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Litigation surrounding credit card swipe fees has been in and out of court for nearly a decade, beginning in 2005, when according to Bloomberg, merchants filed a class action against credit card companies and their banks alleging price fixing. On December 13, Judge Gleeson, District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, approved a class action settlement, dubbed by Bloomberg as the “largest-ever U.S. antitrust accord.” That may all change, however, as the National Retail Federation recently filed a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit....

It’s difficult to get a handle on how safe Tesla’s vehicles are, especially those equipped with their autopilot features. Just a few months ago, a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analysis that appeared to show that older Tesla models became safer when updated with automatic steering options was called into question. “Our replication of NHTSA’s analysis of the underlying data shows that the agency’s conclusion is not well-founded,” according to Randy Whitfield, president of Quality Control Systems, who conducted a review of the NHTSA data....

Retired Judge Vaughn Walker is a hot topic around the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, we told you about the debate in the Ninth Circuit over the release of Judge Walker’s Prop 8 trial tapes. This week, the big debate is about whether Judge Walker committed judicial misconduct by refusing to recuse himself from the trial because he is gay. ProtectMarriage, the group behind California Prop 8, argues that Judge Walker could have recused himself without disclosing the reason, but he should not have presided over the case....

In an action seeking to quiet title in an apartment complex Plaintiff owned and operated, summary judgment for Defendant federal agencies is affirmed where Plaintiff’s argument that she was entitled to repay her federal housing loans in full and begin accepting non-low-income tenants was foreclosed by the Emergency Low Income Housing Preservation Act of 1987. Read Schroeder v. US, No. 07-36073 Appellate Information Argued March 5, 2009 Decided June 22, 2009...

Outspoken Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke won big this week in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Deputy David Hutchins sued Sheriff Clarke in 2007, alleging unlawful retaliation and violations of the Wisconsin Open Records Law following an on-air dispute on the “Eric Von Show.” The district court granted summary judgment for Deputy Hutchins. This week, the Seventh Circuit reversed the district court in favor of Sheriff Clarke. The spat between the two law enforcement officials started during a radio show discussion of Sheriff Clarke’s interaction with the African-American community....

Camishi v. Holder, No. 09-2503, involved a petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision dismissing petitioner’s appeal from the Immigration Judge’s (IJ) order removing him from the U.S. to Albania. The court denied the petition on the ground that, since the IJ denied the petition on an adverse credibility finding independent of the time bar, and the BIA affirmed the credibility finding, there was no prejudice and petitioner’s due process rights under the Fifth Amendment were not violated....

The California Supreme Court re-opened the door for a libel suit that was thrown out under the state’s so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation. The anti-SLAPP statute provides for a special motion to strike meritless claims early on in a case, but only if the claims involve a person’s free speech rights or the right to petition concerning a public issue. In FilmOn.com v. DoubleVerify, the supreme court refined when those rights concern an issue of public interest....

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent in the Hobby Lobby case was long. And some might say, lyrical. It also forebode a series of unintended consequences that could flow from the majority’s holding: closely held corporations have religious rights and therefore, can’t be forced to violate their religion by providing contraceptive coverage. What does this hypothetical “parade of horribles” contain? And how likely are these predictions to come true? Big Corporations Get Exemptions, Leaving Government With the Tab Although the majority argued that “it seems unlikely” that large corporations will pull a Hobby Lobby and try to opt out of covering the cost of contraceptive coverage, Ginsburg argues that this is completely possible: even within the narrow confines of “closely held” corporations, there are massive employers out there, such as Mars (72,000 employees, $33 billion in revenue), and Cargill (140,000 employees, $136 billion in revenue)....

In an action by county attorneys challenging certain post-sentencing probation programs adopted and supervised by the superior court, dismissal of the complaint is affirmed where plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the programs because their alleged injury was insufficiently concrete. Read Thomas v. Mundell, No. 07-15388 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted October 23, 2008 Filed July 15, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Wallace Counsel For Appellants: Michael A. Carvin, Jones Day, Washington, DC...

