Mealey Publications™
TOP STORIES
NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge on April 22 dismissed without prejudice a qui tam suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) related to a kickback scheme involving a transportation service and its owners who purportedly referred insured employees to a lab for COVID-19 testing that was billed to an uninsured government program, finding that the complaint lacks facts regarding the knowledge of the service and its owners about eligibility under the program.
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled April 22 that a California federal judge too rigidly applied local rules when denying a new trial motion from defendant entities found liable for willful copyright infringement through their distribution of DVDs of a Christian film; the panel’s opinion resolves three consolidated appeals from the case.
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 22 affirmed a lower federal court’s ruling that compelled arbitration as to the foreign insurers but denied it as to the domestic insurers in a Hurricane Ida coverage dispute but concluded that the court abused its discretion by denying the insurers’ motion to stay the lawsuit pending arbitration of the Louisiana hospital insured’s claims against the foreign insurers.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An option in a settlement agreement to license a patent for only $100 is not enough for a plaintiff-appellant technology company to establish a live case or controversy, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, dismissing as moot the company’s challenge to a Massachusetts federal judge’s finding that the patent was invalid as abstract.
NEW YORK — Responding to the appellees’ request to remove certain language from its decision in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act dispute centered on residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 22 issued an amended opinion that — like the initial one — partly reversed and remanded a ruling against pension fund trustees.
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland on April 21 dismissed without prejudice all claims between Maryland, the insurer of the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA), and the owner and technical manager of the ship M/V Dali, which allided with and destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on March 26, 2024, after the parties indicated that they had reached a settlement in the exoneration lawsuit.
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge granted final approval to an $84 million settlement and then closed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit that concerned allegations that Wells Fargo & Co. improperly used dividends of its preferred stock held in its 401(k)’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) fund; the judge noted that the defendants didn’t contest the plaintiffs’ assertion “that the settlement is ‘the largest-ever class action settlement of ERISA claims arising from an employee stock ownership plan.’”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that because the federal removal statute’s “text, structure, and context are inconsistent with equitable tolling,” Enbridge Energy LP’s removal to federal court of a lawsuit brought by the Michigan attorney general that sought to shut down a pipeline was untimely.
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on April 22 affirmed a $56 million punitive damages award in favor of the estate of a smoker who died from lung cancer at age 60, which the trial court judge reduced on remittitur down from the original amount of $1 billion in punitive damages against a tobacco company. The court said that the trial court properly found that the jurors “were not inflamed by passion or prejudice” and that the verdict after the judge’s reduction “was within constitutionally permissible bounds.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to step into an antitrust case involving artificial intelligence-based hotel pricing, leaving in place a ruling that the casinos’ independent decisions to employ the same algorithmic tool did not constitute a violation even if it led to higher prices.
ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 21 held that a lower court erred in dismissing Florida insureds’ breach of contract complaint for lack of jurisdiction without analyzing whether the claims against insurers were frivolous, vacating in part and remanding for a new jurisdictional inquiry under the Class Action Fairness Act.