On The Merits

It's been almost four months since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit launched an investigation into the fitness for service of one of its own judges, the 96-year-old Pauline Newman. Newman's colleagues believe she is physically and mentally unfit to sit on the bench and that she is refusing to cooperate in their investigation. For her part, Newman denies the accusations and has sho...

A government report from 1993 said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, would likely have to respond to one to two federally declared disasters per year. In just the first half of 2023, there have been around three dozen disasters. Climate change and the increase in extreme weather is putting immense strain on FEMA. And the agency has been pulled into additional crises, like help...

It's been a year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, clearing the way for Republican lawmakers to enact long-promised restrictions on abortion. However, in that time, the Republican-controlled House has passed just a handful of minor abortion bills—none of which have any hope of becoming law. On this week's episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Government reporter Zac...

The years of breakneck expansion in the legal industry are officially over—firms have now moved into contraction mode. While we're still not seeing Great Recession-style mass layoffs—yet—the downturn is generating plenty of anxiety. On today's episode of our weekly news podcast, On The Merits, we do a Big Law roundup, featuring three Bloomberg Law reporters talking about their corner of the legal...

When the PGA announced a plan to merge with its former rival, the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, sources with the league told Bloomberg Government's Kate Ackley they didn't expect to encounter major regulatory roadblocks. However, a week later, that now appears far too optimistic. Lawmakers from across the ideological spectrum have criticized the deal, both for antitrust concerns and for Saudi Arabia's gr...

We learned earlier this year that President Biden doesn't like it when employers impose noncompete clauses on their employees. In January, his Federal Trade Commission rolled out a proposal that would enact a near total ban on them. Now, a second federal agency has taken action against noncompetes. Last week, the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board said she thinks these agreements are...

New York City may be the next city to enact a total ban on facial recognition technology. The technology, which uses surveillance cameras to identify people in public, has been garnering headlines for years, but there are few regulations on how it can be used. Some cities have taken action by enacting partial bans or moratoriums. One city, Portland, Oregon, has a total ban. A bill introduced in th...

Generative AI models like ChatGPT aren't sophisticated enough to write a Hollywood-level screenplay, at least not yet. But if and when that changes, Hollywood writers want to make sure they're prepared. The Writers Guild of America is on strike, and a big reason is they want to insert language into a new bargaining agreement that gives the union a say in when and how algorithms can be used. Bloomb...

For decades now, both parties in Washington have been unhappy with the status quo at the U.S.-Mexico border. But finding a congressional solution to our border problem has never seemed more out of reach. House Republicans are moving forward on a comprehensive immigration bill that few, if any, believe can pass the Democratic Senate, much less earn President Biden's signature. Meanwhile, despite Bi...

The chief judge of one of the 13 federal appeals courts has filed a formal complaint against one of her colleagues. Her beef? That her nonagenarian fellow judge is cognitively impaired and unfit to serve. How did we get here? That's the topic of the latest episode of our weekly news podcast, On The Merits. We discuss the near-unprecedented move to remove 95-year-old Federal Circuit Judge Pauline N...

When Geraldine Tyler didn't pay her tax bill, her county sold her home and kept the profits—more than twice what she actually owed. Tyler, a Minnesotan who's now in her 90s, sued. Next week she'll be appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Numerous states have laws allowing tax authorities to take all of the value of a property when it forecloses. But Tyler is asking the Supreme Court to declare...

It's now clear that the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs last year raised more questions than it answered. The latest example of this came late last Friday when a pair of opinions from federal judges threw the legality of a long-used abortion medication into doubt. A judge from Washington state ordered the FDA to maintain the status quo for the drug mifepristone. Another judge from Texas came to th...

During the Cold War, the U.S. was the undisputed leader in a field of science called geodesy—the precise measurement of the shape and magnetic field of the Earth. The development of GPS sprung from this, along with many other useful technologies. But fast forward to today. Numerous countries have surpassed America in this field, with China in particular making extraordinary leaps. Scientists are n...

