BOSTON — The government and 12 intervenor states on Sept. 4 separately appealed a Massachusetts federal judge’s preliminary injunction blocking mandatory portions of the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) mail-in ballot final rule, issued under President Donald Trump’s March 31 Executive Order (EO) directing federal agencies to compile and share voter citizenship data from federal databases USPS to develop mail-in ballot requirements involving voter information, after the district court judge found the rule likely exceeded USPS’s statutory authority and unconstitutionally intruded on election regulation reserved to Congress and the states.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Sept. 4 denied an application filed by a Las Vegas casino asking to stay a mandate of an appellate court panel’s denial, pending a petition for a writ of certiorari, of a petition for review of a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision finding that the casino committed unfair labor practices when it rolled out a new benefits package before a union vote and ordering it to bargain with employees under NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., Inc.

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 4 held that a lower federal court’s July 22 order on remand stayed and administratively closed an insured’s breach of contract coverage lawsuit arising from Hurricane Ida pending arbitration and, therefore, the domestic and foreign insurers’ appeal of the lower court’s ruling compelling them to arbitration is moot.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a motion on Sept. 4 filed by the United States to participate as amicus curiae and for divided argument in an upcoming oral argument on whether federal law precludes state law claims for relief for alleged damages to infrastructure and resources caused by greenhouse gas emissions in a dispute between a group of oil and gas companies and two Colorado municipalities over the companies’ alleged contribution to climate change.

NEW YORK — New York municipalities suing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) over their alleged role in the opioid epidemic cannot prevent federal officer removal by disclaiming claims arising from the PBMs’ work for federal clients, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in a case presenting an issue of first impression, reversing orders by district courts to remand the cases to state court.

ST. LOUIS — A district court erred in determining that a second-level umbrella insurer owes coverage to an additional insured for underlying personal injury suits stemming from an oil and gas well explosion because an exception to the umbrella insurer’s pollution exclusion cannot be applied to provide coverage based on the additional insured’s failure to provide notice of the explosion within 21 days as required by the exception, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in vacating the lower court’s $25 million judgment against the insurer.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 4 denied a petition for rehearing of a divided court’s prior denial of a petition for writ of certiorari filed by a group of health care workers who sought review of whether a now-repealed New York COVID-19 vaccine regulation violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the U.S. Constitution.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 3 issued per curiam denials of the Argentine Republic’s petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc of a panel’s decision finding that a petition to enforce an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) award worth more than $390 million against it was timely under the District of Columbia’s 12-year statute of limitations for enforcement of money judgments.