US District Court Judge Susan Paradise Baxter ruled Monday that Pennsylvania must count undated or misdated mail-in ballots, finding that rejecting such ballots violated the First Amendment. Plaintiffs Bette Eakin, Ines Massella, Fetterman for PA, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed suit against Pennsylvania’s 67 county boards of elections in 2022. The suit claimed that the date on a mail-in ballot has “no bearing on a voter’s qualifications and serves no purpose other than to erect barriers to qualified voters exercising their fundamental constitutional right to vote.” The plaintiffs argued by not counting these ballots, the defendants were violating the First Amendment Right. Judge Baxter ruled that rejecting rejecting misdated or undated mail-in ballots is a First Amendment violation. Even though dating the mail-in ballots imposes a minimal burden on the plaintiff’s rights,…

Today, the voters of Wisconsin go to the polls in what may be the single most expensive and important judicial race in modern history. Both parties are spending millions with the balance of the state Supreme Court in the balance. If liberal Susan Crawford wins, the expectation is that she will vote with the Democratic majority to approve a gerrymandering of congressional districts to guarantee the loss of two Republicans and possibly flip control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats. The raw political pitch in the election is disturbing. It assumes that both candidates will blindly support the objectives of their respective parties. The real reason to cast a vote today should be on judicial ideology. Ironically, the United States Supreme Court made that plain in an important Wisconsin case argued just the day before the state election. The case is Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission. In the decision below, the…

Krebs on Security: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” -U.S. Constitution, First Amendment. “In an address to Congress this month, President Trump claimed he had “brought free speech back to America.” But barely two months into his second term, the president has waged an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment rights of journalists, students, universities, government workers, lawyers and judges. This story explores a slew of recent actions by the Trump administration that threaten to undermine all five pillars of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedoms concerning speech, religion, the media, the right to assembly, and the right to petition the government and seek redress for…

OPINION. GUEST ESSAY By John W. KekerRobert A. Van Nest and Elliot R. Peters The writers are the senior partners at the law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters. *** President Trump this month issued an executive order clearly intended to destroy the venerable law firm Perkins Coie, a firm that has zealously represented clients large and small for more than a century. The order left no doubt that Perkins Coie’s primary offense was representing Hillary Clinton in 2016 and standing up for other causes Mr. Trump views unfavorably. It could not have been more blatantly unconstitutional than if a legal scholar had been asked to draft a template for an unlawful executive order: It violates the First Amendment, contravenes fundamental due process rights and imperils the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. On March 11, the courageous and skillful law firm Williams & Connolly filed a lawsuit on Perkins Coie’s behalf, seeking to enjoin the…

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday for a Wisconsin Catholic charity requesting a religious exemption from an unemployment insurance tax. Catholic Charities Bureau, the petitioners, argued that Wisconsin law disfavored Catholic Charities because the organization served and hired non-Catholics and did not proselytize, meaning that they did not engage in typical religious activities. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether the “religious purposes” part of the statute is not really about the motivation of the activity, but instead the types of activities the organization undertakes. She prompted the petitioners to look to the legislative history of the federal provision. She noted that the distinction is between organizations that proselytize and organizations that do not proselytize. The petitioners reiterated that their argument relied on “not discriminating along theological lines” within the religious exemption, rather than…

Part I: Can HOAs restrict homeowners’ speech? For individuals residing in common interest developments, the constitutional right to free speech is not applicable. While many believe that they have a right to freely express themselves by posting signs, banners, flags, and religious symbols on their own properties, they may be surprised to learn that their HOAs and condominium associations are not bound by the free speech clauses contained within the federal and state constitutions. Though, in California, this does not mean that residents automatically lose their free speech rights when they move into their associations, because the Davis-Stirling Act safeguards many of the same rights that are enjoyed by citizens residing outside of common interest developments. Constitutional Rights to Free Speech Both the state and federal constitutions prohibit state actors (i.e., the government) from restricting free speech, but these constitutional protections do not generally apply…

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field. Committed to advancing legal scholarship on freedom of expression, CGFoE is back to teaching. Last week, in collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires, CGFoE’s Team members led a class on Freedom of Expression in the European and African Regional Systems. The instructors – Anderson Javiel Dirocie De León, Senior Legal and Policy Consultant; Lautaro Furfaro, Senior Legal Researcher; and Juan Manuel Ospina, Senior Legal Editor – focused on the European Court of Human Rights and the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, with comparative references to…

Advance release contract law opinion: Pryor v. Brignole (Breach of contract; special motions to dismiss filed pursuant to anti-SLAPP statute (§ 52-196a); statutory interpretation of § 52-196a; matter of public concern pursuant to § 52-196a, discussed.)

The Connecticut Appellate Court reversed and remanded the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss a breach of contract action brought against a law firm by a former associate In these related appeals, the defendants, Timothy Brignole and the law...

