Posts

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision this week, finding that Immigration Judge Annie S. Garcy completely took over the cross-examination for government’s counsel, and thereby ceased functioning as a neutral arbiter. Vasil Abulashvili and his wife, Teona Klibadze, are citizens of Georgia, a former U.S.S.R. republic. They entered the United States on visitor visas in 1999 and remained longer than authorized....

District court judgment denying plaintiff’s motion to remand to state court is reversed where the court erred in finding that plaintiffs’ claim under the Missouri Second Mortgage Loan Act was completely preempted by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act, as the federal remedy does not apply and therefore is not the exclusive remedy. The case is remanded to district court with directions to reinstate the claims and remand the case to state court....

This post was updated on March 25, 2022 Estate planning is something that’s easy to ignore until the time comes when an estate plan is essential. You want to make sure your final wishes are carried out. You also want to be certain that you don’t make estate planning mistakes. Drafting a will can be vital even if you don’t have many assets. It can help you map out who gets what after you pass on....

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the giant retail chain today in the Walmart class action lawsuit. The sexual discrimination lawsuit was blocked from being tried as a class action as the Supreme Court delivered the news, overturning a ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The gender discrimination lawsuit would have allowed 1.5 million women to proceed against the retailer as a class, potentially costing Walmart billions of dollars, reports MSNBC....

Defendants’ sentences for illegal reentry into the U.S. are affirmed, where the District Court in each Defendant’s case properly included Defendants’ intervening state law crimes, before they were discovered by immigration authorities, in their criminal history calculation. Read US v. Cruz-Gramajo, No. 07-50381 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted October 24, 2008 Filed June 26, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Hall Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Pregerson Counsel For Appellants:...

District court’s imposition of 100 months’ imprisonment on a defendant convicted, after a guilty plea, of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine is reversed and remanded as the district court committed a clear procedural error in failing to calculate defendant’s appropriate Guidelines range, and as such the sentencing hearing was procedurally unreasonable under Gall. Read US v. Novales, No. 07-3663 Appellate Information Argued: December 3, 2009 Decided and Filed: December 16, 2009...

In a case involving the founder of Adelphia and his son, denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss conspiracy charges in a Pennsylvania indictment, claiming that their conviction for conspiracy and substantive fraud counts in the Southern District of New York violated their right to be free from double jeopardy, is remanded as 18 U.S.C section 371 creates a single statutory offense and defendants established a prima facie case that there was only one conspiratorial agreement....

The coronavirus pandemic has led to numerous business closures and restrictions on the size of gatherings across the country. Severe restrictions on everyday people’s movements are in place in states like New York, Illinois, and California. Many other governors are starting to think about implementing the same restrictions too. While many families are able to easily hunker down, what should you do if you share custody of your children with your ex?...

The Supreme Court ruled last year that gays and lesbians were entitled to equal marriage rights. But when it comes to the right to work free from discrimination, federal protections currently don’t cover LGBTQ employees. That could soon change in the Seventh Circuit, however, as the en banc court hears a case today that could result in employment discrimination protections being extended to gay and lesbian workers. The case at issue is Hively v....

According to Forbes, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra want to sing their tale of Facebook woes at the national level. Nope, they’re not going to be on Idol. Rather, we’ll be entertained by their litigation antics, as Narendra and the Winklevoss twins are now eyeing the United States Supreme Court to plead their case in their ongoing Facebook lawsuit. Earlier this week, the Winklevoss twins were denied their petition for a rehearing en banc by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals....

When Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson texted to his son’s mother to say he felt bad not for engaging in child abuse, but for accidentally striking his boy’s ’nuts,’ he probably was not aware that he was taking chances with his career. A short time later, Peterson was suspended from playing. This punishment was upheld by the Eighth Circuit yesterday when it was ruled that the NFL had the right to imposed fines and suspend Peterson after he was charged for felony abuse of his child....

