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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government can’t skip over the a trial court and go right to the appellate court requesting a stay after preliminary injunction was granted in a case seeking to halt the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a union representing federal workers and other groups argue in filings on March 31 and April 1 in both a trial court in the District of Columbia and the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
SHERMAN, Texas — A final rule by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that laboratory-developed testing services can be regulated as medical devices under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) exceeds the agency’s statutory authority, a Texas federal judge held March 31 and vacated the rule.
HOUSTON — A Texas federal bankruptcy judge on March 31 dismissed the Chapter 11 case of the latest Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff, Red River Talc LLC, after finding that the debtor’s plan of reorganization, which included a $9 billion asbestos trust, cannot be confirmed because voting on the plan cannot be certified due to irregularities and that the plan “contains impermissible nonconsensual third-party releases.”
DALLAS — A federal judge in Texas on March 31 dismissed a complaint brought by a group that focuses on access to public records against a Texas historical society that owns the copyrights associated with footage showing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, holding that the group failed to establish that the court has subject matter jurisdiction.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An application to vacate a temporary restraining order (TRO) and for administrative stay filed by the United States, President Donald J. Trump and other federal government officials and agencies in a class case over the removal of immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) should be denied by the U.S. Supreme Court as the TRO is not an appealable order and the federal government has not shown harm, the provisionally certified immigrant class argues in its April 1 opposition.
ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a March 31 per curiam opinion affirmed without rationale the order of a Minnesota federal court dismissing the lawsuit of a former hospital employee who was terminated for refusing to wear an N95 mask as required by hospital policy after accepting a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine.
SEATTLE — A Washington appeals court panel on March 31 held that a federally recognized Indian tribe did not state a claim that the COVID-19 virus caused “direct physical loss or damage” to its insured properties, affirming a lower court’s dismissal of the insured’s bad faith complaint arising from the pandemic.
GREENBELT, Md. — The same day a similar suit was dismissed without prejudice in a District of Columbia federal court, retirees beat a dismissal motion in another one of the recent set of putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs), with a Maryland federal judge ruling in their favor on March 28.
ST. LOUIS — The Securities and Exchange Commission has voted to end its defense of its rules requiring companies to disclose climate-related risks and greenhouse gas emissions and has informed the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that it is withdrawing its defense of the rules in a case brought against the SEC by several states challenging the rules and no longer authorizes SEC counsel to advance the arguments set forth in the commission’s brief, which was filed before the change in presidential administrations.
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 28 vacated the final judgment of a district court and remanded for a new trial after the lower court awarded over $28 million against a Texas vascular surgery practice in a qui tam suit alleging that it violated the federal False Claims Act (FCA) when billing Medicare for ultrasound services it did not yet perform.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Defendants won one of the first two rulings on dismissal motions in a recent set of similar putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs), with a District of Columbia federal judge on March 28 dismissing a case filed by Alcoa USA Corp. retirees on the grounds that they lack standing.