The Supreme Court started the current term in October with a docket that could have a lasting impact on politics and culture, including major cases on partisan gerrymandering and LGBT rights, but six months later, the justices haven’t crossed off much on their to-do list, points out Todd Ruger for Roll Call.

That situation will result in some big decisions being handed down in the short time remaining before the end of the term in June.

“Speculation is rampant about what’s going on behind closed doors on some of the big cases — such as one about arbitration that was argued on the first day of the term in October,” writes Ruger. “Some legal experts say the court seems to be feeling out a new dynamic with Justice Neil Gorsuch in his first full term.”

He quotes Adam Feldman, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia Law School and creator of a high court statistics blog, Empirical SCOTUS, as saying some recent decisions had fractured the justices, with each seemingly wanting to have their own say, which “shows they’re having trouble finding that point of consensus not along ideological grounds.”

Read the Roll Call article.

A New York federal jury awarded 10 former and current employees of a Long Island company $5.1 million because the company was found to have forced them to practice certain religious activities, reports The Washington Post.

Post contributor Gene Marks writes that the EEOC suit alleged that United Health Programs of America employees were being forced to follow an internal “Harnessing Happiness” system started by an aunt of the owners in 2007 that required them to engage in activities such as prayers, religious workshops and “spiritual cleansing rituals.”

“Nine employees said the ‘religiously infused atmosphere’ created a hostile work environment for them, and the jury agreed,” according to Marks. “The same jury also found that another employee was fired for opposing the practices. A judge had previously ruled that the Harnessing Happiness system — which was also known as ‘Onionhead’ — constituted a religion.”

Read the Post article.

A Missouri ruling is likely to end a contentious nine-year dispute between a local activist who claims that Husch Blackwell LLP, an AmLaw 100 firm — used the legal system to squelch his speech rights, according to Bloomberg Law.

Reporter Samson Habte explains that the court’s April 23 opinion highlights the difficulty of proving two types of tort claim — malicious prosecution and abuse of process — that disgruntled litigants could try to use to turn the tables on opposing parties and their lawyers.

The dispute started when John T. Impey ran for a school board seat  and campaigned against a $3 million bond proposal that L.J. Hart & Co. and its owner, Larry Joe Hart, underwrote. Husch Blackwell brought defamation and tortious interference lawsuit against Impey on Hart’s behalf.

The firm obtained a preliminary injunction that prohibited Impey from repeating some accusations against Hart; but when the campaign ended — and the bond initiative failed — Husch Blackwell advised Hart to drop the defamation case.

Read the Bloomberg article.

In a blog post, John McFarland of Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody discusses a lawsuit over a petroleum lease dispute that led to a claim under Texas’ Anti-SLAPP statute.

He explains that a SLAPP is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” a suit intended to censor or intimidate critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

The case involves the dispute over whether a petroleum company’s oil and gas lease had expired. When the property owner filed a suit for trespass, the production company filed counterclaims for breach of the lease. The property owner filed a motion to dismiss the counterclaims under the anti-SLAPP statute.

An appellate court found that the property owner had waived its right to protection under the anti-SLAPP statute because it agreed in the lease not to sue before giving prior notice and an opportunity to cure.

Read the article.

One of a court’s most frequent tasks is interpreting ambiguous contracts created by the use of ambiguous language in contracts; however, by the time a court is deciding the issue, costly litigation may have taken years, write Richard Raysman and Elliot Magruder for Holland & Knight.

In a post for the firm’s Ditigal Technology & E-Commerce Blog, they discuss a recent case in which parties to a software development and license agreement confronted this unfortunate truth, and both left unsatisfied.

In Apacheta Corp. v. Lincare, Inc., Apacheta sued for breach of contract in claiming that Lincare’s termination violated the right-to-cure provision because Lincare neither provided notice of breach nor a cure period.

Read the article.

Seyfarth Shaw has some advice for franchisor when considering their legal strategy in “no-hire” agreement class actions: franchisor employers should assess whether the joint employer risk is worth accepting in order to pursue the single-enterprise defense.”

In its Workplace Class Action Blog, the firm discusses class actions claiming that provisions contained in franchise agreements prohibiting the hiring of employees of other intrabrand franchisees without the consent of their employer violate the antitrust laws.

The authors discuss the single-enterprise defense, potential joint employer liability, and other defenses.

Read the article.

DePuy Orthopaedics and Johnson & Johnson will get a new trial after the previous one in 2016 ended with the companies having to pay $151 million in damages to five plaintiffs with alleged hip replacement injuries, reports the SE Texas Record.

The Fifth Circuit found that plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier’s “deceptions furnish independent grounds for a new trial” that centered on Pinnacle artificial hips and that the trial court allowed the Houston lawyer to introduce “inflammatory character evidence.”

