FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida on July 6 dismissed with prejudice a pro se plaintiff’s copyright infringement claims against pop singer Taylor Swift and related entities, finding that any alleged overlaps between the plaintiff’s poetry and Swift’s lyrics were unprotectable ideas, themes, metaphors, words and short phrases, and that the complaint still did not plausibly plead unlawful copying.

SEATTLE — The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP), an internal vetting policy implemented in 2008, will be rescinded pursuant to a class settlement reached in a nearly decade-long case over the vetting process that was found by a federal court in Washington to have been adopted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.

TUCSON, Ariz. — An insurer owes no duty to cover a bodily injury claim filed against an insured health club by a club member who contracted Legionnaires’ disease in the club’s sauna because the policy’s fungi or bacteria exclusion clearly applies as a bar to coverage, an Arizona federal magistrate judge said July 6 in recommending that the insurer’s motion for summary judgment be granted.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a July 6 ruling, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said that a settlement agreement in a patent infringement dispute mooted the plaintiff-appellant’s appeal of a New York federal judge’s finding that the patent claims at issue were invalid as abstract.

PIERRE, S.D. — The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment for Viva Capital Trust but reversed in part the cost award to Viva in a dispute with an estate claiming that a $10 million life insurance policy, initially owned by the decedent’s trust, was an illegal stranger-originated life insurance (STOLI) policy, finding in part that a later transfer of the policy was not unlawful and that when the policy was issued, the benefits were payable to an individual with an insurable interest in the insured’s life.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge on July 2 granted in part class certification and a motion for a preliminary injunction in a putative class action against the U.S. Department of Justice and a California children’s hospital seeking to stop the DOJ from obtaining patient records related to gender-affirming care as evidence of purported violations of the False Claims Act (FCA), finding that provisional class certification and injunction apply to a specific subclass because the plaintiffs failed to establish the commonality and typicality requirements under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the statewide class.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Following a bench trial, a California federal judge ruled in favor of an insurer who sought reimbursement of legal costs that an insured obtained in defending against a suit accusing him of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by posting fake Craigslist ads under a business competitor’s name purportedly seeking sexual encounters, finding that the insured’s conduct was excluded from coverage because it was willful and intentional.

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted in part a car seat maker’s motion to dismiss a putative class action accusing it of falsely advertising the safety of its products in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), finding that the manufacturer’s recall and redesign of defective seats do not support claims that it affirmatively misrepresented its products’ safety but allowing omission-based claims to proceed.