Posts on ‘January 12th, 2009’

An insurer has no duty to indemnify the owner of a strip club for a bouncer’s assault on a patron because the policy’s assault-and-battery exclusion was triggered by the bouncer’s conviction on a criminal assault charge, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The decision was authored by 3rd Circuit Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica and joined by Judge Marjorie O. Rendell and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, sitting on the 3rd Circuit by invitation.

Robert James Walton was imprisoned for bank robbery when he was assigned to work for a government-owned corporation that produced and distributed calendars. Walton, who had a background in desktop publishing, copyrighted a design and sued the government for infringement in 2005. The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed a decision by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims tossing the suit, saying Walton’s lawsuit is banned because he was working “in service to” the United States.

Conrad Black, the former CEO of Hollinger International who is serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for a $6.1 million fraud, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case in a last-ditch effort to overturn his conviction. But Jacob Frenkel, a former U.S. prosecutor, said that would be unlikely. A decision last week to uphold former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling’s convictions for his role in the energy giant’s collapse has also damaged Black’s chance of the Supreme Court even considering this issue, Frenkel said.

President-elect Barack Obama wants the words “so help me God” to be included when he takes the oath of office on Inauguration Day, according to a document filed in federal court. The affidavit — which states that the president-elect specifically wished for Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. to include the phrase when he administers the oath — figured heavily Friday in the Justice Department’s opposition to a suit filed by a group of atheists who want to bar Roberts from using “so help me God” in the oath.

Breaking with a recent 9th Circuit opinion, the 7th Circuit has made it tougher for plaintiffs to keep securities class actions in state court by claiming that the 2005 Class Action Fairness Act’s preference for federal jurisdiction trumps the Securities Act of 1933. The court held that a provision in the 1933 act does not prevent removal of state class actions to federal court when other requirements of the more recent CAFA are met.

Lloyds TSB Bank PLC has agreed to forfeit $350 million to the U.S. and to the New York County district attorney’s office for conducting illegal transactions on behalf of customers from Iran, Sudan and other countries on the U.S. sanctions list, the Justice Department said Friday. From 1995 to 2007, Lloyds’ offices in Britain and Dubai falsified outgoing U.S. wire transfers in order to evade U.S. economic sanctions imposed on foreign countries, the DOJ said.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s presiding partner, Evan Chesler, argues in the latest issue of magazine that the billable hour must go. But in the U.K., lawyers and clients have never had the same obsession with hourly billing as their American peers. Over the last 20 years hourly rates have become the dominant currency there, but the tide slowly is turning — and some British companies and firms are much further along in shifting away from the billable hour than their American counterparts.

Consultant Rees W. Morrison reviews five hot-button issues in outside counsel guidelines: charges related to travel time, conflicts of interest, changes in billing rates, disbursements and staff restrictions. These topics crop up all the time because for law departments they affect the budget; for law firms they concern quality of life, liability, profitability and management. Morrison says law departments and law firms will be better off if there are some standards that are generally understood and shared.