David Yates reports that Lanier told the Record he thought the opinion was “interesting” and that the legal reasoning upholding the various actions against Depuy and J&J are strong and important and will help all future cases.

Lanier said he thought the court misunderstood the issues of monetary representations about the doctors. He added that he plans to seek a retrial.

Read the Record‘s article.

Bloomberg Law reports that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an administrative review system that has helped Google Inc., Apple Inc. and other companies invalidate hundreds of issued patents.

The 7-2 court found that a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review board that critics call a patent “death squad” wasn’t unconstitutionally wielding powers that belong to the courts.

Reporters Greg Stohr and Susan Decker provide background: “Silicon Valley companies have used the system as a less-expensive way to ward off demands for royalties, particularly from patent owners derided as “trolls” because they don’t use their patents to make products. Drugmakers and independent inventors complain that it unfairly upends what they thought were established property rights.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Last week, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit against the Russian Federation and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for a “brazen attack on American Democracy” in the 2016 presidential election.

The lawsuit accuses Russian intelligence of hacking into the DNC’s computer system and stealing information to use to its advantage, including interfering in the 2016 presidential election. WikiLeaks, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump campaign are also named as defendants.

In a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing, Dallas attorney David Coale of Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst says the lawsuit has a lot of interesting points, but doesn’t think it will survive long-term judicial scrutiny.

“It’s flashy, but it’s hard to imagine it going very far. Civil cases are often stayed while criminal investigations are ongoing – like Mueller’s – and the damages are not obvious. But the lawsuit does force everyone to keep the DNC in the loop while everything else unfolds.”

Meritas will present a webinar titled “When #MeToo Means #YouToo: What to do when you’re in the sexual harassment hot seat.”

The event will be Wednesday, May 2, 2018, at 1 p.m. CDT.

“The #MeToo movement has many employers uncertain about the best ways to protect themselves from sexual harassment complaints and the right way to respond after a complaint has been made,” the firm says on its website. “This seminar will explore how our definitions of sexual harassment have evolved in the age of #MeToo and the misconceptions that have formed around this issue.”

“Participants will come away with actionable advice they can put to use to avoid the damage that such claims can create, not just in terms of liability but also in workplace culture, employee attraction and retention.”

Register for the webinar.

A federal judge’s ruling means Facebook could face billions of dollars in damages if the court finds the company violated Illinois residents’ privacy rights with its facial tagging feature, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Reporter Ally Marotti explains that the potential penalty stems from a federal lawsuit filed in Illinois in 2015 that alleges the social media giant violated a state law protecting residents’ biometric information, such as data from facial, fingerprint and iris scans. Illinois has one of the strictest biometric privacy laws in the nation.

Facebook has argued that if its collection of biometric information did not harm individuals, they do not have grounds to sue under Illinois’ biometrics law. But the judge in the case determined that an alleged invasion of privacy was injury enough to allow users to sue.

Read the Tribune article.

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge has denied a law firm’s request to be added as an administrator of the NFL’s estimated $1 billion concussion settlement.

“U.S. District Judge Anita Brody rejected an attempt from the Locks Law Firm to join the process that compensates former players for head injuries they sustained during their careers. The firm had claimed that the process was going too slowly,” according to the AP report.

Nearly 400 claims that could pay out more than $416 million have already been approved.

Read the AP report.

Image by Sean P. Anderson

The parents of children who died in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., have accused conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and InfoWars of defamation and seek damages in excess of $1 million, reports the Austin Statesman.

Plaintiffs in two lawsuits filed in Austin, Texas, allege that Jones and his media organization spread false information related to the tragedy, according to reporter Mark D. Wilson.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “The lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the parents by constantly calling them ‘crisis actors’ and insisting the shooting was a ‘false flag’ operation; they also claim Jones’ accusations have led to death threats against the Sandy Hook families by Jones’ followers.”

Read the Statesman article.

A jury has awarded internet security software company VirnetX $502.6 million, finding Apple Inc. willfully infringed on four patents used for VPN on Demand and Facetime in Apple products.

The finding that Apple willfully infringed on four VirnetX communications patents could lead to higher damages. The liability and damages verdict was returned on April 10 at the end of a seven-day trial, and the willful infringement finding was returned the following day. It is the third jury verdict in the past two years that lawyers with East Texas-based firm Ward, Smith & Hill, PLLC, have secured for VirnetX in its long-running legal battle with Apple.

Judge Robert W. Schroeder III heard the case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. The dispute involved U.S. Patent Nos. 6,502,135; 7,490,151; 7,418,504; and 7,921,211.

