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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.
BOSTON — On the heels of a request to amend their complaint a fourth time in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Jan. 5 reduction of its recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11, physicians’ professional groups and others moved for a preliminary injunction to block the CDC from implementing or enforcing those changes, as well as its earlier announced changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women, the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns and other changes to established vaccine recommendations.
SAN FRANCISCO — A grant of class certification in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over alleged underpayment for out-of-network behavioral health treatment will stand after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 denied a petition for leave to file an interlocutory appeal that involves the question of whether underpayment of benefits for an ERISA plan is an injury sufficient for standing purposes.
RICHMOND, Va. — Resolving “two important questions” that both “concern what happens when a multiemployer pension plan submits a proof of claim for withdrawal liability in the bankruptcy of a contributing employer,” the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 affirmed summary judgment against an employer that withdrew from the multiemployer fund and its control group.
PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Jan. 26 imposed a $4,000 sanction on an attorney for submitting a motion with eight fake citations created by one of the “most premier and frequently utilized legal research tools” and ordered the attorney and local counsel to submit the ruling to various interested parties.
SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge on Jan. 26 ruled that a false advertising and unfair competition case filed by the maker of semaglutide drugs can move forward, finding that the complaint established standing and sufficiently alleges the elements of claims against the compounded drug seller.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida on Jan. 26 granted an insurer’s motion to dismiss an insured’s suit seeking coverage under her Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) as untimely, holding that the insured missed the government’s one-year deadline to file her breach of contract complaint “by a wide margin.”
DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 26 affirmed a lower court’s award of more than $17.3 million in attorney fees as part of a $52 million oil and gas royalty settlement on grounds that the trial court assessed the award’s reasonableness by weighing it using Oklahoma’s statutory factors and conducting a lodestar cross-check and there was no abuse of discretion.
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 26 vacated a preliminary injunction and remanded a putative class action filed against a county attorney by a Kentucky registered sex offender seeking to prevent enforcement of a Kentucky law requiring certain registered sex offenders to display their full legal name on their social media accounts, finding in part that the law at issue may cover conduct to which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not apply.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A federal judge in Michigan on Jan. 24 ruled in granting a motion to dismiss that the United States failed to establish ripeness and lacked subject matter jurisdiction to sue the state over claims that it violated the U.S. Constitution by threatening litigation against fossil fuel companies over their alleged liability in contributing to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.
RICHMOND, Va. — A North Carolina federal judge was wrong to reopen a videographer’s complaint against North Carolina and multiple elected officials, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Jan. 23; the panel said the judge failed to justify the reasons for applying a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 2021 decision that revived copyright infringement claims centering around images depicting the sunken remains of the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship.