Good morning. Sarah Palin's defamation trial has wrapped, but it may not be the end of the story for her case against the New York Times. Media lawyers say the dispute could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, but any appeal will face an uphill battle. Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court could have its first Latina justice, and families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims reached a $73 million settlement with gunmaker Remington Arms. Finally, Prince Andrew has reached a settlement with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager. It’s Wednesday. Let’s jump into the news.
Our colleague Karen Sloan, who reports on law firms, law schools and the business of law, is cowriting The Daily Docket while Diana Novak Jones is on parental leave. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Sarah Palin will now have an opportunity to appeal her defamation case against the New York Times to the 2nd Circuit, but any further legal challenges — including any trip to the U.S. Supreme Court — face a narrow path to fight broad U.S. protections for news organizations, media lawyers told Reuters.
A Manhattan jury ruled for the Times in Palin’s lawsuit, finding the newspaper did not act with “actual malice” in a 2017 editorial that incorrectly linked her rhetoric to a mass shooting. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said on Monday, outside the presence of the jury, he would rule for the Times regardless of the jury’s verdict. "We reached the same bottom line, but on different grounds," he told jurors yesterday, our colleagues Jody Godoy and Jonathan Stempel report. "You decided the facts. I decided the law."
Palin’s path forward is more difficult now that a jury and judge have both ruled against her, law experts told Jan Wolfe. "The fact that the judge and jury found no actual malice may be cautionary light for her (Palin's) lawyers about whether to take this case further," David Logan, a Roger Williams University law professor, said. "Now the odds look a bit bleaker."
Palin’s case is one of several that could challenge the 1964 "actual malice" legal standard for public figures to prove defamation, as established in New York Times v. Sullivan, Daniel Wiessner reports.
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- Yale University's lawyers at Wiggin and Dana asked a Connecticut federal court to dismiss a suit filed by two law students who claim administrators retaliated against them for refusing to aid their investigation into high-profile law professor Amy Chua. (Reuters)
- California state appeals court Judge Patricia Guerrero could become the first Latina justice on the California Supreme Court. California Governor Gavin Newsom nominated Guerrero, based in San Diego, to succeed Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who left the bench in October. Guerrero, a former Latham partner and federal prosecutor, has served on the Fourth District Court of Appeal since 2017. (Los Angeles Times)
- A New York state appeals court rejected defunct law firm Kenyon & Kenyon’s bid to recover more than $9.3 million in fees from an ex-client that invented a system for internet music and film downloads. (Reuters)
- The Washington, D.C.-based Federal Circuit will return to live oral arguments in March as Omicron cases ease, joining a growing list of other courts, including the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit, that have announced similar plans. (Reuters)
- A federal jury convicted Chicago alderman and attorney Patrick Daley Thompson of filing false tax returns and making false statements. He is the nephew of former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley. (Reuters)
That’s the number of corporate resolutions in 2021 signed by the U.S. Justice Department's fraud section, a drop from 13 the previous year. The number of deals resolving U.S. government investigations into corporate misconduct declined as President Joe Biden's administration took over, due to a drop in settlements related to foreign corruption and bribery, the data showed. Read more about what the latest data show.
The nearly 60-year-old “actual malice” test doomed Sarah Palin’s defamation suit against the New York Times. David Gibbs, who represents a Christian broadcasting group that accused the Southern Poverty Law Center of defamation, told Alison Frankel that he’s hoping for ripple effects from the hoopla surrounding Palin’s case. Gibbs’ client has asked the Supreme Court to revisit the actual malice standard — and he says the Palin case has improved its odds.
Video: Valieva case points to holes in anti-doping framework - legal experts
Sports lawyer Paul Greene of Global Sports Advocates and Washington & Lee University law professor Mark Drumbl look at gaps in the rules that leave Kamila Valieva's status at the Beijing Olympics in flux. Watch the video.
"These families would do everything to give it all back for just one more minute. That would be true justice."
—Joshua Koskoff of Connecticut’s Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, representing families of victims in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Remington Arms’ $73 million settlement resolving claims from the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, marked the first time a gunmaker has been held responsible for a mass shooting in the United States. Lawyers from the Chicago firm Swanson, Martin & Bell represented Remington. Read more about the case and settlement.
- The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will take up a new round of U.S. judicial nominees, including Nina Morrison, senior litigation counsel at the Innocence Project who was picked for the Eastern District of New York; Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, nominated to serve in the Central District of California; and Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson for the Northern District of California. Watch the confirmation hearing on the committee’s website at 10 a.m. EST.
