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The legal battle over the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed graphic warning label requirements for cigarettes could be headed for one more round in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Justice Department, still stinging from its loss in the influential appellate court, is asking for en banc review of a panel decision finding that the FDA did not present substantial evidence showing that the new warnings would accomplish the agency’s stated objective of reducing smoking rates, reports the Blog of Legal Times....

Fish & Richardson is like a flying fish. One year, the law firm is flying with more than 400 lawyers. The next year it’s down in the low 300s. Now the lawyers are trying to make a big leap again. And this time they’re recruiting with some serious bait – a six-figure bonus. The Six-Figure Bonus Of course, there’s a catch. We talking fish here. The big bonus is offered to former judicial clerks of the U....

Where civil service rules vest a civil service commission with jurisdiction over an employee’s appeal of her discharge, including an attendant claim for a resulting loss of pay, the employee’s retirement during the pendency of civil service proceedings divests the commission of jurisdiction over the civil service appeal. Read County of Los Angeles Dep’t of Health Serv. v. Civil Serv. Comm’n of the County of Los Angeles, No. B211625 [HTML]...

I scream, you scream, we all scream for … mellorine? If Arko Foods International’s mellorine is your preferred non-dairy, frozen dessert you can rest assured that your favorite treat remains something “other” than “an article of milk.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with the product, mellorine is frozen dessert similar to ice cream, but with vegetable or animal fat substituted for at least some of the butterfat. Arko imports six flavors of mellorine relevant to this case: purple yam, fruit salad, mango, macapuno, (a type of coconut), durian, (a fruit), and Quezo Royale, (a cheese and coconut flavor also known as Quezo Real)....

There may be no pragmatic reason for you to be sworn in to the Supreme Court. After all, how many of us will ever actually argue a case in those hallowed chambers? Still, for most of us, the Supreme Court represents the epitome of our legal system. It may be the Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park of American law, home of some of the greatest legal minds in history, the playing field for countless others, but gaining admission is simply a matter of applying, after meeting a few prerequisites....

In a bankruptcy action decided on request of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court of California concludes that the statutory damages prescribed in Civil Code sec. 1719 are exclusive in the sense that a debt collector who recovers a service charge on a dishonored check pursuant to Civil Code sec. 1719 may not also recover prejudgment interest on damages under Civil Code sec. 3287....

The jury is back in the Google-Oracle copyright lawsuit, but the litigants may be headed for a mistrial. After two years of litigation, a federal jury announced a verdict Monday in the Google-Oracle intellectual property battle. The jury found that Google infringed on some of Oracle’s Java copyrights when developing its Android software, but jurors were unable to decide whether Google was protected under the fair-use doctrine, The Associated Press reports....

A suspended lawyer-turned-rabbi pleaded guilty Monday in what prosecutors say may be the largest immigration fraud scheme in U.S. history. Earl Seth David, 48, charged illegal immigrants up to $30,000 for his legal services, in which he filed fraudulent letters that claimed the immigrants were sponsored by U.S. employers, the New York Daily News reports. Some 25,000 illegal immigrants paid David for his fraudulent services over a 13-year period, according to the Daily News....

While cases are won and lost at trial, a majority of cases won’t get there. Why? It’s not because they all settle magically. It’s not magic, it’s pretrial litigation that clears court dockets and metes out the losers and settlers. And if you don’t have the basics of pretrial litigation mastered, you can expect to end up getting the short end of the stick when settling (that is if you’re lucky and don’t get dunked on)....

The city of Los Alamitos, located in Orange County, is facing a lawsuit over a recently enacted ordinance permitting the city residents and officials to disregard the state of California’s recently passed sanctuary state law. In short, in response to the California Values Act, also known as SB54, or the sanctuary state law, the city of Los Alamitos passed a law exempting itself from the law. But, in response to the Los Alamitos law, concerned residents, through the ACLU and other groups, filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the city’s law from taking effect....

