Location
The place of suit matters a lot in civil cases. Suing at home helps the plaintiff — by keeping her costs low, giving her comfort that local judges and juries will give her fair treatment, and throwing out-of-town defendants off balance. All of that bigly boosts the plaintiff’s chances of success.
But a trio of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings promise to make plaintiffs’ home fields more like patches of weeds than acres of sweet verdance.
Continue Reading Into the Lions’ Dens
Snares
Patent law features so many traps that even the wary fall in one now and then. It happened again last week. This time the ruling concerned standing, an issue that goes to the power of a court to decide a case.
A narrow license
The case involved a patent on "Gelatinous Elastomer Compositions and
If you watch a lot of daytime TV, you may have seen lots of ads by for-profit schools. The pitches promise you an awesome job, a lot of pay, more sex-appeal, and even, in some cases, super-human powers.
But did you ever think about the people whose job it is to get you to pony
The Supreme Court of the Lone Star State doesn't often make rulings that favor class action treatment of claims. But last week it did.
The case arose in Williamson County — home of a District Attorney who fought DNA testing for an innocent man who spent 25 years in prison for killing his wife. The
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 provides that a private person who claims a violation of the act may sue "in an appropriate court of [a] State" so long as "the laws or rules of court of [the] State" permit the suit. 47 U.S.C. §§ 227(b)(3) & (c)(5). May the person also bring her
Last February, Blawgletter wrote about a case that struck us as taking the issue of parties' "citizenship" to a Whole New Level. We said:
The Sixth Circuit today booted a case because it couldn't tell if it belonged in federal court or not.
The lawsuit pitted a Keystone State corporation (with a Pennsylvania principal
As Blawgletter gets ready for a trial that starts Monday, with a glad and grateful heart we welcome our friend, former team-mate, and world class i-banker (at BDO Capital) Jeffrey R. Manning as guest poster.
Jeff always has something well worth hearing to say. He also has, in the realm of humor, what the French
A Seventh Circuit panel today upheld an award in arbitration.
The panel ruled that the arbtitrators didn't manifestly violate law or exceed their powers by finding that the parties jointly owned one patent "family" and that one of the parties solely owned another family of patents. Affymax, Inc. v. Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 11-2070
Remember Capron v. Van Noordan, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 126 (1804)?
How about Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267 (1806)?
From your civil procedure class? In law school? Nothin'?
Well, even if you don't, we may all take comfort in the fact that the D.C. Circuit does. Indeed, the holdings in
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation meets several times a year to hear lawyers explain why cases pending in two or more district courts belong in just one and which district court should handle them during pretrial stages. Lately, the Panel has rebuffed more than half of the motions to transfer (see here also), holding the