Federal Reporter, Third Series

Kimberly Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, 853 F.3d 339 (7th Cir. 2017), was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in which the Court held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ruling made the Seventh Circuit the first federal appeals court to find that sexual orientation is a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

United States v. Rawls, No. 17-3205 (3d Cir. 2020) (formally, In re Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated March 25, 2015), is a precedential case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on February 6, 2020. The appeal addressed whether the 18-month limit on civil contempt confinement under 28 U.S.C. § 1826(a) applied to Francis Rawls, a former Philadelphia Police Department sergeant who had been incarcerated for over four years for refusing to comply with a court order to decrypt two encrypted external hard drives seized during a federal child pornography investigation. In a 2–1 decision, the Third Circuit ordered his release, holding that the statutory cap applied.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that "whistleblower" status and associated protections as defined by Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank only apply in cases where the whistleblower has reported malfeasance directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, 585 U.S. 1 (2018), is a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court concerning the constitutionality of governmental speech restrictions in a polling place venue. The case challenged a century-old Minnesota law that prevents voters from wearing clothing or items considered political while voting. While the Supreme Court previously ruled that political campaigning near polling places may be restricted, the Minnesota law was challenged as overbroad and violative of free speech rights under the First Amendment. On June 14, 2018, the Court ruled by a 7–2 vote that the Minnesota law was overbroad and violated free speech rights and was therefore unconstitutional.

Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. In a split opinion, the Court held that the state of Virginia's ban on uranium mining did not conflict with the Atomic Energy Act, and let the ban stand.

Saleh v. Bush, 848 F.3d 880 (9th Cir. 2017), was a class action lawsuit filed in 2013 against high-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration (including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz) for their alleged involvement in premeditating and carrying out the Iraq War. In December 2014, the district court hearing the case ordered it dismissed with prejudice. The dismissal was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit.

State of Washington and State of Minnesota v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151 (9th Cir. 2017), was a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 13769, issued by U.S. president Donald Trump.

Apple Inc. v. Pepper, 587 U.S. ___ (2019) was a United States Supreme Court case related to antitrust laws related to third-party resellers. The case centers on Apple Inc.'s App Store, and whether consumers of apps offered through the store have Article III standing under federal antitrust laws to bring a class-action antitrust lawsuit against Apple for practices it uses to regulate the App Store. The case centers on the applicability of the "Illinois Brick doctrine" established by the Supreme Court in 1977 via Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, which determined that indirect consumers of products lack Article III standing to bring antitrust charges against producers of those products.

Amdocs (Israel) Ltd. v. Openet Telecom, Inc., 841 F.3d 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2016), is a court case in the United States Federal Court System that ended with a panel decision by the Federal Circuit to uphold the patent eligibility of four patents on a system designed to solve an accounting and billing problem faced by network service providers. The district court had held the patents invalid because they were directed to an abstract idea. In the Federal Circuit panel's view the patents were eligible because they contained an "inventive concept"—a combination of elements that was sufficient to ensure that the patents amounted to significantly more than a patent on the ineligible concept itself. This is one of the few times since the Supreme Court's Alice Corp. v.

Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, No. 16-980, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case before the Supreme Court of the United States regarding Ohio's voter registration laws. At issue was whether federal law, 52 U.S.C. § 20507, permits Ohio's list-maintenance process, which uses a registered voter's voter inactivity as a reason to send a confirmation notice to that voter under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. If the mail is not returned, the voter is stricken from the rolls, a practice called voter caging. The Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that Ohio's law did not violate federal laws.

Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Symantec Corp., 838 F.3d 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2016), is a 2016 Federal Circuit decision concerning the patent eligibility of a computer-software claimed invention. In a split decision, a three-member panel of the court discussed the current legal status of such patents. The court held all three patents invalid as patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, 583 U.S. ___ (2017), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(5)(C)'s limitation on extensions of time to file a notice of appeal is a court-made rule and not jurisdictional. As such, a failure to comply with the deadline for filing a notice of appeal does not require dismissal of a case.