[thrown out for lack of evidence of "actual malice" (i.e., knowing or reckless falsehood on Newsweek's part).] A short excerpt from today's long decision by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil (S.D.N.Y.) in The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Newsweek Magazine LLC: The Satanic Temple, Inc. … [sued] Newsweek Magazine LLC … [for alleged defamation] in the article titled "Orgies, Harassment, Fraud: Satanic Temple Rocked by Accusations, Lawsuit" published by Newsweek. After this Court's [earlier] Opinion and Order on Defendant's motion to dismiss, only one statement, "Accounts of sexual abuse being covered up in ways that were more than anecdotal" (the "Article Statement"), remains at issue…. The court grants Newsweek summary judgment as to that last statement. The court concludes that there's a material factual dispute as to what the statement would mean to a reasonable reader (and whether it's false): The…

The “targeted advertising” data protection case of O’Carroll v Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd (KB-2022-004365) was settled on 21 March 2025 with a  Facebook has agreeing to stop the claimant’s personal data to target ads at her. Human rights campaigner, Tanya O’Carroll  had objected to Facebook’s use of her personal data for ad targeting, after she noticed she was receiving pregnancy-related ads before she had shared the news of her pregnancy privately. She argued that targeted advertising should be classified as direct marketing under UK law, giving users the right to opt out. The ICO supported this view, emphasising that “organisations must respect people’s choices about how their data is used.” Meta argued that its ads are targeted at groups of at least 100 users, not individuals, and that its model keeps services free. The case has set a precedent for others seeking to disable Facebook’s ads, however Meta has…

In a landmark decision with profound implications for environmental activism and corporate accountability, a North Dakota jury has rendered a verdict requiring Greenpeace to pay over $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. This outcome stems from Greenpeace’s involvement in the 2016 protests against the pipeline’s construction, which garnered international attention. This was Greenpeace taking direct action, no different from their first acts to stop nuclear weapon tests in the Aleutian islands in 1971 and the organization’s best known acts to save the whales over subsequent decades. After this jury verdict, it may be Greenpeace that needs saving. Background of the Case The Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172 mile conduit designed to transport crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois, became a focal point of contention due to alleged environmental and indigenous rights concerns. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose…

It was no coincidence that President Donald Trump announced on the campaign trail that he would seek to end birthright citizenship via executive order on the heels of the 125th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. For well over a century, Congress, the courts, the executive branch, and the American public have understood and adhered to the principle set forth by the Court in 1898 that U.S. citizenship is automatically conferred to anyone born in the United States (except the children of diplomats and occupying foreign powers). Trump’s Executive Order No. 14160, however, distorts the Wong Kim Ark decision, apparently in the belief that the Court’s language provides a blueprint to limit birthright citizenship only to the children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents (“LPRs” or green card holders). Not so. Despite the fact that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause does not include the words…

[The modern crime victims' rights movement has been remarkably successful in inserting the victim's voice into criminal justice processes.] This post is the second of three posts, serializing my comprehensive law review article on the crime victims' rights movement. In yesterday's post, I described the movement's roots in the history of private prosecution. This post describes the movement's last several decades, during which the movement has successfully created participatory rights for victims throughout America's criminal justice system. The modern victims' rights movement began to stir in the late 1960s, coalesced in the 1970s, and gained momentum in the early 1980s. The movement has continued ever  since "as one of the most significant and successful forces for reshaping the criminal justice process."  The movement's birth can be traced to the confluence of five developments: (1) the creation of an…

Most discovery disputes involve requests for production of documents.  This is because there are specific requirements for a party to properly respond to the request which has been the subject of many of my blogs, including a responding party’s obligation to state whether the documents you are seeking ever existed and where they are now as well as which request the documents being produced are responsive. However, there is nothing more combative in discovery than parties arguing over objections to a document request and the adequacy of the privilege log–assuming one was even provided.  To begin, in responding to the document request, a party is obligated to list the documents in a privilege log that are being withheld on the claim of privilege.  C.C.P. §2031.240.  According to Cal. Prac. Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (TRG 2024) §8:1474.5a, citing Hernandez v. Sup. Ct. (2003) 112 CA4th 285, pg.…

 According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, a DAO is a "term used to describe a 'virtual' organization embodied in computer code and executed on a distributed ledger or blockchain".  See Report of Investigation Pursuant to Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934: The DAO.  That does not answer the question, however, of the legal status of DAOs.  Two years ago, I wrote that U.S. District Court Judge  William H. Orrick  had ruled that  Ooki DAO was an unincorporated association under California law.  CFTC v. Ooki DAO, 2022 WL 17822445. Several months later, U.S. District Court Judge  Larry Alan Burns found that the plaintiffs had sufficiently pled the existence of bXz DAO as a partnership under California law.  Sarcuni v. bZx DAO, 664 F. Supp. 3d 1100 (S.D. Cal. 2023) In the meantime, California Assembly Member Matt Haney introduced legislation, AB 1229, that…

On September 29, 2024, the Governor of California signed into law a new bill that would create a uniform resentencing procedure. In the past decade, the California legislature has passed numerous bills that have provided incarcerated individuals with the opportunity to ask courts to have their sentences recalled and reduced. Some of these ameliorative statutes include AB 2942 – Recall of Sentence and Resentencing, which grants district attorneys the ability to make resentencing referrals; the RISE Act (SB 483); and SB 775/SB 1437, which effectively eliminated the role of the natural and probable consequences doctrine in murder cases and dramatically limited who can be charged under the felony murder doctrine. Those and other legislation have provided an opportunity for countless people to petition the courts to have their sentences reduced. The new laws have given defendants hope that the tough-on-crime policies of the past would not result in them serving unjust…

Whenever an employer investigates employee misconduct, there’s a chance it will find—and may have to disclose—negative facts. This is true when a hospital investigates the medical conduct of a doctor, or an employer investigates an employee for potential harassment. In both instances, and in the absence of malice, those investigations are protected by the litigation and the common interest privileges. Mounting Problems Dignity Health hired orthopedic surgeon Troy I. Mounts to work in a spine surgery practice at the San Luis Obispo French Hospital Center. Concerns regarding his clinical competence arose almost immediately. At the same time, he complained he wasn’t getting staff support or adequate time in the operating room to perform complex surgeries. Dignity put Mount’s complex surgeries “on hold” and required him to complete a previously scheduled surgery with a second surgeon he hadn’t worked with before.…