Defendant’s conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm is affirmed where: 1) 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(1) does not violate defendant’s Second Amendment right to bear arms; 2) section 922(g)(1) did not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment; and 3) for purposes of a claim that he was unconstitutionally searched, defendant’s act of raising his hands to his head constituted implied consent to search. Read US v....

District court’s denial of defendant’s motion to reduce and modify his otherwise valid sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C.section 3582(c)(2) is affirmed as the district court does not have authority under US v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), to reduce a sentence beyond the retroactive United States Sentencing Guidelines amendment range. Read US v. Washington, No. 09-5110 Appellate Information Argued: Agust 4, 2009 Decided and Filed: October 27, 2009 Judges Opinion by Circuit Judge Griffin...

Many people dream of owning a business but would prefer not to have to put all the parts together. Franchising is a good option for them because they can buy into an existing business that has already established all the basics – what to sell, how to package it, how much things should cost, supply, marketing, and more. But franchising has certain financial requirements. Buying in can be prohibitively expensive. Not so, however, for Chick-Fil-A, which offers enticing franchise opportunities....

When can a soldier or officer refuse to follow an order they disagree with? The question arose recently when U.S. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer resigned from his post after saying that he felt an obligation to disobey an order from his commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump. The issue involved a Navy SEAL, Eddie Gallagher, whose demotion for posing for a photo with a combatant’s corpse was reversed by Trump on Nov....

You thought you were following the law when you made that right turn on red. But a few weeks later, you get a $75 ticket in the mail, alleging that you rolled across the line a little too casually before making the turn. The next time you approach that intersection, you slam on your brakes when the light turns yellow, fearful of another ticket. Only this time, the car behind you slams into you....

Most of us don’t imagine that McDonald’s is a particularly fun place to work, but we don’t think of it as uniquely dangerous work, either. But that was before a report was released detailing over 700 violent incidents at McDonald’s locations over just a three-year span, including “shootings, robberies, physical and verbal altercations, and weapon brandishing that result in worker and customer injuries,” according to the National Employment Law Project....

A $7.25 billion antitrust settlement between credit card companies and 12 million merchants was nixed by the Second Circuit last week. For over ten years, merchants had pursued a class action antitrust suit against Visa and MasterCard, alleging that they abused their market power to force unfair fees on businesses that accepted credit cards. The proposed settlement would have provided those merchants billions in relief, while also preventing those merchants from bringing future challenges to the credit card companies’ policies in perpetuity, leading the Second Circuit rule that the settlement was unreasonable and inadequate and that many of the merchants had been inadequately represented....

With the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals weighing in on cases involving a polygamous sect in Utah, the Utah Supreme Court will have to wait it out before ruling on the two cases. Both of the cases involve the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One case deals with the legal authority of certain sect members within the greater legal dispute, whereas the other case deals with the disqualification of the Church’s attorney, Rod Parker, reports The Salt Lake Tribune....

The Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA) of 1973 provides monthly assistance and medical benefits to black lung sufferers … if they’ve applied in time that is. In a decision Monday in Peabody Coal Company v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, et al. (“Brigance”), the Sixth Circuit stated that the statute of limitations for filing a claim under the BLBA properly began to run after a medical report informed a suffering former miner that he had pneumoconiosis (black lung)....

If you don’t know what the Cat’s Paw theory of liability is, don’t feel bad. It’s a reference to an ancient Aesop story where a scheming monkey dupes a cat into harming his paw so that the monkey could reap the benefits of someone’s labor and pain. In 2011, the SCOTUS decision of Staub v. Proctor Hospital, the Court significantly eased the process by which plaintiffs could prove proximate cause between their being fired and discriminatory intent....

Last August, the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower district’s summary judgment in favor of the Department of Homeland Security when a border patrol agent sued the branch of the agency alleging violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, better known as ADEA. In the lawsuit, government employee John France alleged that he had been passed over for promotion to Assistant Chief Patrol Agent with a pay scale of GS-15 because he was the oldest candidate who applied....