It used to be that bank runs took weeks, or even months, to gain steam. Not anymore. Thanks to the speed of electronic financial transactions and near-instantaneous online communication, the financial panics that felled Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank earlier this month materialized in a matter of days. Is there a solution for preventing this? Bloomberg Law reporter Evan Weinberg looked int...

Bankruptcy law is the ultimate countercyclical industry: business is booming when when things get bad. And things have almost never been worse in the crypto world, with even the most prominent coins down more than 40% in just the past year. Numerous crypto platforms—Voyager Digital, Celsius, BlockFi, and, most famously, FTX—have filed for Chapter 11. That means bankruptcy attorneys have a lot of w...

Court supervised guardianships are meant to protect people who can no longer manage themselves and their assets. But a Bloomberg Law investigation found that people in guardianships can easily be taken advantage of, and that getting out of one is extraordinarily difficult. Reporters Ronnie Greene and Holly Barker just released a five-part series that looks at how guardianships can go wrong—from we...

Britney Spears’ conservatorship dispute brought the guardianship system to the public eye. It’s a system that entraps thousands more Americans without a platform to fight back. The industry is regulated loosely and ripe for exploitation of elderly and disabled people, Bloomberg Law found in a six-month investigation. Read the full 5-part series: https://www.bloomberglaw.com/bloomberglawnews/us-law...

Suing your own customers usually isn't a wise business strategy. But that's what some insurance companies are doing as litigation over PFAS continues to flood the courts. Many of the companies that are, themselves, facing lawsuits over allegedly exposing people to the so-called "forever chemicals," are saying their insurers should be footing the costs of defending these suits. However, not only ar...

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is keeping his friends close, and his caucus closer. At least, that appears to be the intent behind what the California Republican is calling his "Five Families" strategy—a not-so-subtle reference to the classic 1972 film "The Godfather." In the hopes of avoiding the infighting that preceded his raucous Speakership vote, McCarthy is giving five different ideological fa...

A Massachusetts inmate says he deserves a new trial because his lawyer was racist, and the justices on his state's highest court aren't sure what to make of this argument. That was the takeaway from last week's oral argument in the closely-watched appeal of Anthony Dew. Dew is a Black Muslim man who says the discovery of extremely racist Facebook posts from his court-appointed lawyer should invali...

Back in the 1920s, the Supreme Court granted Major League Baseball an exemption from US antitrust rules. But since then, some members of the Court—including several current justices—have said they think they may have made a mistake. Now, the Department of Justice is joining the club. Last week, it asked an appellate court to apply this exemption as narrowly as possible in an amicus brief on behalf...

Have you seen the ads recruiting plaintiffs in the Camp Lejeune case? If you haven't, you've surely seen ones for mesothelioma, pesticides, talcum powder, or any number of big mass tort cases in recent years. The marketing used to find clients for these cases has become much more sophisticated, and the budgets used to identify potential clients have been growing exponentially. For the Camp Lejeune...

A trial is currently underway against the former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives over allegations he accepted millions in bribes. But he says the money was political speech protected by the First Amendment - and that he has Supreme Court cases to back him up. One case, 2010's Citizens United vs. FEC, reversed longstanding campaign finance restrictions as violating the First Amendment....

Investors may have a lot more opportunity to sue their boards of directors for mismanagement after a ruling last month in a Delaware opioid case. The ruling from Delaware Chancery Court, the country's premiere venue for corporate law disputes, was in a case against drug wholesaler AmerisourceBergen that centered on allegations its reckless opioid selling damaged the company's stock price. The cour...

The FDA has known for years that baby food can contain alarming amounts of toxic metals, including lead, arsenic, and cadmium. But why has it been slow to act? A team of Bloomberg Law reporters set out to answer this question, and to see how bad the baby food problem really is. For their project, Bloomberg Law independently tested more than two dozen products for contaminants. Two of those reporte...