DENVER — Resolving cross-appeals filed after the class in an early retirement benefits dispute concerning a multiemployer fund obtained a judgment in the amount of $24,851,056, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 29 revived fiduciary breach claims asserted by 66 boilermakers but otherwise affirmed the trial court.

PITTSBURGH —  Ruling on what he called an issue of first impression concerning the constitutionality of the Internal Revenue Code’s (IRC) 15% prepayment requirement, a Pennsylvania federal judge denied renewed motions for dismissal and for summary judgment filed by a Pittsburgh-based corporation challenging more than $6.5 million in promoter penalties tied to a purported captive insurance program, applying in part a constitutional originalism analysis of the Seventh Amendment to determine that the requirement does not violate the right to a jury trial because it is analogous to founding-era requirements that parties whose assets are at risk post security before trial.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigration detainees and the state of Washington filed supplemental briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 29 opposing arguments made by the United States in an amicus curiae brief supporting a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the operator of immigration detention centers, which is asking the high court to decide whether the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause permits a state to find that detainees participating in a voluntary work program are employees who are owed state-mandated minimum wages.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court majority on Sept. 29 granted an application by federal government parties and stayed a February ruling by a federal court in Massachusetts that declared the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s March 2025 third-country removals policy “unlawful”; the high court also treated the application by DHS and others as a petition for a writ of certiorari, granted it and directed the parties to provide briefs addressing jurisdiction, classwide declaratory relief and the lawfulness of the federal government’s guidance.

HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut appeals court on Sept. 29 affirmed a lower court’s ruling dismissing a suit against Connecticut Attorney General William M. Tong and another state official alleging that the issuance of a press release regarding a settlement of a False Claims Act (FCA) suit violated the state and federal constitutional rights of a dentist and his practice, finding that the plaintiffs failed to establish any state-imposed burden beyond reputational harm.

WASHINGTON, D.C. —Qualcomm Inc. tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a Sept. 28 brief that it should deny Federal Express Corp.’s petition for a writ of certiorari, arguing that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was correct to hold that it was barred from reviewing whether Qualcomm identified all real parties in interest in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB); on Sept. 29, a technology company filed an amicus curiae brief in support of FedEx, urging the court to hear FedEx’s arguments.

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in a Sept. 28 opinion that a lawsuit filed by Washington against a gold mine owner and its parent company alleging liability under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for discharging pollutants from the mine into ground and surface waters in violation of permit limits is not barred by claim preclusion, reversing and remanding a federal judge’s grant of judgment on the pleadings after the defendants entered into a consent decree with an environmental group.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A majority of a divided District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said petitions for review involving artificial intelligence raise “profoundly difficult questions” but ultimately determined that the government had ample reasons to conclude that continued integration of Anthropic PBC’s Claude AI product posed a national security and supply-chain risk.