We round up the most significant appellate decisions relevant to commercial litigation each week.

To celebrate the arrival of summer, I am trying an experiment.

In this post–which covers almost all of June–I’ve sorted commercial rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and a selection from the highest state courts according to subject matter.

The resulting headings group decisions by broadly descriptive categories (e.g., Antitrust and Intellectual Property) for quicker reference. As usual, you may access the decisions by clicking on the case summary itself.

Please let me know you find these signposts worthwhile.

Antitrust

FTC complaint falls on its Facebook. Hat tip to @alisonfrankel.

The Chicago School’s case for hands-off approach to monopolies doesn’t add up, Hovenkamp writes.

Fraud on Patent Office element of Walker Process monopolization claim didn‘t raise substantial issue of patent law.

Pact not to compete in keyword auctions didn‘t hurt competition, violate FTC Act.

Old school view of Sherman Act strikes down NCAA’s least justifiable curbs on perks for scholar-athletes.

Repeal of statute allowing recovery of “full consideration” for anti-competitive conduct didn’t preclude other forms of relief.

Arbitration

Mention of website didn’t bind Subway patron to online arbitration clause.

FAA mandates swift trial on question of whether plaintiff agreed to arbitrate.

Intermediary contracts that linked hospital to health plan didn‘t bind plan to arbitration clause in pact with PPO.

Arbitration award precluded claims in lawsuit.

Workers who moved goods the last mile may not qualify for exception under Arbitration Act.

Arbitrator, not administrator, must decide whether claims qualify for arbitration under contract.

Class Actions

American Pipe doctrine tolls limitations even for opt-out plaintiffs that file suit before class case reaches ruling on class certification.

Intermediary contracts that linked hospital to health plan didn‘t bind plan to arbitration clause in pact with PPO.

Google’s parent must face claim it misled stock buyers about weakness of security for users’ private profile info.

Blandness of statements cuts against claim, in securities-fraud class action, that they lifted price of stock.

Trading in futures contracts on overseas exchange fell outside Commodity Exchange Act.

ERISA plan member had standing even if total benefits offset overcharges; class certification to get new look on remand.

At trial stage, each class member must prove a concrete “injury in fact”. Mere violation of a class member’s statutory right–“injury in law”–doesn’t confer Art. III standing.

Mixture of misreps and omissions in securities fraud claim barred Affiliated Ute presumption of reliance.

Communications Decency Act/Internet

Statutory claim against Facebook for benefiting from human trafficking survives Communications Decency Act’s section 230 but common-law claims don’t.

Defamation

Failure to ask defamer to withdraw statements entitled defamer to delay, not dismissal.

Energy/Oil & Gas

State can’t block feds from condemning land for gas pipeline right of way.

Cashing royalty checks didn’t necessarily ratify pooling.

ERISA/Pensions

ERISA plan over-paid for record-keeping.

ERISA plan member had standing even if total benefits offset overcharges; class certification to get new look on remand.

Forum Selection

Choice of English forum pushes RICO case across the pond.

Saying book contained “the” law didn‘t imply comprehensiveness.

Fraud/Securities

Google’s parent must face claim it misled stock buyers about weakness of security for users’ private profile info.

Blandness of statements cuts against claim, in securities-fraud class action, that they lifted price of stock.

Trading in futures contracts on overseas exchange fell outside Commodity Exchange Act.

Mixture of misreps and omissions in securities fraud claim barred Affiliated Ute presumption of reliance.

Package inserts didn’t falsely imply FDA approval of drug uses.

Intellectual Property

Inventor’s long delays in filing and pressing patent applications could establish “prosecution laches” defense.

File-access method patent had narrow scope due to disclaimer during prosecution.

Trade secrets claim gave enough detail on which ones former employee misused.

Patent on making image better by using more than one camera failed Alice test for patentability.

Copyright in The Game of Life sprang from work for hire.

“Thin“ copyright in house plans covered only identical or near-identical designs.

State university’s infringement of copyright didn‘t amount to unconstitutional taking of property.

PTAB rulings need review by Director to remedy unconstitutional appointment of PTAB judges.

Party who assigns patent can still attack patent’s validity if attack doesn’t conflict with party’s reps to assignee.

Jurisdiction/Procedure

Okay to weigh equities as matter of law on summary judgment.

Affordable Care Act survives round 3 in Supreme Court due to lack of standing.

American Pipe doctrine tolls limitations even for opt-out plaintiffs that file suit before class case reaches ruling on class certification.

Arbitration award precluded claims in lawsuit.

PTAB rulings need review by Director to remedy unconstitutional appointment of PTAB judges.

