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Petrella V. MGM: Supreme Court Recognizes Limits On Laches
The word “laches” is from French, meaning “remissness” or “slackness.” One of the familiar equitable defenses, laches developed in chancery to prevent unreasonable delay in pursuing a right or claim,...
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The “Villain’s” Reply: Judge Posner Defends His Experiment in Chambers
We last wrote about Mitchell v. JCG Industries, No. 13-2115 (7th Cir. Mar. 18, 2014), in mid-March, when one judge on the panel (all suspected Judge Posner) confirmed his “intuition” that plaintiffs in...
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Too Little, Too Late: Seventh Circuit Reaffirms the Limits of a Registration...
In Goldman v. Gagnard, No. 12-2706 (June 27, 2014), the Seventh Circuit (in an opinion authored by Judge Tinder) waded into a long-running, continent-spanning dispute, which it characterized as...
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It’s Not a Federal Question: 7th Circuit Sends Case Involving Affordable Care...
What is or what is not a federal question under Grable & Sons Metal Products, Inc. v. Darue Engineering & Manufacturing, 545 U.S. 308 (2005), is an issue that continues to perplex lawyers,...
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A Jurisdictional Twist: 7th Cir. Holds That District Court Had Supplemental...
There’s nothing inherently unique about the substantive issues in Burzlaff v. Thoroughbred Motorsports, Inc., No. 13-2520 (July 10, 2014), a decision released yesterday by the Seventh Circuit. The...
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Back to School: 7th Circuit Issues Two Decisions On International Diversity...
Putting together all the Seventh Circuit’s decisions from the last few decades on subject-matter jurisdiction would yield an impressive textbook on the subject. The court (and Judge Easterbook, in...
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Sarbanes-Oxley Casts a Wide Net, Literally
Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 to deal with the accounting scandals that resulted in the downfall of the likes of Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson, and others. In its October Term 2014,...
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Seventh Circuit Leaves Distressed-Asset Investor with No Remedy, or Exactly...
It’s rare that a party to a contract can breach it but not be liable for a remedy. Yet that’s precisely what happened last week in Southern Financial Group, LLC v. McFarland State Bank, No. 13-3378...
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Seventh Circuit Defines “Worthless Services” Under the False Claims Act
That’s the upshot from U.S. ex rel. Absher v. Momence Meadows Nursing Center, Nos. 13-1886 & 13-1936 (Aug. 20, 2014), a recent decision from the Seventh Circuit (authored by Judge Manion) that...
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Judge Easterbrook On Appellate Review: There Are No “Writs of Erasure”
Judge Easterbrook provided a fundamental and valuable lesson on appellate review during today’s oral argument in O’Keefe v. Chisholm, a series of consolidated appeals that concern the John Doe...
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Seventh Circuit Upholds Springfield’s Panhandling Ordinance, Using a Historic...
It can’t have happened often (if at all) that a retired Justice would decide a new case based on his reading of an opinion in which he dissented. Yet that is precisely what happened in Thayer v....
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Seventh Circuit Explains What Same-Sex Marriage and Voter ID Have in Common
What do cases involving challenges to same-sex-marriage and voter ID laws have in common? The answer, according to a per curiam opinion issued today by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals...
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Seventh Circuit Warns Intervenors Not to Sleep On Their Rights
It’s an ancient principle of equity, drawn from Roman law: Equity relieves the vigilant, not those who sleep upon their rights. And it sums up quite well the Seventh Circuit’s recent decision in SEC v....
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Wisconsin’s Court of Appeals Rejects Municipality’s “Fee in Lieu of Room Tax”
Nothing in life might be certain but death and taxes, but a recent decision from Wisconsin’s court of appeals turned out to be an exception to that rule. In Bentivenga v. City of Delavan, No. 2014AP137...
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Seventh Circuit Analyzes Its Jurisdiction Under the Panama Convention
International arbitration can be tricky, and it’s not often that the Seventh Circuit has an opportunity to analyze the grounds for its jurisdiction in this area. That makes the court’s recent decision...
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Seventh Circuit Offers No Relief for United Airlines’“Million Milers”
For years United Airlines has asked its customers to “Fly the Friendly Skies,” but a dispute with one of its frequent flyers turned decidedly unfriendly and became the subject of a recent case before...
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A Reminder from the Seventh Circuit to Proofread the Form of the Judgment
The Seventh Circuit’s docket appears to be rife with cases involving little errors that turn out to have not-so-little effects. Last month we wrote about the perils of typos in security agreements;...
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Seventh Circuit Requires “Cash On the Barrelhead” From Interpleaders
Judge Easterbrook and his colleagues on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit aren’t about to exercise jurisdiction over a civil action of interpleader merely on credit or promises to pay....
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Judge Posner On Bankruptcy’s “Clean-Up” Jurisdiction
Most bankruptcy lawyers might think that the dismissal of a bankruptcy proceeding and the revesting of the bankruptcy estate’s assets in the debtor bring an end to the bankruptcy court’s jurisdiction....
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Did Justice Thomas Foreshadow the Downfall of the Affordable Care Act in...
By no means do we think that we might reliably predict the outcome of such a politically charged case as King v. Burwell, No. 14-114, the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act. But for those who...
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