Tennessee v. Federal Communications Commission, 832 F.3d 597 (2016), was a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, holding that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to preempt states from enforcing "anti-expansion" statutes that prohibit local municipal broadband networks from being expanded into nearby communities.

Nielsen v. Preap, No. 16-1363, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the detention of legal immigrants with criminal histories. In a 5–4 vote, the Court ruled that the government has the power to detain, at any time, immigrants that have committed certain crimes that could lead to their deportation, even if they were not detained by immigration authorities upon release from criminal custody.

Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case brought against the state of Iran by the families of American victims of the Ben Yehuda Street bombings which occurred in September 1997. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, nations cannot typically be sued unless the state can be proved to have provided support for terrorists or acts of terrorism. After a district judge ruled Iran owed $71.5 million to the families of the victims, the families brought several cases to court in an attempt to attach and execute on assets owned by the state of Iran located in the United States. Under subsections (a) and (g) of 28 U.S.C.

Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 586 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case. It dealt with the designation of 1544 acres of private land in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana as "critical habitat" for the dusky gopher frog by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court vacated the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that upheld the designation and sent the case back for further review.

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down sixteen per curiam opinions during its 2017 term, which began October 2, 2017, and concluded September 30, 2018.

United States Telecom Association v. FCC, 825 F.3d 674 (D.C. Cir. 2016), was a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding an action by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the previous year in which broadband Internet was reclassified as a "telecommunications service" under the Communications Act of 1934, after which Internet service providers (ISPs) were required to follow common carrier regulations.

SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the United States Patent and Trademark Office, when conducting an inter partes review, must make judgement on all patent claims contested by the petitioner.

VMG Salsoul v Ciccone 824 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2016) is a court case that has played an important role in redefining the legal status of sampling in music under American copyright law. The case involved a claim of copyright infringement brought forth against the pop star Madonna, for sampling the horns from an early 1980s song "Ooh I Love It (Love Break)" by the Salsoul Orchestra in her international hit song "Vogue". Such sampling was done without a license, or compensation to VMG Salsoul, LLC, which was the copyright holder of "Love Break" and therefore brought suit claiming infringement and damages. The Ninth Circuit was to rule upon a contentious issue in the music industry at large, i.e.

Peruta v. San Diego, 824 F.3d 919 (9th Cir. 2016), was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit pertaining to the legality of San Diego County's restrictive policy regarding requiring documentation of "good cause" that "distinguish[es] the applicant from the mainstream and places the applicant in harm's way" (Cal. Pen. Code §§ 26150, 26155) before issuing a concealed carry permit.

Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on how two federal laws, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), relate to whether employment contracts can legally bar employees from collective arbitration. The Supreme Court had consolidated three cases, Epic Systems Corp. v Lewis (Docket 16-285), Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris (16-300), and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc. (16-307). In a 5–4 decision issued in May 2018, the Court ruled that arbitration agreements requiring individual arbitration and prohibiting class action lawsuits are enforceable under the FAA, regardless of allowances set out within the NLRA.

Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2016), is a 2016 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in which the court, for the second time since the United States Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank upheld the patent–eligibility of software patent claims. The Federal Circuit reversed the district court's summary judgment ruling that all claims were patent–ineligible abstract ideas under Alice. Instead, the claims were directed to a specific improvement to the way computers operate, embodied in the claimed "self-referential table" for a database, which the relevant prior art did not contain.

National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency's Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule must be filed in federal district courts. The case is the successor to North Dakota v. EPA, among others.

Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc., 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case related to trademark law under the Lanham Act. In the 9–0 decision on judgement, the Court ruled that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement lawsuit is not required to demonstrate that the defendant willfully infringed on their trademark to claim lost profit damages.

June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a Louisiana state law placing hospital-admission requirements on abortion clinics doctors was unconstitutional. The law mirrored a Texas state law that the Court found unconstitutional in 2016 in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (WWH).

