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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 17 to grant an individual’s petition for a writ of certiorari to determine whether the SEC is required to show that investors suffered pecuniary harm when asking for a disgorgement award, saying that “the question presented is recurring and important; and this case is a suitable vehicle for resolving the conflict.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A partly split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 17 reversed a Delaware federal judge’s ruling that a defendant-appellant car seat manufacturer infringed a patent describing a convertible car seat product and ordered a new trial on willful infringement because the judge abused discretion in excluding an email chain that allegedly contained evidence of willful infringement.
NEWARK, N.J. — A bad faith claim alleged against a general liability insurer cannot proceed because the claim is duplicative of the breach of contract claim and the insured failed to meet its burden of showing that the insurer “lacked a fairly debatable reason” for denying the insured’s claim for environmental contamination cleanup costs, a New Jersey federal judge said Dec. 17 in granting the insurer’s motion to dismiss the bad faith claim.
RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Dec. 17 dismissed in part and remanded an appeal of a lower court’s order amending a modified temporary restraining order (TRO) in insurers’ fraud and breach of contract suit against their former owner, insurance mogul Greg E. Lindberg, and related entities, regarding a memorandum of understanding (MOU), finding that the defendants failed to “cite appropriate authority” to enable the appellate court to determine if the lower court erred in extending the MOU beyond its “specified scope.”
CHICAGO — Three settlements totaling more than $5 million between turkey processors and commercial and institutional indirect purchasers (CIIPPs) were granted final approval by a federal judge in Illinois in a multiyear antitrust case, bringing the total approved settlements between purchasers and processors to more than $45 million.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arguing in part that the decision at issue “will likely result in the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to terminated pension plans that Congress intentionally excluded from” a special financial assistance (SFA) program, the U.S. solicitor general filed a certiorari petition on behalf of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) urging the U.S. Supreme Court to “grant review without awaiting the development of a circuit conflict.”
GULFPORT, Miss. — A Mississippi federal judge dismissed a complaint brought by industry associations, a distributor and retailers claiming that a new Mississippi vape directory law that will ban the sale of e-cigarettes containing synthetic nicotine is unconstitutional, finding that the plaintiffs lack standing because the products they wish to sell are not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and “there is no legally protected interest to commit a crime.”
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On Dec. 16, a federal judge in Florida adopted the report and recommendations of a magistrate judge that an insurer’s action against its insured subcontractor seeking a declaration that it owed no coverage to the subcontractor in an underlying construction-defect lawsuit be dismissed for lack of Article III jurisdiction.
ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 16 affirmed a lower court ruling granting summary judgment in favor of an insurer in a dispute over the insurer’s rescission of a homeowner’s policy due to “fraud” and misrepresentations regarding questions in the policy application, finding that the lower court ruled correctly in finding that the insurer “properly rescinded” the policy due to misrepresentations about a foreclosed property.
ATLANTA — Saying, “No circuit has reached a contrary conclusion,” the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals became the seventh circuit court to rule that an arbitration provision is unenforceable because it barred “effective vindication” of statutory Employee Retirement Income Security Act rights; the putative class action at hand concerns an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and an advocacy organization filed October 2024 amicus curiae briefs supporting application of the effective vindication doctrine.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 16 affirmed a California federal judge’s dismissal of a technology company’s patent infringement suit against a competitor, agreeing that the plaintiff-appellant failed to show that the accused peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming product met a required claim limitation.