Law, Strategy, and Risk in Commercial Disputes
A happy outcome for counsel
All you in-house lawyers out there might want to raise a hearty cheer for the D.C. Circuit. Outside counsel may want to clap also. For a panel of the appeals court held in In re Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc., No. 14-5055 (D.C. Cir. June 27, 2014), that you can convert mandatory…
A panel of the Seventh Circuit split 2-1 on whether to halt a district judge's order that called for a big drug-maker in Germany to ship a baker's dozen of its workers to New York for depositions. In re Petition of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 13-3898 (7th Cir. Jan. 24, 2014). The court…
A Jordanian bank objected to turning over records that it claimed it couldn't produce without risking criminal prosecution by the governments of Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Monetary Authority.
The plaintiffs accused the institution, Arab Bank, of aiding terrorist groups that had killed and hurt them and family members in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. They sued under…
Blawgletter believes trial judges should set a limit on how long each side can take to try a case. Any time a lawyer for Side A has the floor as the jury sits in the box counts against Side A. The same applies to Side B. Our firm in fact includes a pact on trial …
The Federal Circuit today ruled that the Eastern District of Texas has the wrong idea about whether Rule 20(a) lets plaintiffs sue a bunch of defendants in one patent infringement case simply because they all infringed the same patents.
You have to show something more, it held — such as that the defendants somehow acted…
In the last 30 days, two U.S. courts of appeals have held (sort of) that no "settlement privilege" — a right to deny others access to the terms of your settlements with third-parties — exists.
In the first case, the Federal Circuit ruled, "in light of reason and experience, . . . that settlement negotiations…
The Eastern District of Texas got Volkwagen II and then TS Tech — a one-two punch that knocked some wind out of the venue's rep as a patent solar plexus (or should Blawgletter say omphalos?).
Today, the Federal Circuit rounded on another IP hot spot — the District of Delaware.
As it did…
When something hits him on the head, Chicken Little gets an epiphany, and he runs to warn the king that the sky has commenced to falling. Converts rally to his cause. A great cry goes up in the land. And fear stalks the streets.
The sky hasn't fallen at all, of course. Just an acorn.
Kind of the…
The Seventh Circuit today turned back Whirlpool's effort to stop the hand-over of documents it claimed fell within its attorney-client privilege. The panel noted that, in Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, 130 S. Ct. 599 (2009) (post here), the Court barred appeals from pretrial orders that breached a claim of privilege. The panel also…
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…