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MIAMI — An expert for Walgreens Co. who opined that a woman who fell in a store may have had a seizure due to alcohol withdrawal was improperly excluded, a Florida appeals court held Jan. 14, reversing a more than $5 million verdict in a slip-and-fall case and remanding the case for a new trial.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. senator and retired Navy captain who was issued a censure letter and faces a deduction in his retirement pay for making public statements labeled as “sedition” and “treason” about servicemembers' legal obligations to disregard federal orders sued the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy and their respective secretaries in federal court in the District of Columbia alleging violations of the First Amendment and breach of other constitutional rights .
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Supreme Court on Jan. 14 vacated a lower court’s ruling summarily denying sanctions and directed it to enter an order to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed on the district attorney of Nevada County for allegedly submitting briefing on a man’s bail tainted with artificial intelligence errors.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Jan. 14 opinion, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that the claims of a pet food company’s packaging container patent application were unpatentable as obvious.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) was right to refuse a design entity’s request to register a trademark for the phrase “Sazerac Stitches” because the mark is confusingly similar to registered mark “Sazerac,” a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The U.S. government on Jan. 14 sued the state of California in California federal court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing that a state law that restricts oil and gas drilling “effectively nullifies vested federal lease rights” and is invalid because it constitutes an obstruction that is “contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a short opinion issued Jan. 14, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s entry of summary judgment of noninfringement to Apple Inc. in a patent infringement suit brought against it by another technology entity, agreeing that Apple’s accused product does not meet claim limitations required under the judge’s unchallenged claim constructions.
NEW YORK — Saying a separate order would follow regarding the pending motion for attorney fees and costs in the long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit over residual annuities (RAs), a New York federal judge on Jan. 14 granted final approval to a $332 million class settlement the plaintiffs said will “yield the 1,177 Class members an average net settlement benefit of almost $200,000” even if the fees and costs are awarded as requested.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida on Jan. 14 held that when a condominium building owner insured neglected to submit a signed and sworn proof of loss for its alleged additional damages caused by Hurricane Ian, it failed to satisfy a nonnegotiable condition precedent under its Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) and “a stack of invoices” or a “belief that the insurer knew enough” cannot “substitute for the strict compliance that federal law demands.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 14 requested an employer’s response to a certiorari petition concerning a decision the petitioner says “encourages a cascade of litigation over the enforceability of arbitral awards”; the challenged 2-1 appeals court ruling affirmed vacatur of an award that resulted from pro se arbitration over severance pay and concerned an Employee Retirement Income Security Act discrimination claim that the majority concluded the claimant never raised.
NEW YORK — An Employee Retirement Income Security Act case squarely focused on using forfeited nonvested matching retirement funds to reduce company contributions would be resolved under a $9.6 million class settlement that won preliminary approval in a New York federal court on Jan. 13.