United States v. Valle was a criminal case in the Southern District of New York concerning Gilberto Valle, a New York City Police Department officer who had discussed on online fetish chatrooms his fantasies about kidnapping, torturing, raping, killing, and cannibalizing various women he knew, and had used a police database to find the addresses of some. Dubbed the "Cannibal Cop" by the media, Valle was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and, for the use of the police database, violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The presiding judge, however, acquitted Valle on the conspiracy charges notwithstanding the verdict, ruling that the prosecution had not proven that Valle's online communications went beyond "fantasy role-play".

Republic of Sudan v. Harrison, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. The Court held that civil service of a lawsuit against the government of Sudan was invalid because the civil complaints and summons had been sent to the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C. rather than to the Sudanese Foreign Minister in Khartoum.

O'Bannon v. NCAA, 802 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. 2015), was an antitrust class action lawsuit filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The lawsuit, which former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon filed on behalf of the NCAA's Division I football and men's basketball players, challenged the organization's use of the images and the likenesses of its former student athletes for commercial purposes. The suit argued that upon graduation, a former student athlete should become entitled to financial compensation for NCAA's commercial uses of their image. The NCAA maintained that paying its athletes would be a violation of its concept of amateurism in sports.

Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015), is a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, holding that copyright owners must consider fair use defenses and good faith activities by alleged copyright infringers before issuing takedown notices for content posted on the Internet.

JVC Kenwood Corp. v. Nero, Inc., 797 F.3d 1039, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 14402 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 17, 2015), is a 2015 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concerning the rights of end users who purchase products subject to fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing under an industry-wide patent pool of standards-essential patents, and of suppliers of software to the end users.

Versata Development Group, Inc. v. SAP America, Inc., 793 F.3d 1306 (Fed. Cir. 2015), is a July 2015 decision of the Federal Circuit affirming the final order of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), the recently created adjudicatory arm of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), invalidating as patent ineligible the claims in issue of Versata's U.S. Patent No. 6,553,350 (the '350 patent). This was the first case in the Federal Circuit reviewing a final order in a Covered Business Method (CBM) invalidation proceeding under the America Invents Act (AIA).

United States v. Apple Inc., 952 F. Supp. 2d 638 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), was a US antitrust case in which the Court held that Apple Inc. conspired to raise the price of e-books in violation of the Sherman Act.

Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., 788 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2015), is a controversial decision of the US Federal Circuit in which the court applied the Mayo v. Prometheus test to invalidate on the basis of subject matter eligibility a patent said to "solve ... a very practical problem accessing fetal DNA without creating a major health risk for the unborn child." The rationale for denying patent-eligibility in this case allegedly stems from claims being directed toward non-eligible subject matter (Law of Nature), "if the APPLICATION [of this discovery] merely relies upon elements already known in the art." In December 2015, the Federal Circuit denied a motion for en banc rehearing, with several members of the court filing opinions urging Supreme Court review.

Garcia v. Google, Inc., 786 F.3d 733 (9th Cir. 2015), is an ongoing dispute that arose when Cindy Lee Garcia sued Google and its video-sharing website, YouTube, to have the controversial film, Innocence of Muslims, taken down from the site. A California district court denied Garcia's motion for preliminary injunction, but, on appeal, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court's decision, ordered YouTube to take down all copies of Innocence of Muslims, and remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration. In May 2015, in an en banc opinion, the Ninth Circuit reversed the panel's decision, vacating the order for the preliminary injunction.

United States v. Quartavious Davis is a United States federal legal case that challenged the use in a criminal trial of location data obtained without a search warrant from MetroPCS, a cell phone service provider. Mobile phone tracking data had helped place the defendant in this case at the scene of several crimes, for which he was convicted. The defendant appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which found the warrantless data collection had violated his constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, but declined to order a new trial because the evidence was collected in good faith. The Eleventh Circuit has since vacated this decision pending a rehearing by the Eleventh Circuit en banc. United States v. Davis, 573 Fed. Appx. 925 (11th Cir.

American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper, 785 F.3d 787 (2nd Cir., 2015), was a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its affiliate, the New York Civil Liberties Union, against the United States federal government as represented by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The ACLU challenged the legality and constitutionality of the National Security Agency's (NSA) bulk phone metadata collection program.

