(California Court of Appeal) - Affirming the dismissal of a shareholder derivative action filed in California because the forum selection provision on the company's certificate of incorporation designated Delaware as the forum for shareholder derivative actions.

(NY Supreme Court) - 2018–11536 (Index No. 51923/17)

(NY Supreme Court) - 2019–09206 Index No. 604223/16

(NY Supreme Court) - 528980

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Certified Question. The panel certified the question of state law to the Nevada Supreme Court asking whether an insurer is entitled reimbursement of costs already expended in defense of its insured where a determination has been made that the insurer owed no duty to defend and there was an agreement requiring reimbursement, but with no reservation of rights.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed. A subcontractor did not owe a duty to indemnify a company for its expenditures in labor and materials in a construction project.

(California Court of Appeal) - Affirmed. Plaintiff was cited for wage and hour violations. Plaintiff contended that it could require its employees to work “on-duty” meal periods less than 30 minutes. The appeals court found that an employer must provide meal periods of at least 30 minutes regardless of whether they are on-duty or off-duty.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed. The court affirmed the dismissal of a suit claiming race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII in the firing of a deputy clerk of a city that was part of a group of layoffs intended to offset a budget shortfall. The plaintiff failed to present a genuine issue of material fact that her race was the motivating factor in her termination or that there was a causal connection between an EEOC complaint and the termination.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed the convictions and sentences of a husband and wife in connection with attempted tax evasion and filing false tax returns.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - On reconsideration, held that a taxpayer had 60, not 30, days to file his notice of appeal from an order finding him in contempt of court for failure to fully comply with an Internal Revenue Service summons. Withdrew a prior order dismissing his appeal.

(United States DC Circuit) - Held that a Switzerland-based financial firm could proceed with a tax refund claim. The firm sought a $38 million refund under a U.S.-Swiss treaty that deals with the tax on dividends paid by U.S. corporations and received by foreign shareholders. Reversed the district court's ruling that the refund claim raised a nonjusticiable political question.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed a restitution order against a defendant who was convicted of preparing false tax returns for clients.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Held that the Internal Revenue Service failed to comply with its statutory obligation to provide reasonable notice to a taxpayer who was being audited in advance of subpoenaing records from a third party in connection with the audit. Affirmed an order quashing the subpoena.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed a probation-only sentence imposed on a law enforcement officer who was convicted of tax evasion and filing false income tax returns. The government had appealed the sentence as substantively unreasonable.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reversed a judgment in favor of taxpayers in a tax refund action. Remanded with instructions to dismiss because the taxpayers had not filed a timely claim for a refund with the Internal Revenue Service, in this case involving the so-called mailbox rule.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Appeals court affirmed district court's decision that the federal tax lien was enforceable even though it had errors on the document. The appeals court held that even with the errors there was adequate notice of the lien, because it conformed to the IRS code.

(United States Supreme Court) - Clarified the limits of a State's power to tax a trust. Struck down a North Carolina requirement that a trust must pay income tax to the State whenever the trust's beneficiaries live in the State -- regardless of whether the beneficiaries have received, can demand, or will ever receive a distribution of trust income. Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court, in this due process challenge brought by a family trust.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Upheld federal tax penalties imposed on a company for failing to disclose its participation in a so-called listed transaction. Affirmed summary judgment against the company's tax refund claim, unpersuaded by procedural due process and other arguments.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Convictions against defendant, an attorney convicted of money laundering while representing a client charged with receiving stolen property, are affirmed where: 1) the prosecutor's failure to correct a grand jury witnesses' false testimony as to his motives for cooperating and failure to disclose impeachment evidence to the grand jury do not constitute structural error requiring automatic reversal; and 2) the prosecution's ex parte request that the district court decide in camera whether the government witness's informant activity needed to be disclosed at trial was not improper.

(United States Second Circuit) - In a putative class action challenging on First Amendment grounds New York's rules, regulations, and statutes prohibiting non‐attorneys from investing in law firms, alleging that the infusions of additional capital which the regulations now prevent would enable plaintiffs to improve the quality of the legal services that they offer and at the same time to reduce their fees, expanding their ability to serve needy clients, the district court's dismissal of the complaint is affirmed where plaintiffs fail to allege the infringement of any cognizable constitutional right.

