Posts on ‘September 14th, 2009’

During last week’s extraordinary Supreme Court oral argument in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, some of the more remarkable moments came when Justice John Paul Stevens repeatedly referred, with approval, to a brief filed in the case by the National Rifle Association. Not a pairing you might expect, but Stevens saw in the brief a possible way to rule on the case narrowly, without totally upending major Court precedents on corporate and union spending in election campaigns.

Be careful what you ask for, the old saying goes, because you just might get it. That aphorism was perhaps ringing all too true recently for a group of Philadelphia lawyers who had been hoping an appeals court would overturn a federal judge’s 2007 decision that sanctioned and sharply chastised them for using litigation tactics that, in the judge’s view, were designed to “frustrate” and “impede” the discovery process.

The next few months are shaping up as a critical time in the life of the post-Enron, post-WorldCom reform agency — the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Sometime in October, the five-member board, created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the auditors of public companies, could be down to two members. And, early next year, the Supreme Court will hear a constitutional challenge to its very existence.

Jury selection begins today in a case that pits intellectual property litigator Eric Albritton against tech company Cisco Systems. Albritton alleges in his June 16, 2008, federal court complaint that Richard Frenkel, a one-time in-house lawyer at Cisco, defamed him in anonymous postings on Frenkel’s Patent Troll Tracker blog in October 2007. The suits have attracted considerable attention due to the popularity of the Patent Troll Tracker blog, which is currently “open to invited readers only.”

Lawyers handle a lot of technical tasks that beg for automation, e.g., calculating dates for court appearances and filing deadlines. Law.com technology editor Sean Doherty reviews Compulaw’s Deadlines On Demand and finds it an easy and cost-effective way to manage a calendar.

The former Miami chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who is accused of destroying evidence in the alleged $8 billion Stanford Financial Group fraud, wants to force the prosecution’s hand by insisting on a trial later this month. Thomas Raffanello made a court appearance Friday on charges of obstructing a federal investigation and destroying records protected by a court order when he allegedly ordered the shredding of documents to thwart an investigation into the Houston-based financial enterprise.

To those tracking the first product liability trial accusing Merck’s osteoporosis drug Fosamax of causing debilitating jaw bone deterioration, it should come as no surprise that a mistrial was declared on Friday. But the lead plaintiffs lawyer’s view of the eight-member jury’s failure to reach a verdict may raise some eyebrows.

An employer may be held liable for discrimination by third parties authorized by the employer to make hiring decisions on its behalf, a federal appeals court held last week. Clarifying its case law, the 2nd Circuit reversed a lower court judge who had granted summary judgment to an employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The ruling stems from a case in which an independent contractor allegedly told a job applicant he was “too old” for the job.