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BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal judge granted an insurer’s motion for intervention in another insurer’s suit seeking to rescind insurance policies issued to a company for its alleged failure to disclose an indictment for insurance fraud, finding that the insurer seeking intervention satisfied the requirements pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A business analytics company’s failure to adequately identify and define its alleged trade secrets in a dispute with another analytics company and its co-founders justified a Utah federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant entities, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Jan. 28.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Jan. 28 denied an application for recall and stay of mandate filed by a national debt collection firm after the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled for the first time that when two former employees shared a spreadsheet containing passwords and login information they committed “workplace-policy infractions” and not violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and that the passwords themselves were not trade secrets under federal or state law.
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s grant of an insurer’s motion to dismiss a women’s fashion retailer’s breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking business interruption coverage for its losses arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, holding that the lower court did not err when it refused to evaluate the policy at issue under the law of each of the 22 states where the insured claimed losses.
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over an appeal brought by domestic insurers against a Louisiana political subdivision that brought claims for hurricane insurance coverage, citing a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling arising out of certified questions from the same case and recent Fifth Circuit precedents holding that state law prohibits arbitration of such disputes.
LAFAYETTE, La. — The government on Jan. 27 asked a Louisiana federal court to stay all proceedings in a case brought by the state that challenges the validity of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 decision to remove the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, one of two drugs used to induce early termination of pregnancy, while it conducts a review of the agency’s previous rulings.
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington Supreme Court on Jan. 27 posted a note to the docket of a case in which it previously reinstated a $185 million verdict against Monsanto Co. for injuries stemming from exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), amending the opinion and mandating that the case be remanded to a state superior court. The Supreme Court’s decision comes after the plaintiffs recommended that it grant Monsanto’s request for reconsideration of the majority opinion in light of the fact that the parties “have now reached an agreement to settle this case.”
WILMINGTON, Del. — A majority of the Delaware Supreme Court on Jan. 27 held that an insurance policy’s bump-up exclusion does not bar directors and officers coverage for an underlying securities class action brought against the insured, holding that the insurers failed to satisfy both requirements of the exclusion.
SAN FRANCISCO — In a 2-1 unpublished memorandum disposition issued Jan. 27, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed denial of a claim for a minor dependent’s stay at a residential mental health treatment center that a health insurer said was not medically necessary.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a sports-based nonprofit organization’s petition to reconsider a December opinion affirming the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) decision to cancel trademarks containing the phrase “more than an athlete,” rejecting the petitioner’s contention that the panel had erred in multiple ways.
ATLANTA — Agreeing to en banc rehearing concerning a 40-year-old circuit precedent that two panel members had said “imposed a judicially-created and atextual administrative exhaustion requirement for fiduciary-breach and statutory claims under” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 27 vacated a ruling affirming dismissal of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) valuation case.