(United States Supreme Court) - In a criminal case in which defendant was advised by counsel to plead guilty to possessing ecstasy with intent to distribute, an 'aggravated felony' that subjected defendant to removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. section 1101(a)(43)(B), the sentence and conviction are vacated where defendant has demonstrated that he was prejudiced by his counsel's erroneous advice that he would not be deported as a result of pleading guilty.

(United States Second Circuit) - Denying the appeal of a judge convicted of 21 counts of public-corruption-related offenses, finding that subsequent decisions narrowing the interpretation of an 'official act' within the meaning of the federal bribery statute did not result in a plain error in the district court's instructions at trial.

(United States Third Circuit) - Reversing the pre-discovery dismissal of a wrongful termination claim filed by an in-house patent attorney against their former employer, L'Oreal, alleging that he was terminated for his refusal to violate ethical rules on their behalf because, as the court put it, his allegations were more than skin-deep.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirming the denial of a petition arguing that the petitioner's attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel when they conceded that charges were timely under the applicable statute of limitations before the trial where they were convicted of sexually abusing their daughter, but the court felt that counsel's decision to forego statutes of limitations arguments was not objectively unreasonable.

(United States First Circuit) - In a civil procedure action, the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's case after his attorney failed to appear at a scheduled motion hearing is reversed for abuse of discretion where there was no suggestion of intentional failure to appear, no prior neglect by counsel to appear, the district court gave no notice that failure to appear would result in dismissal with prejudice, and plaintiff's claims would be left without a single merits determination.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - Determining that the sentencing court in a criminal case did not plainly err in designating a defendant a career offender did not mean that trial counsel was ineffective by failing to object to that designation because the standards for review of the decisions do not necessarily result in equivalent outcomes, but that in the present case the failure to do so resulted in ineffective assistance and the sentence was vacated and the case remanded for resentencing.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirming the district court's grant of summary judgment that although Apple and a group of major publishers committed an unlawful antitrust conspiracy there was no antitrust injury that resulted.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirming the district court's grant of summary judgment that although Apple and a group of major publishers committed an unlawful antitrust conspiracy there was no antitrust injury that resulted.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirming the district court's decision to dismiss the plaintiff's claims under Massachusetts law for libel and intentional interference, affirming the grant of summary judgment to the defendant on the remaining claims, and affirming the award of attorney fees and costs to the defense in a case where an attorney was the subject of two negative reports because the law immunized the defense for many of the complaints.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirming the district court's judgment in favor of the defense and its denial of plaintiff motions to reopen discovery and for relief from judgment in an action challenging a jail's policy prohibiting the delivery of unsolicited commercial mail to inmates because the ban related to legitimate penological objectives and arguments supporting the plaintiff's appeals had been abandoned.

(United States First Circuit) - Reversing a district court decision relating to the release of private individuals' medical documents under the Freedom of Information Act in a case brought by a journalist conducting research because the balancing of public interest in disclosure and the relevant privacy interests was flawed due to the court's application of the wrong standard because the release of the documents was unlikely to advance a valid public interest and substantial privacy interests implicated by the records outweighed the interest in disclosure.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the dismissal of a wireless company's complaints for lack of jurisdiction under the Tucker Act in the case of a company whose failure to pay for spectrum licenses resulted in their automatic cancellation by the FCC because the Communications Act provided a comprehensive statutory scheme to raise contract claims, which foreclosed Tucker Act jurisdiction.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - Affirming in part, reversing in part, and remanding a case alleging copyright infringement seeking to hold a high-speed internet provider contributorily responsible for infringement of a music publisher's copyrights, affirming the trial court's determination that the defense was not entitled to a safe harbor defense, but reversing, vacating, and remanding on account of errors in jury instructions.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed the dismissal of class action employment law claims brought by independent contractors working for the government-funded broadcast service Voice of America. The contractors alleged that they should have been appointed to positions in the civil service or retained through personal-services contracts instead of working under purchase order vendor contracts that provided less in the way of compensation and benefits. In affirming the dismissal, the Federal Circuit agreed with the trial court's finding that plaintiffs had set forth no viable theory of recovery.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirmed that the U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Track and Field did not violate antitrust law by imposing advertising restrictions during the Olympic Trials. A chewing gum company that wished to pay to display its logo on athletes' apparel brought this suit to challenge the advertising restrictions. Rejecting the company's arguments, the Ninth Circuit held that the defendant organizations were entitled to implied antitrust immunity on the basis that their advertising restrictions were integral to performance of their duties under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that the U.S. government was justified in refusing to release certain photographs of detainees taken by U.S. Army personnel at military detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations demanded that the photographs be released under the Freedom of Information Act. The government countered that the photographs were shielded from disclosure by a 2009 law, the Protected National Security Documents Act. Agreeing with the government, the Second Circuit reversed the district court's order granting summary judgment for the plaintiffs and remanded with directions to enter judgment for the government.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that the district court should have abstained from exercising jurisdiction over a lawsuit contending that the First Amendment required the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, to release newly filed complaints to the press at the moment of receipt by her office -- not after processing. Ordered the case dismissed without prejudice.

