Top European Court Punts Consumer Contract Dispute
It’s up to national courts to decide whether consumer contract clauses are legal when they fall outside of European Union laws, the EU’s highest court found Thursday.
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Volkswagen Can Face Dieselgate Suits Outside Home Country, EU Judges Rule
The European Union’s highest court ruled Thursday that Volkswagen must face a lawsuit over defective cars sold during the automaker’s emissions scandal in Austrian national court, even though it is based in Germany.
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High Court Backs Tribal Designation for Wide Swath of Oklahoma Land
In a decision that reclassifies a large swath of eastern Oklahoma as land belonging to Native Americans driven from their ancestral home during the Trail of Tears, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday that a Seminole man sentenced to 500 years in prison for rape and sodomy should have been tried in federal court.
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Border Dispute Between Guyana, Venezuela Hits UN Court
The United Nations’ top court held its first virtual hearing Tuesday, taking up a 120-year-old territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela.
Read moreCounty DAs Can Enforce Consumer-Protection Laws Statewide in California
County prosecutors can sue companies under unfair-competition law for conduct that occurred anywhere in California, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
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Taking China to Court Over Virus Easier Said Than Done
With nearly half a million dead and untold economic damage worldwide, the novel coronavirus has left many wondering whether China is to blame for the outbreak, including legal scholars.
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White House Escalates Feud With International Criminal Court
The decision to sanction employees at The Hague-based court is just the United States’ latest provocative measure targeting the global
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Landowners Lose Again in Fight to Strip Protections for Rare Spider
A rare species of blind, cave-dwelling spider in the Central Texas hill country will remain federally protected under the Endangered Species Act for now, despite a legal fight brought by landowners and private property advocates who claim the spider’s protection has threatened development projects and led to tens of millions of dollars in permitting costs.
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Magistrate Says EU Courts Can’t Hear Cases Against Group of Finance Ministers
The Eurogroup, an informal group of finance ministers in the eurozone, isn’t an official institution of the European Union and therefore can’t be held liable for financial losses, an adviser to the EU’s top court found Thursday.
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Cities Get Second Chance to Hold Big Oil Liable for Climate Change
A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday ordered a federal judge to reconsider if he had proper jurisdiction over two lawsuits seeking to hold the world’s five biggest oil companies liable for climate change when he dismissed them in 2018.
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Justices Hear Fight Over Tribal Land in Criminal Appeal
The Supreme Court appeared unwilling Monday to side with a Native American convict who argued that most of eastern Oklahoma should be classified as protected tribal land.
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Rights Court Turns Away Syrian Refugees Seeking Belgian Visas
In a closely watched case involving asylum seekers, the European Court of Human Rights found Tuesday that Belgium isn’t obligated to give humanitarian visas to Syrian refugees.
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First Circuit Clears GE on Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
General Electric will escape scot-free for its role in designing and maintaining the Fukushima nuclear plant that was hit by a tsunami and caused billions of dollars in damage, the First Circuit ruled Friday.
Read moreEmergency Restrictions
A federal court in Texas ruled the City of San Antonio improperly removed a vape shop’s complaint from state court, finding the shop has only asserted claims under the Texas Constitution and state law. After the shop violated the city’s Covid-19 related emergency restrictions several times, the city revoked its certificate of occupancy and threatened to turn off its utilities.
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DC Circuit Tosses Challenge to Power-Plant Permitting
The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday struck down the Sierra Club’s challenge to the Trump administration’s roundabout strategy to issue permits to power plants that the environmentalists warn will clog the nation’s air with even higher levels of harmful pollution.
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EU Adviser: Consumers Can Sue Over VW Scandal in Home Courts
An Austria-based consumer rights group can sue Volkswagen in Austrian national court over defective cars sold during the automaker’s emissions scandal even though the company is headquartered in Germany, a magistrate with the EU’s top court said Thursday.
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High Court Revives Decades-Old Deportation Dispute
The Supreme Court on Monday held a federal appeals court may hear the claims of two men seeking to have their removal proceedings reopened decades after they were deported for committing drug crimes.
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Fight for Trump’s Tax Returns Is Held Over McGahn Subpoena
A federal judge put the House lawsuit for President Donald Trump’s tax returns on hold Friday. Unlike other cases across the country that have ground to a halt, however, this stay relates not to the coronavirus pandemic but to another subpoena facing appellate scrutiny.
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Sailors Ask Ninth Circuit to Revive Fukushima Class Action
A three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Tuesday considered whether a U.S. federal court has jurisdiction over negligence and wrongful death claims brought by hundreds of U.S. sailors exposed to radiation while rendering humanitarian aid in Fukushima, Japan, following a 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
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