Litigation

Federal Circuit Holds Two of Apple's Five Asserted Patents Invalid, Three More Not Infringed

Twenty-three professional football players brought a class action lawsuit against the NFL, claiming that films produced by NFL Films violated their state rights of publicity and constituted false endorsement under '43(a) of the Lanham Act. Twenty of those players settled with the NFL. However, the other three players elected to pursue their suit.

It's understood that the "discovery wars" have long been far more than litigation maneuvering by both sides in a case. Even without intention, the volume and complexity of electronically stored information pertinent to litigation results in cost burdens that affect substantive decisions in a case.

Hospital Remains in Suit After Court Finds Ostensible Agency
NY Appeals Court Finds Physicians May Opine As to Proximate Cause in Cases Involving Claims Outside Own Specialty

A television station's report that two stores in the D'Lites chain of dietary ice cream franchises were mislabeling their "small" portions as low calorie and low carb was "substantially true," and a defamation claim by a franchise owner was properly dismissed, a Manhattan appeals court said on March 15.

It is a fact pattern common to asbestos-related lawsuits: A plaintiff recalls generally working around different products that may or may not have contained asbestos, but cannot pinpoint specific time periods or locations where those products were present and could have exposed the plaintiff to asbestos. Typically, the alleged exposure occurred three or more decades ago, with no potential corroborating documents or witnesses surviving to the present date. This scenario places defendants in the untenable position of defending a claim without access to any information on the products, or the alleged exposure, that will either confirm or deny that the identified products were both present in the plaintiff's workplace and actually contained asbestos.

A number of conflicting decisions over the past year and a half concerning whether provisions prohibiting waiver of duties or liabilities under the New York Franchise Act prohibit franchisors from interposing franchisee "non-reliance" franchise agreement disclaimers when confronting fraud actions brought under the Act makes clear that this critical area of law will remain muddied until the courts decisively rule on the subject.

GAO Finds FDA's Safety Tracking System Lacking