BOSTON — A Massachusetts appeals court on Jan. 15 held that a homeowners insurer owes no indemnification for an underlying $300,000 personal injury judgment, reversing a lower court in concluding that the man who the underlying judgment was awarded against is not a member of his grandmother’s household and, as a result, is not insured under the policy at issue.

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Jan. 15 granted in part and denied in part Crocs Inc.’s motion to dismiss a putative class action brought against it by consumers who say Crocs violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by representing Crocs-brand shoes as weather-resistant when they in fact can shrink due to heat, finding the plaintiffs insufficiently alleged their fraud-based claims.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — About four months after preliminarily approving a $30 million agreement that would settle invasion of privacy claims against YouTube LLC and Google LLC (Google, collectively) for the purported collection of minors’ personally identifiable information (PII) in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a California federal magistrate judge granted a final approval motion, ending the more than six-year-old class action.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Jan. 15 published a memorial on the merits by several U.S. companies that invested in a chartered island city in a Honduran special economic zone and are now bringing investment treaty claims against the Republic of Honduras for seeking to terminate their land-use rights, writing that they “would much prefer a constructive dialogue” but otherwise will seek $1.63 billion in compensation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 15 requested a response to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by physicians and other entities that questioned the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine seeking review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel opinion affirming the dismissal by a Washington federal court of the petitioners’ lawsuit alleging constitutional violations by the state in initiating disciplinary proceedings against the doctors for the publication of allegedly false views on COVID-19.

MINNEAPOLIS — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) are engaging in unconstitutional practices in Minnesota by stopping and questioning people they perceive to be Somali and Latino without “reasonable suspicion” of removability and arresting people without warrants and probable cause, three residents of Minnesota who are U.S. citizens allege in a Jan. 15 putative class complaint filed in a federal court in their state.

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 .