- Members of the Sackler family who own opioid maker Purdue Pharma face a mediation deadline for negotiations with eight states that oppose the company's bankruptcy settlement. A mediator has requested multiple short extensions of that deadline, saying that the two sides are close to a deal that would substantially add to the $4.3 billion the Sacklers have already agreed to contribute to an opioid litigation settlement in Purdue's bankruptcy. Manhattan U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in December tossed the original settlement, finding that the bankruptcy court did not have legal authority to approve the protections for the Sacklers because they had not sought bankruptcy for themselves.
- A private equity and real estate executive is scheduled to be sentenced in Massachusetts federal court following his conviction in the first trial in the U.S. college admissions scandal. Prosecutors said John Wilson, who founded Hyannis Port Capital, paid $220,000 in 2014 to have his son falsely designated a University of Southern California water polo recruit and later in 2018 paid another $1 million to try to secure spots for his twin daughters at Stanford and Harvard universities. White & Case partners Michael Kendall and Lauren Papenhausen are defending Wilson. Last week, Gamal Aziz, a former executive at casino operator Wynn Resorts, was sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted in the admissions fraud scheme.
- Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is due in Washington, D.C., federal court to convince U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to release him from jail pending trial on seditious conspiracy charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors have argued to keep Rhodes in custody, saying he is dangerous and could try to flee. Rhodes is represented by Dallas-based lawyers Phillip Linder and James Lee Bright.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
- Britain's Prince Andrew has reached a settlement with Virginia Giuffre, after she accused him in a lawsuit of sexually abusing her more than two decades ago when she was 17. The settlement, including an undisclosed payment, was revealed in a joint filing in Manhattan federal court, where Giuffre had sued Queen Elizabeth's second son last August. The prince did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement. (Reuters)
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The husband of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed last year during filming of the Western movie "Rust,” has filed a wrongful death suit against actor Alec Baldwin and others responsible for safety on set. Plaintiff Matt Hutchins is a corporate lawyer in Latham & Watkins' Los Angeles office. (Reuters)
- Facebook will pay $90 million to settle a decade-old privacy lawsuit accusing it of tracking users' internet activity even after they log out of the social media website. Plaintiffs’ firms DiCello Levitt Gutzler, Grygiel Law and Simmons Hanly Conroy said they’d seek up to $26.1 million in attorneys’ fees as part of the settlement. Lawyers from Cooley and Mayer Brown represented Facebook. (Reuters)
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The U.S. government said it faces "significant harm" if the 5th Circuit does not lift an injunction barring enforcement of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for government workers. Testing unvaccinated employees could cost up to $22 million a month. The appeals court will hear the DOJ’s appeal on March 8. (Reuters)
- The Carlyle Group cannot escape a lawsuit accusing the private equity giant of selling Authentix for too low a price in 2017 by arguing that the plaintiffs waived their right to sue in a shareholder agreement, a Delaware judge ruled. (Reuters)
- A Federal Trade Commission judge dismissed an agency complaint that sought to require Altria Group to sell a minority investment in e-cigarette firm Juul Labs. Lawyers from the firms Wilkinson Stekloff and Wachtell represented Altria, and Cleary Gottlieb represented Juul. (Reuters)
- Seattle-based plaintiffs’ firm Hagens Berman is defending an award of $31 million in legal fees in long-running antitrust litigation in California over optical disk drives, telling the 9th Circuit in a brief that an objector contesting the compensation brought an “untimely attack.”
- Foley & Lardner said it expanded its Salt Lake City office, adding four partners from Stoel Rives: Ken Black, Monica Call, David Jordan and David Mortensen. The new hires focus on business litigation and dispute resolution. (Reuters)
- Latham & Watkins has added partner Stephanie Teicher to its private equity finance practice in New York. She was previously co-head of Skadden’s private equity group. (Reuters)
- Mayer Brown has added former White & Case partner Matthew Griffin to its corporate and securities practice in London. (Reuters)
- DLA Piper has added San Francisco-based partners Matthew Jacobs and Jessica Heim to its litigation practice. Both are former federal prosecutors who previously worked at Vinson & Elkins. (DLA Piper)
- Haynes and Boone has brought on partner Vincent Shier to its patent prosecutor practice. Shier joins from intellectual property boutique Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt and is based in Washington, D.C. (Haynes and Boone)
A new Nasdaq rule requires companies whose stock is traded on the exchange to have diverse board members or disclose why their board is not diverse. Proponents heralded the rule as a step toward corporate equality, write Jonathan Uslaner and Thomas Sperber of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. Critics have assailed the rule as discriminatory. Learn more about the rule and a legal challenge in the 5th Circuit.
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