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The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado is offering in-person and online training for its Electronic Case Files (ECF) system. Like many other jurisdictions, e-filing your federal court documents is pretty much mandatory in Colorado unless there’s an exceptional circumstance, according the district court’s website. The ECF training is open to attorneys and law firm staff members, including paralegals and law clerks. Living in a digital world means that attorneys should probably digitize their practices as well....

If you spent 20 years smoking a pack of cigarettes each day, you would probably want someone to keep an eye on your lungs. But should tobacco companies be forced to foot the bill for that type of medical monitoring when the smoker has yet to show signs of cancer? The Second Circuit Court of Appeals isn’t sure, so it’s asking the New York Court of Appeals to weigh in on the matter by responding to two certified questions....

US v. Mardis, No. 09-5696, involved a district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss a federal indictment for civil rights murder of an enforcement officer and related crimes, claiming a violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause because the federal indictment was brought subsequent to defendant’s nolo contendere plea on a related charge in state court. As stated in the decision: “Here, however, the cooperation and coordination was less than that which took place in Bartkus, which the Supreme Court found not to constitute a sham prosecution....

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to review a lower court’s decision to block enforcement of Nebraska’s controversial 2010 abortion law on Friday. In its 2010 ruling, a U.S. District Court held that the law created a profound chilling effect on doctors’ willingness to perform abortions and created substantial obstacles to a woman’s right to choose abortion. Nebraskans United for Life appealed the decision to the Eighth Circuit, which subsequently upheld the lower court’s ruling....

We hope you never have to deal with a stalker. The experience can be terrifying, and you never know when the stalking might escalate. Your life could be in danger. We have some safety tips for you if you find yourself facing a stalker. But if you get anything out of reading this post, it’s this: If you believe you may be in danger, call the police. Your safety comes first....

Use active verbs. Keep your sentences short. Don’t dwell too long on case history. Win in the Supreme Court. At least, that’s the pattern identified by University of Southern California Ph.D. candidate Adam Feldman, who analyzed the writing style of Supreme Court briefs to see who had their brief language picked up by the Justices themselves. That analysis, which looked at 9,400 briefs filed between 1946 and 2013, found a distinctive writing style associated with success in the Supreme Court....

In an action seeking an order declaring that the debtors’ state tax obligations from the year 2000 were discharged at the conclusion of their Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding in 2004, summary judgment for the state tax board is reversed where only taxes incurred post-petition may be treated as postpetition claims under 11 U.S.C. section 1305(a). Read Joye v. Franchise Tax Bd., No. 07-15676 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted October 24, 2008...

In a sex discrimination action, summary judgment for defendant is reversed where: 1) plaintiff’s supervisor’s criticism of plaintiff for lack of “prettiness” and the “Midwestern girl look” before terminating her could be found by a reasonable factfinder to be evidence of wrongful sex stereotyping; and 2) the district court erred in requiring plaintiff to offer evidence that similarly situated men were treated differently. Read Lewis v. Heartland Inns of Am., L....

District court award of attorney’s fees is affirmed where Federal Rule of Evidence 408 does not bar a court’s consideration of settlement negotiations in its analysis of what constitutes a reasonable fee award in a particular case. Read Lohman v. Duryea Borough, No. 08-3524 Appellate InformationAppeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Argued May 20, 2009Filed July 23, 2009 JudgesBefore RENDELL and GARTH, Circuit Judges, and PADOVA, District Judge....

While employers need to be rather careful when employees make requests for accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the recent decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in McDonald v. UAW-GM is rather instructive for employers. In this case, the employer did engage with the employee to work on finding a reasonable accommodation that would work for both employer and employee. However, the accommodations proposed by the employer, despite seeming to fit with the employee’s doctor’s recommendation, were rejected by the employee....

Meal breaks are generally supposed to be a time when employees aren’t working. After all, if they’re working during their break, then it’s not really a break, is it? That’s what some current and former security guards at Detroit’s MotorCity Casino thought. Their bargaining agreement with the casino allowed them to take 30-minute paid breaks and use the employee cafeteria, but they weren’t allowed to leave the casino property and had to respond to calls over their radios....

In US v. Linzy, No. 09-2046, the Seventh Circuit faced a challenge to a conviction for conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute various controlled substances and sentenced to life imprisonment, ten years’ supervised release and a $200 special assessment, claiming that the district court abused its discretion in restricting defense counsel’s cross-examination of his co-defendant. As stated in the decision: “The Confrontation Clause guarantees only ‘an opportunity for effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish....

In a capital habeas matter, a denial of the petition is affirmed in part where the prosecution’s failure to produce letters written by the prosecutor on behalf of a government witness resulted in little or no prejudice, given the extensive impeachment material already available to the defense. However, the denial of the petition is vacated in part where the district court applied the wrong diligence standard to deny petitioner an evidentiary hearing on his penalty phase ineffectiveness claim....

It has taken more than four hundred years, but Shylock has finally been vindicated on appeal. The fictional Jewish moneylender, made famous in Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ won a mock appeal presided over by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently. Justice Ginsburg, joined by international lawyers, found that Shylock was entitled to the money he had lent Antonio, the titular merchant, and retroactively nullified Shylock’s forced conversion. The mock trial took place as part of events marking the 500th anniversary of Venice’s Jewish ghetto and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death....

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a case that put New York’s concealed weapons restrictions in the crosshairs. Arguably the most significant Second Amendment challenge in over a decade, the case could have major consequences for state regulation of concealed carry permits. The court has hesitated to weigh in on gun rights since its landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v....

District court’s imposition of a 180 month sentence, as an armed career criminal, on a defendant convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm is reversed and remanded as a California offense of a lewd or lascivious act involving a person under the age of 14 is not a violent felony and as such, the 15 year minimum sentence for an armed career criminal does not apply. Read US v. Goodpasture, No....

In a case involving an abortion parental notification law, an order denying defendant’s motion to dissolve a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 is reversed and the is injunction dissolved where: 1) the court properly ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to decide the Rule 59 motion as the proposed intervenors were not before the court when they filed it; 2) the Illinois Supreme Court’s adoption of Rule 303A completes the Act, and since the notice statute is otherwise constitutional on its face, applying the injunction prospectively is no longer equitable and it must be lifted; and 3) the Illinois parental notification statute is constitutional on its face under the relevant criteria for consent statutes, and therefore it satisfies any criteria that are required for bypass provisions in notice statutes....

Earlier this week, the Tenth Circuit stuck its head in the sand, and proceeded to draw a thick, long line with it. It took 76 pages to explain why the court was reversing the district court’s decision granting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (“EEOC”) motion for summary judgment against Abercrombie & Fitch. To quote Shakespeare: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Abercrombie & Fitch’s Look Policy requires that sales associates, called Models, don’t wear black and conform to the company’s “classic East Coast collegiate style of clothing....

When a person’s competency to stand trial for a crime is in question in Washington State, state law requires the state Department of Social and Health Services to evaluate them within seven to 21 days. Because of staffing, budgeting, and other limitations, detained individuals often go weeks without an evaluation, during which they may be held in solitary confinement, often exacerbating mental illnesses. Following a class action lawsuit on behalf of such detained individuals, a federal district required a series of reforms from the state services that included a seven-day maximum for providing competency determinations....

Eid v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., No. 06-16457, concerned an action against an airline alleging damages due to delay under Article 19 of the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air (Warsaw Convention), and a variety of state-law defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. The court of appeals affirmed in part summary judgment for defendants on the ground that the crew’s report to the police was covered by the Warsaw Convention and thus was not subject to defamation claims....