(United States DC Circuit) - In a Freedom of Information Act case, held that the presidential communications privilege barred disclosure of five memoranda memorializing advice to President Obama about a military strike on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. Affirmed a summary judgment ruling.

(United States DC Circuit) - Held that the federal government could not block a proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. The government had sued to enjoin the vertical merger on the basis that it would have anticompetitive effects. However, the D.C. Circuit agreed with the district court's conclusion that the government's evidence was insufficient, and affirmed the denial of a permanent injunction.

(United States Second Circuit) - Revived a media company's claim that a popular website infringed its copyright in certain photographs of famous celebrities. The website, which enables users to create and share digital photo collages, has a clipper tool that lets users clip images from other websites. Reversed summary judgment in relevant part, in this case involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reversed in part, affirmed in part. Plaintiffs have standing for a Freedom of Information Act claim because the removal of compliance and enforcement records from the USDA website harmed them in real-world ways, differently from the injuries sustained by other Americans.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - In a complex matter which began more than fifteen years ago as a bid-rigging scheme conjured up by shipping businesses to defraud the United States, the District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant is vacated where the court erred by: 1) deciding that the successor corporation liability claims against defendant should be dismissed because they had been inadequately pleaded; and 2) ruling that there was insufficient evidence to justify a trial.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reversing a district court judgment to the plaintiffs following a bench trail in an action under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendment Act because the plaintiffs were required to assume the unpaid withdrawal liability of their predecessor to a multiemployer pension plan, a constructive notice standard applied and a reasonable purchaser would have been aware of the liability.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the US Court of Federal Claims dismissal of a company's action seeking refunds for losses and deductions its predecessor company allegedly should have received for certain intangible assets acquired from the federal government in the 1980s because the court's findings that the company failed to establish with a reasonable degree of certainty the cost basis in each of the assets at issue was not clearly erroneous.

(United States Federal Circuit) - In a brought suit against the U.S. claiming that two federal government agencies selling electricity over-charged appellants for electricity, the Federal Claims Court dismissal for lack of standing is affirmed where plaintiffs lack privity of contract or any other relationship with the government that would confer standing.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a petition for review challenging an Objection Letter sent by the EPA regarding draft permits for water reclamation plants in El Monte and Pomona, California, the petition is dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction where neither 33 U.S.C. section 1369(b)(1)(E) nor (F) of the Clean Water Act provided the court with subject matter jurisdiction to review the Objection Letter.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirming the dismissal of an action by a private energy company against the utility companies because the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act does not provide a private right of action against utility companies and affirming the denial of a motion for additional relief against various Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities officials because the court did not abuse its discretion in doing so.

(California Court of Appeal) - Affirming the denial of an administrative writ and declaratory relief in the case of a Pacific Gas and Electric Company lease extension on two long term leases on land used for water intake and discharge for a nuclear power plant because the lease replacement was subject to the existing facilities categorical exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act's environmental impact report requirement and the unusual circumstances exception did not apply.

(United States Third Circuit) - Reversed a ruling that the City of Philadelphia unconstitutionally uses liens as a means to collect unpaid gas bills. In this lawsuit brought by a group of landlords, the City appealed from a ruling that it had violated the landlords' rights under the Due Process Clause by using a system of liens to collect unpaid gas bills. On appeal, the Third Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the City's procedures for collecting gas debts, and thus reversed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the landlords.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Held that the federal government was time-barred from seeking civil penalties against two electric power companies that allegedly violated the Clean Air Act by failing to obtain a statutorily mandated preconstruction permit for the modification of their facilities. Also held, however, that the government still could pursue injunctive relief, and thus reversed the dismissal of the government's complaint in relevant part.