A California man is in some hot water after Fresno police discovered his “Super Soaker” shotgun. Randy Smith, 54, was walking around with the children’s water gun hanging off his neck when police stopped him, KMPH reports. The toy was allegedly modified to be a “zip gun,” a crude firearm that in this case could fire a 20 gauge shotgun shell. Cops took the gun apart and discovered the sneaky upgrade....

New Jersey State Senate President Steve Sweeney wants to introduce a law that would ban replacement referees from being used in professional sporting events in his state. Many observers had anticipated that it would take political pressure for the NFL and the referees union to come to an agreement. And while there is no team in the NFL that is labeled as “New Jersey,” both the New York Giants and the New York Jets would be impacted by the law, as they both play at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N....

Houston, we have a lawsuit. NASA is being sued by a Silicon Valley scientist for not digging deeper into his alleged “discovery” of possible life on Mars – specifically, a curious object that appeared in a Mars rover photograph earlier this month, The Huffington Post reports. To some (including NASA), it was just a rock; to others (including comedian Stephen Colbert), it was a “mystery doughnut.” But to Dr. Rhawn Joseph of Santa Clara County, California, it was “a putative biological organism....

In an action for a breach of contract against the United States over a dispute involving the interaction between a provision of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) and a government contract with a utility company that operates a nuclear power facility, an order of the Court of Federal Claims finding that the prior D.C. Circuit’s rulings were void (and therefore not entitled to res judicata effect) because it lacked jurisdiction in the previous statutory review proceedings is reversed and remanded as the D....

Is Riverside County Child Protective Services taking newborn babies away from their mothers without so much as a warrant? That’s what a federal class action suit, filed last week, claims. The lead plaintiff, a baby known only as A.A., claimed that Riverside County systematically takes “thousands” of newborns away from their mothers – and that a “large portion” of these takings are from African Americans and poor families. Believe it or not, this claim isn’t new, either in general or in Riverside County....

Stan Lee, the 95-year-old creator of superheroes and a comic book empire, has entered the legal world “mad as hell.” In a Los Angeles lawsuit filed as Lee v. Olivarez, the Hollywood icon alleges that his former business manager defrauded him, converted his money, and misappropriated his name and likeness. Jerardo Olivarez is one of many many “unscrupulous businessmen, sycophants and opportunists” who sought to take advantage of Lee following the death of his wife last year, the complaint says....

It’s Friday, the end of yet another busy week, made even more hectic with the holidays. We know what you’re thinking … T.G.I.FindLaw! Welcome to our new Friday feature, where we’ll point you to some legally weird headlines that you may have missed, but just gotta click. These real-life tales are quirky, often quite ridiculous, and offer quick reminders about everyday law. This week, T.G.I.FindLaw! focuses on some of the crazy shenanigans that seem to accompany Christmas....

Beyond reviewing the places where in-house attorney jobs get posted and then actually applying to the postings, there are quite a few things you can do to increase your chances of actually getting hired. Like any job, if you know what the actual duties of the job will be, tailoring your resume and cover letter to highlight your most relevant experience is critical. And if you don’t have in house experience, you’ll really want to stress prior transferable skills, training, or if you don’t have either of those, then just hope your connections will be able to carry you through the door....

A Dallas, Texas father was acquitted of theft charges after he confiscated his daughter’s phone. Ronald Jackson was facing misdemeanor theft charges for taking his 12-year-old daughter’s cell phone in September 2013 after finding inappropriate texts on the phone. Those are the standard facts of the case and that’s the easy way to write it up: “Stern dad vindicated by jury.” But oh, you’d miss all of the juiciest details....

Who says graduate school is all theory and no practice. Students involved in a Christian student group at the University of California Hastings School of Law (UC Hastings) are taking what they learned about the First Amendment in Con Law straight to court. The Christian Legal Society invites all students to attend meetings but restricts the designation of voting members and club officers to students who sign a “Statement of Faith” which includes language affirming the belief that “Christians should not engage in sexual conduct outside of a marriage between a man and a woman....