A federal district court ruled in a high-profile case that the Justice Department may rely on common law rather than the statutory notice of tax deficiency procedure in the Internal Revenue Code to assert a federal income tax...more
The U. S. Supreme Court has redirected escheatment of certain unclaimed funds from states that were previously presumed properly to claim the funds. In this decision, instead of escheating all of the unclaimed funds arising...more
All nine Supreme Court Justices sided with a group of 30 states in a dispute with Delaware over hundreds of millions of dollars of unclaimed checks issued by MoneyGram, a money transfer company. The Court held that the...more
The brawl over climate tort liability has returned, again, to the U.S. Supreme Court. In its first skirmish in 2011, the Court in Connecticut v. American Electric Power swept the board by declaring that the federal Clean Air...more
Five years ago, we wrote about an important decision from the Delaware Chancery Court, In re Carlisle Etcetera, LLC, 114 A3d 592 [2015], in which a court recognized for the first time the existence under Delaware law of a...more
COVID-19 and the resulting economic uncertainty are adversely impacting businesses worldwide. Colorado companies that are financially distressed may be unable to survive alone and may consider reevaluating consolidation...more
Key commercial aspects - 1 Describe, in general terms, the key commercial aspects of the oil sector in your country. The US oil industry is divided into three sectors: • upstream (exploration and production); •...more
Scalia v. Employer Solutions Staffing Group, LLC, 951 F.3d 1097 (9th Cir. 2020) - Summary: Neither the Fair Labor Standards Act nor federal common law provide an employer with a right to seek contribution or...more
In its recent decision in Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., No. 18–1269 (Sup. Ct. Feb. 25, 2020), the Supreme Court held that federal courts may not apply the federal common law “Bob Richards Rule” to determine...more
On February 25, 2020, the United States Supreme Court in Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation struck down a judicial federal common law rule—known as the Bob Richards rule—that is used by courts to allocate tax...more
On February 25, 2020, in Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, No. 18-1269 (U.S. 2020), the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ruled that the so-called “Bob Richards rule” should not be used to determine which...more
On February 25, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion vacating a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit applying federal common law to determine the allocation of a corporate...more
The United States Supreme Court has picked up the pace this week, already issuing eight regular opinions and four opinions relating to orders as of today. We discuss the tax-related items here. In Rodriguez v. FDIC, the...more
On February 25, 2020, the Supreme Court decided Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, No. 18-1269, overruling a federal common law rule that was used in some circumstances to determine how to distribute the tax...more
When can a Federal Court employ a federal common law rule to make its decision in the case? Justice Gorsuch answer this in Rodriguez v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., U.S., No. 18-1269, 2/25/20. The answer...less often than you...more
Not surprisingly, the federal rules govern all work product issues in all federal courts. But determining the correct attorney-client privilege law is much more complicated. The federal common law of privilege applies in...more
Assignor estoppel is a long-established, common-law doctrine of equity, which prevents a party who assigns a patent to another from later challenging the validity of the assigned patent. The doctrine also applies to parties...more
On Thursday, July 19, 2018, Judge John Keenan dismissed New York City’s climate damages law suit against five oil majors. The basis for the decision was the same as in last month’s decision dismissing similar claims in...more
The Situation: In what may portend the beginning of the end to the latest chapter of U.S. filed state law "global warming" or climate change litigation against industry, a federal court in San Francisco denied a motion to...more
Earlier this week, Judge William Alsup denied a motion by Oakland and San Francisco to remand their public nuisance claims against some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers to state court. However, I’m not sure that...more
Background - As detailed in our blog last month, MoneyGram Payment Systems, Inc. (MoneyGram) is stuck in between a rock and a hard place as states continue to duel with Delaware over the proper classification of (and...more