George Carlin (1937-2008) merged with the infinite yesterday.
I think it is the duty of the comedian to find where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
He sure did that.
Texas Supremes Enforce Arbitration, Forum Selection Clauses
The Supreme Court of Texas yesterday held, in two cases, that a defendant didn’t waive its right to arbitrate a dispute between a mobile home manufacturer and a dealer and that a forum selection clause in an agreement for financing leases of magnetic resonance imaging equipment required dismissal. The court, in per curiam opinions and
Plan Meets Policy’s “Pay-First” Requirement, Second Circuit Rules
The plan will pay claims of people whose lungs look like this.
Today Blawgletter learned something we didn’t know before. That happens quite often. Sometimes we even learn things we did know but just can’t remember. Some might in fact say that the frequency of the latter exceeds the oftenness of the former.
But back
Annals of Trademark Law: “It’s a bus! It’s a boat! It’s a Super Duck!”
What — you’ve never seen a DUKW before?
Today the First Circuit plumbed the trademark law distinction between "generic" and "nongeneric" marks. It held that the district court clearly erred when it deemed the phrase "duck tours" nongeneric and so dissolved a preliminary injunction. Boston Duck Tours, LP v. Super Duck Tours, LLC, Nos.
Supremes May Explain Twombly
Will Twombly rescue John Ashcroft from paying damages?
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday granted the government’s petition for writ of certiorari in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, No. 07-1015 (U.S. June 16, 2008), to consider (Blawgletter thinks) both of the questions that the petition posed:
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
1. Whether a conclusory allegation that a cabinet- level
Quote of the Day: John Yoo
Former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo (1967-) has written a lot about wartime incarceration.
The only real hope of returning the Supreme Court to its normal wartime role rests in the November elections.
John Yoo, "The Supreme Court Goes to War", The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2008.
Federal Circuit Vacates “Exceptional Case” Fee Award
Patent law allows recovery of attorneys’ fees only if (1) your side wins and (2) the case qualifies as "exceptional". 35 U.S.C. 285. A decision today by the Federal Circuit illustrates the difficulty of satisfying the second requirement.
In Innovation Technologies, Inc. v. Splash! Medical Devices, LLC, No. 07-1424 (Fed. Cir. June 16, 2008)
Second Circuit Reinstates Auditor Malpractice Claims
Blawgletter likes to gripe about judicial opinions that sacrifice coherence on the altar of (attempts at) judicial cleverness. Our preference runs to introductory paragraphs that give the reader a quick roadmap to the issues and holdings.
Today the Second Circuit made us happy. It summarized a complex 60-page decision thus:
In August 1994, CBI Holding
Habeas, Gitmo, and Politics
Nigh on 50 years ago, the constitutional scholar Alexander Bickel wrote that "[t]he least dangerous branch of the American government is the most extraordinarily powerful court of law the world has ever known." The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics 1 (1962). The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision this week in
Quote of the Day: Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727). He stood on the shoulders of giants. Tactfully.
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
