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BURLINGTON, Vt. — Granting judgment on the administrative record against a claimant who unsuccessfully sought short-term and long-term disability (STD and LTD) benefits due to symptoms he attributed to long COVID despite being awarded disability benefits by the Social Security Administration (SSA), a Vermont federal judge on Feb. 20 said she found “no evidence that Plaintiff was intentionally deceitful” but concluded that he “is not a reliable source of information due to his conflicting statements, self-described poor memory, psychiatric symptoms, and extensive marijuana use.”
LOS ANGELES — A putative class complaint challenging the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles during which individuals in publicly accessible places are being stopped and asked about their legal status based on the location, type of work being done, language being spoken, accent and race or ethnicity may largely continue, a federal judge in California ruled, rejecting as “false” the federal government’s portrayal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case.
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that the record does not indicate that the only finding that a reasonable jury could have reached was one in favor of an insurer in a breach of contract lawsuit arising from the insured’s roof damage caused by a snowstorm, concluding that the insurer’s arguments on appeal “fall short of that high bar.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Delaware federal judge wrongly concluded that a patent’s claims involving genetically engineered cultured host cells containing a recombinant nucleic acid molecule were directed to a natural phenomenon, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Feb. 20.
PHOENIX — The Arizona federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s implanted port catheter (IPC) device on Feb. 20 ruled that certain opinions offered by experts retained by the plaintiffs are inadmissible.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A district court erred in finding that a commercial general liability insurer has no duty to defend or to contribute to the defense of its insured named in an underlying chemical exposure suit because the policies’ pollution exclusion does not bar coverage based on the allegations in the underlying suit, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Feb. 20 in reversing and remanding the court’s summary judgment ruling.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 23 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a group of oil and gas companies that were sued by two Colorado cities for contributing to climate change asking whether federal law precludes state law claims for relief for alleged damages to infrastructure and resources by contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A retiree’s widow, public policy group Manhattan Institute (the Institute) and several law professors are among the amici curiae that filed briefs on Feb. 19 urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari and reverse a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA) “was not a physical taking and plaintiffs did not prove it was a regulatory taking” and therefore the attempt by a certified class of retirees to get federal compensation for cuts made to their vested pension benefits failed.
NEW YORK — Calling a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in early February “not only legally incorrect but equitably devastating,” a financial services company insured’s liquidating trust filed a petition for rehearing of the panel’s holding that a professional liability insurance policy’s fee exclusion bars coverage for the insured’s liability in two underlying class actions alleging that certain mortgage loan fees were unlawful and that the insured was derivatively liable under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act.
NEW YORK — Resolving what it said was “a split between two district courts in our Circuit” and saying the “case presents a novel legal question in this and other Circuits,” the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 18 affirmed an interpretation of the phrase “unfunded vested benefits” in the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA) that reduced withdrawal liability from $1.8 million to zero for an exit caused by employees’ decision to switch unions.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A litany of environmental advocacy groups and 18 youths from across the country filed petitions in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 18 challenging a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency final action published in the Federal Register the same day that rescinded Obama-era greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution regulations for engines and vehicles.