VirnetX was represented at trial by Ward, Smith & Hill name partner Johnny Ward and Caldwell Cassady & Curry attorneys Brad Caldwell, Jason Cassady, Austin Curry and Chris Stewart.

In September 2016, Ward played a key role in securing a $302 million patent infringement verdict for VirnetX. Seven months prior to that verdict, Ward and attorney Claire Abernathy Henry assisted with a $625.6 million patent verdict win against Apple, the firm said in a release.

The case is VirnetX Inc. et al v. Apple Inc., case 6:12-cv-00855, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Oral arguments in the biggest U.S. Supreme Court tax case in years are just days away, reports Bloomberg Law.

Oral arguments in South Dakota v. Wayfair are scheduled for Tuesday, April 17.

Reporter Ryan Prete writes that the case directly challenges the 1992 decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, prohibiting states from imposing sales tax collection obligations on vendors lacking an in-state physical presence.

“The case has set off perhaps the largest amount of state and local tax-related activity in the past decade as states have tried to ‘kill Quill’ as online commerce has replaced traditional brick-and-mortar markets,” according to Prete.

He quotes Max Behlke, director of budget and tax at the National Conference of State Legislatures, as saying the South Dakota case is the “tax case of the millennium.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Kevin LaCroix, writing in The D&O Diary, discusses a recent scholarly article that takes a detailed look at director and officer claims arising out of allegations of sexual misconduct.

The University of Chicago Law School article examines the potential bases of liability, and considers the relative social utility of this kind of litigation, as well as the practical implications for corporate boards and their organizations.

LaCroix writes: “The authors conclude that ‘in some instances, corporate fiduciaries will indeed be liable to shareholders when workplace-sexual misconduct occurs at companies.’ In light of this conclusion, it would be prudent for companies and their executives to take steps to reduce their potential exposure to these kinds of suits.”

Read the article.

A recent Superior Court of Pennsylvania ruling in a case concerning hydraulic fracturing runs counter to a ruling in a similar case by the Texas Supreme Court, reports John B. McFarland in Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody’s Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog.

The Pennsylvania court held that “hydraulic fracturing may constitute an actionable trespass where subsurface fractures, fracturing fluid and proppant cross boundary lines and extend into the subsurface estate of an adjoining property for which the operator does not have a mineral lease, resulting in the extraction of natural gas from beneath the adjoining landowner’s property.”

In doing so, McFarland explains, the court rejected the reasoning of the Texas Supreme Court when that court held that the rule of capture prevented any such cause of action.

Read the article.

An article published by Zapproved breaks down the results and explains the benefits of replacing an existing system — or lack thereof — with automated, cloud-based legal hold software.

The article can be downloaded at no charge.

Research results demonstrate a real rate of return on investment generated by automated cloud-based legal hold software, the company says on its website.

“E-discovery is expensive, but the risks of not handling it are even more costly,” Zapproved says on its website. “Many legal teams tend to focus their cost-reduction efforts on later phases of discovery, such as processing and review, overlooking the benefits of optimizing the preservation process. Yet putting in the effort to preserve and collect the right data has a trickle-down effect, saving money and time in every step that follows while minimizing potential spoliation. The question is, just how much can you save with effective preservation?”

Download the article.

Image by Bjørn Erik Pedersen

MarketWatch is reporting that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. could collect the largest damage award ever against a global public accounting firm when a federal judge decides what to award the agency after a verdict against PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The judge in the case has already ruled that PwC had been professionally negligent in not detecting the criminal fraud that led to the failure of Colonial Bank Group in 2009, according to reporter Francine McKenna.

The FDIC has asked Judge Barbara Rothstein to award it $625 million in compensation for the bank’s alleged net losses from a fraud with mortgage originator Taylor Bean and Whitaker, which also failed in 2009.

Even PwC’s estimate of damages based on the judge’s decision, per court filings, of $306 million would result in the largest-ever final judgment or jury verdict for accounting malpractice, MarketWatch reports.

Read the MarketWatch article.

Image by Ben Sutherland

Irelsie Alvarez said she and fellow jurors wanted to send JPMorgan Chase & Co. a message with their startling $8 billion verdict in a Dallas probate case — an award that’s destined to be reduced to no more than $90 million, reports Bloomberg.

The trial was in late 2017, but lawyers for the bank company were back in court on Thursday, saying the defendant is entitled to a take-nothing verdict.

The widow of deceased American Airlines executive Max Hopper sued the bank for allegedly mismanaging the estate of her late husband.

Alvarez, a 26-year-old insurance agent, said she took the suggestion of lawyers for Hopper’s family that a big damage award was needed “in order to prevent this from happening again.”

Reporter Tom Korosec writes that the jury award was the largest of 2017 and the ninth-largest in U.S. history.

Read the Bloomberg article.