Veoh Networks may no longer be in business, but its name will live on in the annals of intellectual property law for solidifying Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor protections for the online community. Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Veoh’s favor once again in a multi-year battle between the defunct video sharing site and Universal Music Group (UMG), according to The Hollywood Reporter. In doing so, the appellate court found that “red flags” of infringement weren’t sufficient to void the safe harbor....

In a case brought by Ohio, and other states, charging American Express with anti-competitive behavior for the anti-steering provisions contained in its merchant agreements, the High Court found that the card people don’t want to leave home without wasn’t really doing anything wrong at all. The challenge alleged that AMEX had violated section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits unreasonable restraints on trade. The petitioners claim that by charging merchants higher fees than other credit card companies, AMEX is increasing the costs to all consumers for goods and services as merchants must adjust their prices upward to account for those higher fees....

There is a workplace trend booming on social media among Gen-Z and young millennials (sorry guys, you get blamed for everything) called “quiet quitting." What Is Quiet Quitting? There are two viewpoints on what quiet quitting really means. One view is that it means not going above and beyond your job duties, like not volunteering to work nights or weekends could be quiet quitting. The other view is that it means doing the bare minimum or just enough to keep your job....

Today, the Tenth Circuit decided one civil RICO matter and one criminal sentencing case. Bixler v. Foster, No. 09-2138, involved an action by minority shareholders of a corporation against its directors and lawyers, alleging that defendants violated the civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), when they arranged to transfer the company’s assets to an Australian corporation. The district court dismissed the complaint. As the Tenth Circuit wrote: “The minority shareholders contend the defendants defrauded them of their share of the UKL stock and rendered their METCO investment virtually worthless....

In Montes v. Trombley, No. 08-2521, the Sixth Circuit faced a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendant’s petition for habeas relief claiming that his sentence of 30 to 60 years for kidnapping exceeded the statutory maximum. As stated in the decision: “Under Michigan law, a person convicted of violating the State’s kidnapping statute may be punished by imprisonment for life or any term of years or a fine of not more than $50,000, or both....

It’s not really fair to doubt the quality of new lawyers today, just because they didn’t take the same bar exam as the last generation. But maybe it is fair to doubt the bar exam – and law schools – because there’s definitely a problem. Many in the profession say new attorneys don’t have a clue about how to practice law. Of course, that’s always been a problem. Now the question is, does the Uniform Bar Exam dumb down lawyers?...

Attention Eighth Circuit practitioners! The Judicial Conference of the Eighth Circuit will soon be underway in Kansas City, Missouri. The conference is once every two years, so be sure to take advantage of it. It will be held this year from August 8th to the 10th at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown. Some of the topics of discussion will include civil and criminal issues, as well as bankruptcy topics. The most interesting aspect of the conference (and the most relevant to Eighth Circuit practitioners) is the fact that there will be nationally recognized speakers discussing some recent, cutting-edge cases of the Eighth Circuit Courts....

Back in August, the Ninth Circuit handed down a decision in a case that pitted free speech concerns against the state’s interest in protecting minors from harmful “conversion” therapy, meant to cure individuals of homosexuality. California became the first state to ban such therapy in October 2012. While district courts split on the issue, the Ninth Circuit’s holding was clear: there was no speech, only conduct. And late last week, the court denied a rehearing in the case, over the dissent of three judges....

LaAsmar v. Phelps Dodge Corp., No. 07-1267, concerned an ERISA action against an insurer based on the denial of plaintiffs’ claim for accidental death benefits because, at the time of the crash, plaintiffs’ son’s blood alcohol level was almost three times the limit permitted under Colorado law. The court of appeals affirmed judgment for plaintiffs, holding that 1) although defendant eventually denied plaintiffs’ claim on administrative review, it did so substantially outside the time period within which the plan vested it with discretion to interpret and apply the plan, and thus it was not acting within the discretion provided by the plan; 2) the decedent died, not of alcohol intoxication, but as a result of head and internal injuries suffered in a motor vehicle crash; 3) “accident,” as used in the policy, extended coverage to an unintended death resulting from an vehicle crash where the driver had a blood alcohol content approximately 2....