AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court on May 8 conditionally granted mandamus relief to relator insurers, holding that a lower court abused its discretion in denying the insurers’ motion to compel appraisal of their insureds’ flood damage loss to a food distribution warehouse because the record amply establishes that the parties’ disagreement is at least partly about the insureds’ amount of loss.

SALEM, Ore. — The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed an appellate court and upheld its reversal of a county circuit court’s ruling in favor of vape and hookah business owners blocking a county ban of flavored tobacco sales, opining that the Oregon state law regulating tobacco sales does not bar counties from enacting their own regulations on tobacco sales.

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court on May 8 reversed an appellate court in part and held that oral nicotine pouches satisfy the state tax code’s definition of tobacco products because the products’ powdered composition including nontobacco matter and nicotine isolate is a taxable “tobacco substitute” and remanded the pouch-maker’s constitutional challenge to the tax code for further review.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An individual subjected to federal surveillance warrants tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a May 7 letter that he has settled and will release his claims against the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI but is not seeking dismissal of his petition for a writ of certiorari against former FBI personnel in his suit alleging unlawful surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) arising from the FBI’s 2016 investigation of claimed links between Donald Trump campaign members and the Russian government.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The manufacturers of mifepristone, one of two drugs used to induce early termination of pregnancy, are not entitled to a stay or vacatur of a decision by the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that granted Louisiana’s motion to stay the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 decision that removed the in-person dispensing requirement for the drug because there is not a reasonable probability that the court will grant certiorari, Louisiana tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a May 8 response to the applications for a stay.

DENVER — A Colorado federal magistrate judge on May 7 granted in part a motion to compel discovery of certain text messages sent by a woman whose company sued its business owner’s insurer for breach of contract for its purported failure to cover a claim for fire damage to her retail store, finding in part that privacy considerations related to the text messages are outweighed by the need to view them in connection with an arson investigation related to the fire.

SAN FRANCISCO — A split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Igloo Products Corp. on a federal false advertising claim against it, with the panel majority saying that Igloo’s claim that it had created the “first biodegradable cooler” was not a comment on the nature of the product itself and thus not actionable under the Lanham Act.

CINCINNATI — Saying in part that the administrator of a long-term disability (LTD) plan “adequately considered the evidence . . . and arrived at a reasoned decision,” a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 7 affirmed judgment against a project director who stopped working because of symptoms she attributed to long COVID, was denied LTD benefits and then unsuccessfully asserted breach of contract and bad faith claims; the panel also affirmed the lower court’s denial of the claimant’s requests for both broad and limited discovery.