Judge Dismisses Trump’s $10B Wall Street Journal Defamation Suit With Prejudice
MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on Oct. 31 dismissed with prejudice a suit filed by President Donald J. Trump seeking $10 billion in damages and alleging that he was defamed when the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published and then republished on the WSJ X account “to all 20,800,000 of its followers” a story on a purported “bawdy” card Trump allegedly sent to now-deceased Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, finding that Trump failed to plausibly allege that the defendants “acted with actual malice when they published an article in the Wall Street Journal linking him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
Bad Faith Claim Against Life Insurer Will Proceed, Utah Federal Judge Says
SALT LAKE CITY — A bad faith claim alleged against a life insurer following the denial of a beneficiary’s claim for accidental death benefits can proceed because the life insurer did not raise its primary argument regarding the bad faith in its motion to dismiss, a Utah federal judge said in partially denying the life insurer’s motion.
5th Circuit Reverses Grant Of Discovery For Foreign Patent Litigation
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Texas federal court’s decision to allow Motorola Mobility LLC and related parties to obtain a defendant-appellant’s patent purchase agreement for use in European patent litigation, holding that the court improperly required the defendant-appellant to disprove the foreign courts’ receptivity and gave insufficient weight to the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) earlier refusal to order the same discovery.
Missouri Jury Returns Verdict For Monsanto In Month-Long Glyphosate Injury Trial
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri jury on Oct. 29 returned a verdict in favor of Monsanto Co. on claims by three individuals who alleged that their or their decedents’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) was caused by use of Roundup products containing glyphosate; the verdict was filed nearly a week after a Missouri judge partially granted and partially denied Monsanto’s motion for directed verdict.
10th Circuit Again Revives Fired School Official’s Religious Bias Claims Over Play
DENVER — Following a different panel’s reversal of the dismissal of discrimination claims and remand of those claims filed by a Colorado high school assistant principal who was fired after citing religious beliefs when expressing reservations about the production of a play that was to be put on by students, a 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a summary judgment order and once again remanded the claims brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), finding that the record contains a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the school district’s stated reasons for firing him were pretextual.
Rescoring Settlement OK’d, Objections Overruled In Former NFL Players’ Suit
BALTIMORE — Overruling objections, a Maryland federal judge granted final approval to a class settlement implementing rescoring of neuropsychological test scores to resolve a suit former NFL players filed over what they alleged was “race-norming” of the scores used to determine whether they receive disability and related benefits.
Applicant’s Bartering Claims Patent Ineligible, Federal Circuit Says
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) properly affirmed an examiner’s rejection of an applicant’s proposed patent describing a method of exchanging gold and silver for electronically recorded purchasing value, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, because the proposed patent describes abstract economic concepts without a necessary inventive concept.
Stay Denied In Federal Suit Challenging H-1B Fee Policy As Agencies Appeal Vacatur
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge denied a motion filed by President Donald J. Trump and several federal agencies to stay proceedings in a case challenging the administration’s $100,000 payment requirement for certain H-1B worker visa petitions while an appeal of an order granting in part a preliminary injunction vacating the policies implementing the payment requirement and barring enforcement until the agencies conduct notice and comment rulemaking and required analyses under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) proceeds in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
Judge Dismisses All RICO Claims In FCA Suit Against Medical Center, Physicians
LYNCHBURG, Va. — A Virginia federal judge granted defendants’ motions to dismiss in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and False Claims Act (FCA) suit filed by whistleblower physicians against the University of Virginia Health System and related entities (collectively, UVA) and individuals claiming that the defendants demanded that physicians increase the cost of medical procedures through fraudulent billing, finding that the RICO claims against UVA were dismissed because of sovereign immunity and that those against the remaining defendants were dismissed for failure to state a claim.
Judge Issues TRO To Stop OMB, DHS From Airing Trump Political Ads
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Oct. 28 granted a motion by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and stayed the apportionment of $20 million for political ads in commemorative funds appropriated to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in the DNC’s suit against President Donald J. Trump, the White House Office and two government agencies, finding that the DNC is likely to succeed on its Administrative Procedure Act claim against the agencies.
7th Circuit: Copyright Claims Against NFL, Wisconsin Agency Properly Tossed
CHICAGO — In a short Oct. 28 order, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a Wisconsin federal judge’s decision to dismiss a man’s copyright infringement suit against the National Football League (NFL) and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, holding that the phrases the man used in Green Bay Packers-themed songs were unprotectable slogan-like phrases.