RALEIGH, N.C.  — A North Carolina state court judge on Nov. 17 approved a class action settlement between patients and former patients of a hospital system and the hospital system in a suit asserting that software on the hospital’s website captured their information and sent it to Facebook without their consent, finding that the $2.45 million settlement “is fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the best interest of the settlement class.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 17 affirmed a district court’s ruling that an all-risk policy’s contamination exclusion bars coverage for losses sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic, rejecting the insureds’ argument that the district court erred in finding that a California appellate panel’s ruling in a similar case is applicable to the instant dispute.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a per curiam order denying rehearing en banc sought by immigrants after a panel in August dismissed an appeal by the federal government for lack of appellate jurisdiction and vacated a trial court’s ruling that probable cause exists to determine that the federal government’s actions in an immigrant removal class case constitute criminal contempt, opining that the government “satisfied the stringent requirements for a writ of mandamus.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 17 amended a previous opinion to clarify that it took no position on other arguments on preemption that a pharmaceutical company may assert in a case brought by former members of the U.S. military who allege that they were injured after ingesting military-prescribed mefloquine products, an anti-malarial medication.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Nov. 14 published a tribunal’s order denying the United Mexican States’ request to suspend an arbitration brought against it by British and Chinese lithium mining investors pending the potential consolidation of the arbitration with a recently filed claim brought by British parties who previously claimed an interest in the investors’ royalties, writing that suspension is not yet warranted.

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal magistrate judge who previously determined that a deponent’s “obstructive and combative behavior and dilatory tactics” warranted three extra hours of deposition and monetary sanctions awarded more than half of the $105,875.20 requested for related attorney fees in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action that challenges the expenses and allocations by trustees of a nationwide multiemployer health plan.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Nov. 14 vacated her Nov. 5 stay of a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that cleared the way for the Republic of the Philippines to receive the millions of dollars in a U.S. bank account opened by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos and denied the application for stay filed by a class of individuals who were subject to Marcos’ human rights abuses.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 17 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by federal government officials after a divided Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partially upheld a permanent injunction in a class case over a now-rescinded border metering policy.