FCC rule barring federal program from buying Huawei telecom gear due to security risk didn’t usurp foreign policy function.

At trial stage, each class member must prove a concrete “injury in fact”. Mere violation of a class member’s statutory right–“injury in law”–doesn’t confer Art. III standing.

“Stream of activity” that showed intent to “serve a market” in a state made out of state defendant subject to personal jurisdiction for claim arising from injury in state.

Privacy

Data breach class beats attacks on settlement, fee award.

Texas Law

Cashing royalty checks didn’t necessarily ratify pooling.

State university’s infringement of copyright didn‘t amount to unconstitutional taking of property.

Amazon isn’t the “seller” of goods unless it owns them.

Failure to ask defamer to withdraw statements entitled defamer to delay, not dismissal.

“Stream of activity” that showed intent to “serve a market” in a state made out of state defendant subject to personal jurisdiction for claim arising from injury in state.

* * * *

Note for readers

Because my practice focuses on complex commercial disputes–especially antitrust, energy, and intellectual property–I keep daily track of important decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the highest appeals courts in Delaware, New York, and Texas.

You can follow along during the week on Twitter (@contingencyblog) or here at The Contingency periodically with this Commercial Appeals Roundup.

Check out my profile on the Susman Godfrey website.

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Photo of Barry Barnett Barry Barnett

Clients and colleagues call Barry Barnett an “incredibly gifted lawyer” (Chambers and Partners) who is “magic in the courtroom” (Who’s Who Legal), “the top antitrust lawyer in Texas” (Chambers and Partners), and “a person of unquestioned integrity” (David J. Beck, founder of Beck…

Clients and colleagues call Barry Barnett an “incredibly gifted lawyer” (Chambers and Partners) who is “magic in the courtroom” (Who’s Who Legal), “the top antitrust lawyer in Texas” (Chambers and Partners), and “a person of unquestioned integrity” (David J. Beck, founder of Beck Redden).

Barnett is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and Lawdragon has named him one of the top 500 lawyers in the United States three years in a row. Best Lawyers in America has honored him as “Lawyer of the Year” for Bet-the-Company Litigation (2019 and 2017) and Patent Litigation (2020) in Houston. Based in Texas and New York, Barnett has tried complex business disputes across the United States.

TRIAL COUNSEL
Barnett’s background, training, and experience make him indispensable to his clients. The small-town son of a Texas roughneck and grandson of a Texas sharecropper, Barnett “developed an unusual common sense about people, their motivations, and their dilemmas,” according to former client Michael Lewis.

Barnett has been historically recognized for his effectiveness and judgment. His peers chose him, for example, to the American College of Trial Lawyers and American Law Institute. His decades of trial and appellate work representing both plaintiffs and defendants have made him a master strategist and nimble tactician in complex disputes.

Barnett focuses on enforcement of antitrust laws, the “Magna Carta of free enterprise,” in Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s memorable phrase. “Barry is one of the nation’s outstanding antitrust lawyers,” according to Joseph Goldberg, a member of the Private Antitrust Enforcement Hall of Fame. Named among Texas’s top ten antitrust lawyers of 2023, Business Today calls Barnett a “trailblazer” among the “distinguished legal minds” who “dedicate their skill and expertise to the maintenance of healthy competition in various sectors” of the Lone Star State’s booming economy. Barnett is also adept in energy and intellectual property matters and has battled for clients against a Who’s Who list of corporate behemoths, including Abbott Labs, Alcoa, Apple, AT&T, BlackBerry, Broadcom, Comcast, Dow, JPMorgan Chase, Samsung, and Visa.

Barnett commands a courtroom with calm and credibility and “is the perfect lawyer for bet the company litigation,” said Scott Regan, General Counsel of former client Whiting Petroleum. His performance before the Supreme Court in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend prompted the Court to withdraw the question on which it had granted review. The judge in a trial involving mobile phone technology called Barnett “one of the best” and that his opening statement the finest he had ever seen. Another trial judge told Barnett minutes after a jury returned a favorable verdict against the county’s biggest employer that he was one of the two best trial lawyers he’d ever come across—adding that the other one was dead.

COMPLETE PACKAGE
A versatile trial lawyer, Barnett knows how to handle a case all the way from strategic pre-suit planning to affirmance on appeal. He’s tried cases to verdict and then briefed and argued them when they went before appellate courts, including the Second, Third, Fifth, and Tenth Circuits, the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and (in the case of Comcast Corp. v. Behrend) the Supreme Court of the United States.

