Litigation

Condemnation Invalid for Failure to Establish Public Purpose

Yellowstone Injunction Denied for Failure to Move on Time

The Second Circuit applied federal bankruptcy law when holding that good faith is an affirmative defense.

Residential Owners Have Claim for Inadequate Quality of Hotel Unit

The Van Buren decision fits into a pattern of the court's modern criminal law jurisprudence that appears motivated by concerns about the ever-expanding reach and severity of federal criminal law.

Approval of all the co-owners of a copyrighted work is needed to grant exclusive rights to third parties. Despite that, any co-owner can sell that co-owner's exclusive ownership share to third parties without the permission of the others The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California recently released an opinion that considered the interplay of these copyright issues.

To survive preemption under §301 of the Copyright Act, courts consider whether a state law claim in a lawsuit has an "extra element" that qualitatively distinguishes it from a federal copyright claim. Courts typically find that state law claims, such as breach of contract, have an extra element. Other state law claims, such as conversion, get varying court determinations as to whether they are preempted.

Because the Second Circuit held that a bare violation of New York's Mortgage-Satisfaction-Recording Statutes without a demonstration of actual injury conferred federal jurisdiction, a mortgagor now has the ability to bring a class action in federal court.