Blawgletter's trial starts back in a little while, but before we walk the block to the courthouse we wanted to share with you the Third Circuit's views about "fleeting obscenity" on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court. See CBS Corp. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, No. 06-3575 (3d Cir. Nov. 2, 2011).
Third Circuit
Slow Demise of Home for Old People Raised Claim Against Ds and Os, Third Circuit Holds
By Barry Barnett on
People who run a company that enters the "zone of insolvency" acquire a new set of duties. Surprise!
Instead of working only for the firm and its owners, they must now answer also to its creditors. And, if they let the outfit keep going when it should shut down to cut losses, they may expose themselves…
No En Banc in Cable Antitrust Case
By Barry Barnett on
Today the Third Circuit denied Comcast's request for the whole court to rehear its appeal in Behrend v. Comcast Corp., No. 10-2865 (3d Cir. Sept. 20, 2011).
Blawgletter noted the panel's 2-1 ruling on August 23 that the district court did not err in granting class treatment of the antitrust claims against Comcast.
See…
Cable Antitrust Class Okay, Third Circuit Rules
By Barry Barnett on
The Third Circuit today affirmed a class certification order in an antitrust case.
The case, Behrend v. Comcast Corp., No. 10-2865 (3d Cir. Aug. 23, 2011), involves claims that Comcast violated sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and that the antitrust violations allowed Comcast to overcharge Philadelphia cable subscribers.
The court's 2-1…
Concord Boat Sinks Antitrust Case; Pop! Goes the Catheter
By Barry Barnett on
If you work much on antitrust lawsuits, you learn the names of cases that inspire strong feelings on both sides of the "v." Concord Boat lives in that realm.
The Eighth Circuit ruled after a jury trial in Concord Boat Corp. v. Brunswick Corp., 207 F.3d 1039 (8th Cir. 2000), that 24 boat-makers had no antitrust…
The Relevance of Scienter to Securities Fraud Limitations Analysis — Redux
By Barry Barnett on
Blawgletter wrote a couple of years ago that the tougher test for pleading securities fraud under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308 (2007), "would logically mean that the reasonable person wouldn't conclude he, she, or it had a claim until he-she-it learned facts suggesting…
DeBeers Seems Likely to Keep Class Certification After En Banc Rehearing
By Barry Barnett on
In case you missed the en banc argument on Wednesday to the Third Circuit in Sullivan v. DB Investments Inc., No. 08-2784 (audio file here; post on panel decision here), Blawgletter offers our fragmentary notes below.
[By way of background, a panel of the Third Circuit ruled that, because some states don't allow indirect…
Giving Papers to Ecuadorian Court Expert Waived any Privilege, Third Circuit Holds
By Barry Barnett on
The strange case started almost two decades ago in New York. On the motion of Texaco — later Chevron — it wound up in Lago Agrio, Ecuador.
In it, a group of Ecuadorians claimed that Texaco/Chevron's oil and gas operations in their home land caused bad problems. The court in Lago Agrio named an expert to help figure…
Supreme Court Looks Doubtful on “Personal Privacy” of False Persons
By Barry Barnett on
In September of 2009, a court of appeals panel upheld the right of firms — and of all other "persons" fictitious in law — to block the feds' release of emails and other documents that the firms submitted to the feds but that might cast them in a bad light. See "Do Fake Persons…
Webinar on Class Certification in Antitrust Cases: A Brave New World
By Barry Barnett on
A couple weeks ago, if you found yourself in downtown Philadelphia, you could've stopped in the U.S. courthouse there and seen Blawgletter argue a Rule 23(f) appeal to an impressive panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal challenges an order certifying a class of Philadelphia-area cable subscribers. Behrend v. Comcast Corp., No.