Does asking jurors to "imagine" a story that blends evidence and fantasy cross the line into impermissible jury argument? What if you add "abusive references" to opposing counsel? Will the combination exceed the outer boundaries of what a lawyer may properly argue to a jury?
The Tenth Circuit held in Whittenberg v. Werner Enterprises Inc., No.
Despite their flat-out refusal to comply with the District Court’s lawful orders, the Uzans now have the chutzpah to seek post-judgment, equitable relief from complying with those orders.
Motorola Credit Corp. v. Uzan, No.07-2076-cv, slip op. at 6-7 (2d Cir. Mar. 31, 2009) (per Jose A. Cabranes, J.) (affirming refusal to grant relief from judgment
A Ninth Circuit panel split 2-1 on whether a California wholesale buyer of clean-burning CARB gasoline alleged a viable claim under section 1 of the Sherman Act. (CARB seems to stand for California Air Resources Board.)
The wholesaler accused major oil producers of tying up their refinery capacity by entering into "bilateral exchange agreements" – 44 of them. It also asserted
A water intake system for a power plant. Note the screens.
Big power plants "remove" huge quantities of water from "various nearby . . . sources" — presumably including oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, creeks, brooks, and possibly even rills. They use the H20 to cool the heat that results from burning gas, coal, and other fuel. But
Anne Reed at Deliberations explains the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous decision on "peremptory challenges" to potential jurors yesterday in Rivera v. Illinois, No. 07-9995 (U.S. Mar. 31, 2009). Bottom line: A judge's good faith error in rejecting a peremptory doesn't entitle you to a new trial.
That presumably applies not only in criminal
On March 26, Chief Justice John Roberts transmitted to Congress a slew of revisions to four different sets of federal procedural rules. By their terms and under the Rules Enabling Act, the changes will take effect December 1, 2009 – unless the House and Senate pass legislation invalidating them.
Blawgletter glanced at one group — those affecting the Federal Rules of
The New York Court of Appeals today upheld an agreement to pay a referring law firm "one-third of the entire fee recovered" in a medical malpractice case. The "entire fee" included the amount attributable to the efforts of a third law firm. That the referring lawyer may not have contributed one-third of the productive work didn't matter, the court held. Nor could
Adam Liptak usually writes about interesting stuff — interesting, at least, to lawyers. Today he takes the measure of a new study about American Bar Association ratings of nominees for U.S. court of appeals judgeships between 1985 and 2008.
The report, Bias and the Bar: Evaluating the ABA Ratings of Federal Judicial Nominees, summarizes
An air taxi.
A service mark associates services with a specific provider in the same way that a trademark identifies the furnisher of goods. Someone who misuses a service mark or trademark may suffer the consequences in an infringement action under the Lanham Act.
[Blawgletter briefly explained the different "strengths" of marks in Annals of Trademark
The Chalks alleged a T-Mobile wireless card wouldn't work in their ThinkPad.
The Ninth Circuit yesterday reversed dismissal of a putative consumer class action. The decision turned on whether a class arbitration waiver in a subscriber contract violated principles of unconscionability under Oregon law. The court held it did. Chalk v. T-Mobile USA, Inc.