Foley Hoag LLP

Late last week, the United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Association of Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. The Court held unanimously that full-length wild-type DNA molecules are not…more

Yesterday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that managers of limited liability companies can be individually liable under the Massachusetts Wage Act for unpaid wages due to employees. Historically, the Wage Act has…more

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum a number of questions remain as to whether corporations may be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) for serious violations of human rights. …more

A decision this week from the Federal Circuit, in a patent invalidity action, has been getting a lot of press for its suggestion that patent (and by implication trademark) holders may be able to avoid challenges to the validity…more

In Fraelick v. PerkettPR, Inc., the Massachusetts Appeals Court recently held that an employee had a claim for retaliation under the Massachusetts Wage Act, despite that her underlying complaint was not about wages. In that…more

In a 78 page decision in the Lower Fox River Superfund case issued last month, the federal court issued an injunction against NCR Corp. and three other PRPs requiring them to perform a $1.5 billion remedy. No company ever…more

The Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear argument in Lexmark v. Static Control that will strike at the very heart of false advertising jurisprudence by asking who is allowed to bring false advertising claims. The Lanham…more

Everyone who represents PRPs in Superfund settlements has his or her own horror stories regarding the scope of EPA’s oversight cost claims. We all know that oversight costs can end up as an appreciable percentage of total site…more

As readers of this blog know, I believe in governmental environmental regulation. We have a complicated world and it is not surprising that many activities, including those generating greenhouse gases, cause negative…more

Google wants more options for how it buys its energy and has put out a white paper with a roadmap for how utilities could provide those options. In short, Google’s detail-light proposal is that utilities develop an optional…more

Doc Brown would be impressed. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has announced an ambitious goal of installing 1.6GW of solar in the Commonwealth by 2020. Gov. Patrick made the announcement after celebrating the…more

One concern with adding large amounts of renewable generation to the electric grid is that the variability of renewable resources such as solar and wind might render the electric grid unreliable. According to a recent report…more

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced that the first auction of leases of offshore wind areas will be held on July 31. Even though it now looks as though Cape Wind will eventually get to the finish line,…more

An interesting debate recently occurred in the New England Journal of Medicine between a physician and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding whether the letters X and Z are used too frequently in pharmaceutical…more

Just as tortfeasors take their victims as they find them, so PRPs take their hazardous waste sites as they find them. This rule has been around since the beginning of CERCLA and means that a party which arranges for the…more