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New Filings

  • The Outer Continental Shelf is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, so state-law wage-and-hour standards do not apply to workers employed on off-shore oil rigs. (Newton v. Parker Drilling Management Services, Inc.)
  • To establish liability for a false statement in either a tender offer or a proxy statement, plaintiffs should be required to show fraudulent intent. (Emulex Corp. v. Varjabedian)
  • Tort claims seeking to hold industrial companies responsible for climate change must fail if plaintiffs cannot prove “proximate cause.” (City of New York v. Chevron Corp.)
  • When a company is required to produce a deposition witness to address the company’s knowledge of specified topics, the company (not opposing counsel) should have the right to choose who will testify. (In re Proposed Amendment to Rule 30(b)(6))
  • “Fail-safe” classes—in which class membership is based on whether a plaintiff’s claim succeeds on the merits—are unfair to defendants and absent class members and so should not be certified. (Vogt v. State Farm Life Insurance Co.)
  • Limitations on personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants fully apply in the class-action context. (Whole Foods Marketing Group v. Molock)

Decisions

  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit holds that the Federal Trade Commission may not file suit to enjoin unfair trade practices unless it can show that the defendant is “about to” violate the law; it is not enough to show merely that the defendant has violated the law in the past or might do so at some indefinite future date. (FTC v. Shire ViroPharma Inc.)
  • The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review a First Amendment challenge to an NLRB order that requires an employer to allow employees, even those dealing directly with customers, to wear buttons conveying political speech with which the employer disagrees. (In-N-Out Burger, Inc. v. NLRB)
  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit declines to rehear a troubling appeals court decision that undermines limits on forum shopping by plaintiffs in patent-infringement lawsuits. (Erfindergemeinschaft UroPep GbR v. Eli Lilly and Co.)