The White Rabbit was always late for a very important date.
As all the world knows, a settlement class member who wants to opt out must timely tell the court of opt-outer’s desire for exclusion. But what happens if the settlement notice that the class member receives doesn’t specify the opt-out deadline but the member
Senator Carter Glass (1858-1946) disliked the New Deal but the banking excesses that preceded the Great Depression even more.
Blawgletter learned in law school about a pillar of the New Deal — the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Little did we know that, 66 years after Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law, Glass-Steagall would
As the credit crisis crests ever higher, the Seventh Circuit’s affirmance of summary judgment against a guarantor today strikes Blawgletter as a harbinger of decisions to come.
The ruling turned on whether a guarantor of a Uruguayan tiremaker’s debt presented evidence to support its defense that the lender "impaired" the collateral for the loan. Impairing
The Second Circuit today joined the Third, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits in holding that a "cash balance" pension plan doesn’t violate the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act of 1974 despite the fact that older employees (sort of) get less bang for their buck.
A cash balance plan creates a phantom account for each plan
Barry Diller (1942-).
After losing the battle to acquire Paramount in the early 1990s, the media mogul said:
They won. We lost. Next.
The boot that launched a suit.
The Tenth Circuit today reversed itself on a question of Article III jurisdiction: whether a trademark user that doesn’t reasonably fear an imminent infringement suit may nonetheless sue the trademark owner for a declaratory judgment.
The declaratory judgment plaintiff, Surefoot, made ski boots. Sure Foot, the defendant and owner
Pollyanna relentlessly looked for the good in people.
The new President of the State Bar of Texas, Harper Estes, just wrote the best "My Opinion" column (in the Texas Bar Journal) that Blawgletter has ever had the privilege to read. We challenge you to start reading it and then try to stop. Betcha can’t
The Ninth Circuit today upheld summary judgment for a debtor against a debt collection agency under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The agency had purported to verify to the debtor that he owed, in addition to an amount due under a residential lease, a $225 fee for the landlord’s cost of having a lawyer
Supreme Court Portrait of Thurgood Marshall (1908-93).
Blawgletter’s mom celebrated her birthday on July 2 (the 69th such occasion for her). Little did we know, until today, that she shares the date with another great American — Thurgood Marshall.
Congress celebrated the 100th anniversary of the former Justice’s naissance with this Concurrent Resolution:
Honoring
In Bleak House (1852-53), the cost of litigation exhausted the Jarndyce estate.
In The Washington Post today, business columnist Steven Pearlstein offers a contrarian take on the capping of punitive damages as a matter of federal common law in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, No. 07-219 (U.S. June 25, 2008). (Blawgletter post here