicial emergencies. The problem is not a lack of qualified jurists; it’s bureaucratic obstinance. For example, President Barack Obama’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Goodwin Liu, a Berkeley law professor, waited in confirmation limbo for almost a year before withdrawing his nomination....

In plaintiff’s putative class action lawsuit against defendant-lender including a request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction seeking the return of her car which defendant repossessed for refusing to pay the balance of a $500 loan at an annual interest rate of 300% to be paid within one month, grant of defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and later dismissal of the case is affirmed as the arbitration clause in the parties’ contract was valid and plaintiff’s agreement to arbitrate would, with one possible and severable exception, not be considered unconscionable under Pennsylvania law....

FACTS: A law professor grabs a colleague by the shoulder to talk to him about a dispute with the law librarian. LAW: A battery occurs when a person acts to cause a harmful or offensive contact, which would offend the ordinary person. ISSUE: Is this a law exam question or a real case? U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary probably wishes it were a fictitious case. In Gerber v. Veltri, the Ohio judge said the case was “seemingly ripped from the pages of a first-year torts exam, with the added twist that the parties are, in real life, law school professors....

I have a mailbox at FindLaw. I have never used this mailbox. For the entirety of my tenure, it has been absolutely vacant. Until yesterday. On my way to the snack room, I noticed, for the first time, a post-marked envelope in my box. I didn’t know how to feel about this letter. Excited? A bit. Snail mail is a rarity nowadays. But it had no return address. Was it hate mail?...

When the New England Patriots were caught using slightly deflated footballs in championship games, allegations of cheating soon followed. In response, the NFL suspended Pat’s quarterback Tom Brady for four games. “Deflategate” or, as some call it, “Ballghazi,” soon went before the federal courts, where U.S. District Judge Richard Berman vacated Brady’s suspension this September. Now Brady’s controversial footballs are directly before Second Circuit, with the NFL submitting the first brief in its appeal....

In a burglary prosecution, the denial of Petitioner’s habeas petition is vacated, where the District Court was required to undertake further factfinding to resolve whether Petitioner was entitled to equitable tolling based on the improper denial of library materials. Read Ramirez v. Yates, No. 07-15087 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted June 8, 2009 Filed July 10, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Hawkins Counsel For Appellant: Maitreya Badami, San Francisco, California...

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) alleges that the companies that own TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat are responsible for the mental health crisis affecting its students. Likening social media to a “public nuisance,” SPS is asking the court to stop the social media platforms from targeting young people with harmful content and for the social media companies to pay for the costs of health care and social services that result from the alleged negative impacts of social media....

In a dispute involving attorney’s fees, district court judgment is vacated and remanded where the court erred in awarding attorney’s fees to plaintiff’s based on the prevailing hourly rates in the district where her counsel was based, rather than where the suit was litigated, as plaintiff did not satisfy the exception to the forum rule for attorney’s fees. Read Simmons v. N.Y. City Transit Authority, No. 08-4079 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York....

After several months of little to no job growth, employment in the legal sector grew around 0.3% in August, according to new figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The numbers include attorneys, paralegals, legal secretaries and other staff, and show the legal industry edging out in front of growth in other professions. Stand-Out Stats There’s been little variation in the number of people employed in law-related jobs over the last several years, and we still haven’t caught up to pre-Great Recession numbers....