Dimanche v. Brown is a United States appellate court case concerning the rights of incarcerated individuals under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Decided by the United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, in 2015, the case established important precedent regarding the duty of prison officials to protect inmates from harm and to provide adequate medical care. The case has been widely cited in cases involving adherence to exhaustion of administrative remedies, taking judicial notice of agency records, deliberate indifference to medical needs and civil rights.

Lorraine Martin v. Hearst Corporation (2d Cir. 2015) was a defamation case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit protecting online news sources from having to remove or modify a story chronicling a person's arrest if that arrest is later erased from the record by the government using a criminal erasure statute.

Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., 577 U.S. 378 (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States clarified rules for determining whether a federal court may exercise diversity jurisdiction in cases involving unincorporated organizations. The case began as a contract dispute between food producers and a warehouse owner when millions of tons of stored food were destroyed in a warehouse fire. A federal trial court initially ruled in favor of the warehouse owner, but on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the federal district court may not have had jurisdiction.

Phillips v. City of New York, 775 F.3d 538 (2nd Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 104 (2015), was a 2015 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressing vaccination mandates and exemptions from them in New York City. The court concluded that it was within the constitutional police power of the state to mandate vaccination, and that religious exemptions were not constitutionally required. Therefore, even though the state did permit religious exemptions, it was free to provide them with limitations including the exclusion of exempted children from school during an outbreak of the disease, and requiring applicants to demonstrate the sincerity of their religious objection in order to receive an exemption.

Nichols v. United States, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) does not require an individual to update his registration after departing a state.

Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. ___ (2015), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a police officer who shot a suspect during a police pursuit was entitled to qualified immunity. In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that prior precedent did not establish "beyond debate" that the officer's actions were objectively unreasonable.

DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014), was the first United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision to uphold the validity of computer-implemented patent claims after the Supreme Court's decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. Both Alice and DDR Holdings are legal decisions relevant to the debate about whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter under Title 35 of the United States Code §101. The Federal Circuit applied the framework articulated in Alice to uphold the validity of the patents on webpage display technology at issue in DDR Holdings.

DeBoer v. Snyder is a lawsuit that was filed by April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse on January 23, 2012, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, challenging Michigan's ban on adoption by same-sex couples so they can jointly adopt their children. In August 2012, Judge Bernard A. Friedman invited the couple to amend their suit to challenge the state's ban on same-sex marriage, "the underlying issue". Following a hearing on October 16, 2013, Friedman scheduled a trial that ran from February 25 to March 7, 2014. On March 21, Judge Friedman issued his ruling overturning the ban. On March 22, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit placed a temporary hold on Judge Friedman's ruling. The appeal was argued on August 6.

October 22, 2014: Response to petition for rehearing en banc ordered.

Sturgeon v. Frost refers to two cases heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, both of which deal with the regulatory authority of the National Park Service over lands in Alaska under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). In the first case, Sturgeon v. Frost I, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), the Court ruled that the National Park Service may regulate only "public" lands in Alaska and remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court to decide whether the river in question, which is "submerged land," is "public" or "non-public" land. In Sturgeon v. Frost II, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), the Court unanimously ruled that the ANILCA defines navigable waters in Alaska as "non-public" lands and that they are exempt from the National Park Service's national regulations.

Jane Doe No. 14 v. Internet Brands, Inc., 767 F.3d 894 (2014), is a ruling at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the legal liability of an Internet service provider for criminal offenses committed by its users. The ultimate ruling in the case has caused confusion over the amount of liability faced by service providers during such incidents.

June 2, 2014: Emergency stay pending appeal ordered.

Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation, 766 F.3d 756 (7th Cir. 2014) is a copyright case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, on the question of whether the use of a photograph used by printing and t-shirt company Sconnie Nation, LLC, was a copyright infringement or fair use. The photo in question had been taken by Michael Kienitz and was of Paul Soglin, mayor of Madison, Wisconsin. The photo had been heavily abstracted and colorized for use on a T-shirt that said "Sorry for Partying," which referred to Soglin's attempt to shut down the annual Mifflin Street Block Party that he himself had attended in his youth.