Barnett is a sought-after public speaker, often serving on panels and talking about topics like the trials of antitrust class actions and techniques for streamlining complex litigation. He also comments on trends in commercial litigation and the implications of major rulings for outlets such as NPR, Reuters, Law360, Corporate Counsel, and The Dallas Morning News. He’s even appeared in a Frontline program about underfunding of state pensions, authored chapters on “Fee Arrangements” and “Techniques for Expediting and Streamlining Litigation” (the latter with Steve Susman) in the ABA’s definitive treatise on Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, 5th, and commented on How Antitrust Enforcers Might Think Like Plaintiffs’ Lawyers.

HARD GRADERS
Clients and other hard graders have praised Barnett for his courtroom skills and legal acumen.

A client in a $100 million oil and gas case, which Barnett’s team won at trial and held on appeal, said Barnett and his team “presented a rare combination of strong legal intellect, common sense about right and wrong, and credibility in the courtroom.” David McCombs at Haynes and Boone said Barnett “has a natural presence that goes over well with juries and judges.”

Even former adversaries give Barnett high marks. Lead opposing counsel in a decade-long antitrust slugfest said “Barry is a highly skilled advocate. He understands what really matters in telling a narrative and does so in a very compelling manner.”

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Barnett relishes opportunities to collaborate with all kinds of people. At the Center for American and International Law (CAIL), founded by a former prosecutor at Nuremberg in 1947 and headquartered in the Dallas area, he has served on the Executive Committee, co-chaired the committee that produced CAIL’s first-ever strategic plan, supported CAIL’s Institute for Law Enforcement Administration and other development efforts, and proposed formation of a new Institute for Social Justice Law. CAIL’s former President David Beck said “Barry is extremely bright” and is “very well prepared in every lawsuit or professional task he undertakes.”

Barnett is also a Trustee of the New-York Historical Society, a Sterling Fellow at Yale, a member of the Yale University Art Gallery’s Governing Board, a winner of the Class Award for his work on behalf of his college class, and a proud contributor to the Yellow Ribbon Program at Harvard Law. Barnett’s pro bono work includes leading the trial team representing people who are at greatest risk of severe illness and death as a result of being exposed to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 while being detained in the Dallas County jail—work for which he received the NGAN Legal Advocacy Fund RBG Award.

At Susman Godfrey, Barnett has served on the firm’s Executive Committee, Employment Committee, and ad hoc committees on partner compensation, succession of leadership, and revision of the firm’s partnership agreement. He also twice chaired the Practice Development Committee.

KEEPING PERSPECTIVE
Barnett understands that clients face many pressures. Managing the stress is important, especially in matters that take years to resolve. He encourages clients to call him whenever they have a question or concern and to keep the inevitable ups and downs in perspective. He wants them to know that he will do his level best to help them achieve their goals. He also strives to foster trust and to make working with him a pleasure.

Cyrus “Skip” Marter, the General Counsel of Bonanza Creek in Denver and a former Susman Godfrey partner and client, said Barnett is “excellent about communicating with clients in a full and honest manner” and can “negotiate for his clients from a position of strength, because he is not afraid to take a case through a full trial on the merits.” Stacey Doré, the President of Hunt Utility Services and a former client, said that Barnett is “an excellent trial lawyer and the person you want to hire for your bet-the-company cases. He is client focused, responsive, and uniquely savvy about trial and settlement strategy.” A New York colleague said, “Barry is a joy to work with as co-counsel. He tackles complex procedural and factual hurdles capably, efficiently, and without drama.”

PERSONAL
Barnett’s wide-ranging experience and calm, down-to-earth approach enable him to connect with clients, judges, jurors, witnesses, and even opposing counsel. He grew up in Nacogdoches, Texas. He co-captained his high school varsity football team as an All-East Texas middle linebacker while also serving as the Editor of Key Club’s Texas-Oklahoma District, won the Best Typist award, took the History Team to glory, and sang in the East Texas All Region Choir. As Dan Kelly of client Vistra Corp. put it, Barnett is “a great person to be around.”

Barnett is steady and loyal. He has practiced at Susman Godfrey his entire career. He and his wife Nancy live in Dallas and enjoy spending time in Houston and New York. Their daughter works for H-E-B in Houston, and their son is a Haynes and Boone transactions lawyer in Dallas.

As a member of Ivy League championship football teams in his junior and senior years at Yale and a parent of two Yalies, Barnett has no trouble choosing sides for “The Game” in November. And he knows how important fighting all the way to the end is. On his last play from scrimmage, in the waning minutes of The Game on Nov. 22, 1980, he recovered a Crimson fumble.

Yale won, 14-0.