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WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Dec. 8 per curiam opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for writ of certiorari of a man who claims that physical therapy providers who refused to treat his severe back pain because of his HIV status discriminated against him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (RA) and reversed the judgment of a Louisiana state appeals court that found that physical therapy providers were immune from liability pursuant to COVID-19 pandemic health care declarations and the Louisiana Health Emergency Powers Act (LHEPA).
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. solicitor general argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 8 that Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which limited the president’s power to fire a Federal Trade Commission commissioner, is “an indefensible outlier” and “a decaying husk with bold and particularly dangerous pretensions.”
ST. PAUL, Minn. — In a 5-2 ruling concerning a warrantless buccal swab that was used for a DNA test, the Minnesota Supreme Court overruled a 1998 decision and partly overruled a 1985 decision, concluding in part that “neither the inevitable discovery nor the good-faith exceptions to the exclusionary rule apply.”
ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida on Dec. 5 denied a cyber and data risk insurer’s motion to dismiss an insured’s breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit arising from a 2024 data breach that caused interruption to its financial technology business, holding that the insured’s allegations are sufficient to survive the insurer’s motion to dismiss.
NEW YORK — Citing concerns regarding the authorship and content of an article on the safety of the herbicide Roundup that was published 25 years ago in a scientific journal, one of the publication’s editors in chief on Dec. 5 retracted the article, which had previously concluded “there is no potential for Roundup herbicide to pose a health risk to humans.” The editor said that the retraction is “based on several critical issues that are considered to undermine the academic integrity of this article and its conclusions.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In consolidated suits in which a District of Columbia federal judge determined that Google LLC violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, the judge on Dec. 5 issued an opinion and final judgment outlining prohibitory injunctions, including requiring Google not to condition the licensing of Google Play on the distribution or license “of any Google GenAI [emerging generative artificial intelligence] Product on any device sold in the United States.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel largely affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) findings of unpatentability of some computer file organization patent claims and patentability of other claims all challenged by Apple Inc.; however, the panel found in its Dec. 5 nonprecedential opinion that PTAB abused its discretion in finding that one of Apple’s petitions was not adequately explained.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 5 granted a petition by President Donald J. Trump and other federal government parties seeking a decision on the legality of an executive order (EO) Trump signed in January declaring that children born in the United States are not citizens when their mother is “unlawfully present in the United States” or their mother’s presence is “temporary” and their father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
RALEIGH, N.C.— The father of an unemancipated minor accused of going on shooting rampage that killed several people in a Raleigh neighborhood asked a North Carolina federal court on Dec. 4 to dismiss his homeowners insurer’s lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that it has no duty to defend and indemnify against the underlying action, arguing that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over him because the insurer failed to effect timely service of its complaint.
FORT WORTH, Texas — A federal judge in Texas on Dec. 4 held that fact issues preclude granting a commercial property insurer’s motion for supplemental summary judgment on a church insured’s claims for breach of contract and violations of the Texas Prompt Payment Claims Act, further denying the insured’s motion to reconsider an earlier ruling that dismissed its bad faith claims in a coverage dispute over hailstorm damage.
HAMMOND, Ind. — An Indiana federal judge on Dec. 4 denied motions to exclude expert testimony in a suit by Indiana and the U.S. government against a medical center and its owner alleging violations of the federal False Claims Act and similar state law regarding alleged fraudulent billing to Medicaid for urine drug screening tests, finding that the experts were qualified and used reliable methodology.