Background: In September 2020, Robert Blake Burgess, a 21-year-old University of Oklahoma student, tested positive for COVID-19 and developed worsening chest pain and shortness of breath. His mother took him to the emergency room at Integris Health Edmond on September 14, 2020, where Dr. Bret Langerman evaluated him. Dr. Langerman used the Pulmonary Embolism Rule-Out Criteria…
Held: The Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial, holding that Providers are immune from ordinary negligence claims under Oklahoma's COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Limited Liability Act, 63 O.S. 2020 § 6406. The statute immunizes health care providers from civil liability for acts or omissions occurring in the course of providing COVID-19 health care services when…
Background: Ms. Rolbiecka-Platta, a Polish national, was convicted in Poland of 19 fraud offences committed between August 2011 and November 2014, involving identity theft over a sustained three-year period. On 24 November 2017, she was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, imposed as a suspended sentence for five years, conditional upon her paying compensation of approximately £6,000…
Held: Mrs Justice Arbuthnot dismissed the appeal and upheld the extradition order. On fugitivity, the court held that Ms. Rolbiecka-Platta was properly characterised as a fugitive from justice. Applying the three-part test established in Makowska v Poland [2020] EWHC 2371 (Admin)—locational dynamism, informational deficit, and intended consequential elusiveness—the court found all three elements present. Ms. Rolbiecka-Platta had moved from Poland to…
Background: Anna Finkel brought an appeal challenging an order compelling arbitration of a housing dispute. The case arose after the deceased (Finkel's husband), who had purchased an apartment in Netivot through a purchase agreement dated April 6, 2014, filed suit in municipal court alleging construction defects and failure to meet contractual and statutory standards. The claim,…
Held: The Supreme Court, per Judge David Mintz, held that while disputes implicating mandatory legislation generally cannot be arbitrated, a critical distinction must be drawn between cases where such legislation is central to the dispute versus peripheral to it. The court established a two-tier framework: when mandatory statutory provisions lie at the core of a dispute, arbitration is impermissible; when they…
Background: Toto Living Cooperative Union, a consumer cooperative with approximately 260,000 members, is the registered owner of the trademark "たべるん" (Taberun) in Class 35, covering retail and wholesale services for a broad range of goods including textiles, apparel, foodstuffs, beverages, household items, and numerous other product categories. Eatwell Co., Ltd., a competitor, filed a cancellation request…
Held: The court unanimously dismissed Eatwell's cancellation request and upheld the Patent Office's decision. The Intellectual Property High Court held that Trademark Act Section 50 does not require that a mark be used as a source identifier (商標的使用). Unlike other trademark provisions that explicitly limit protection to marks used in a manner that identifies source, Section 50 uses broader language requiring…
Background: M. [Z] challenged a notice of forced sale served on him on February 4, 2023, by the Sapphireone Mortgages 2016-2 securitization fund (represented by Eurotitrisation). The notice was based on an alleged assignment of mortgage receivables originally held by GE Money Bank. M. [Z] filed an action on February 17, 2023, seeking annulment of the…
Held: The Court of Cassation rejected M. [Z]'s appeal. The court applied the general rule from Article 1324 of the French Civil Code: an assignment of receivables is enforceable against the debtor if it has been notified to him or if he has acknowledged it. The court found that proper notification had occurred.
Background: This is a judge-alone trial for the murder of David Vale. During the trial, the Crown sought to introduce evidence from witness Les Donovan regarding a statement allegedly made by Robert Dixon to the deceased as Mr Vale was leaving the scene of the fatal confrontation. The Crown intended to use the offensive nature of…
Held: Justice Campbell J refused to admit the offensive statement, ruling pursuant to s 137 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) that the evidence must be excluded. Although the judge accepted that the statement was technically admissible as hearsay relevant for a non-hearsay purpose under s 60(1)—namely, to show the attitude of persons associated with the premises at the time of…
Background: Congress enacted Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act as part of the Veterans Healthcare Act of 1992, creating the 340B Drug Pricing Program. The program requires pharmaceutical manufacturers participating in Medicaid and Medicare Part B to sell outpatient drugs at federally set ceiling prices to designated healthcare providers known as "covered entities"—primarily federally…
Held: The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that Act 358 is not preempted by Section 340B. The court began with the strong presumption against preemption, particularly where state police powers over public health and consumer protection are implicated. It held that Act 358 does not regulate the 340B Program itself but rather regulates pharmacy distribution logistics—areas Congress conspicuously left silent in Section…
Background: Four relators filed asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits in Jefferson and Orange County, Texas in 1995, alleging exposure to asbestos-containing materials caused their injuries. In August 2017, after amending their petitions to add insurance company defendants, the cases were transferred to the 11th District Court of Harris County sitting as the Asbestos Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) pretrial…
Held: The court held that Section 90.010(a)(3) creates an independent, unconditional exception to MDL rules. Under the plain statutory language, cases filed before September 1, 2003 in which the exposed person has been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma or other malignant asbestos-related cancer are exempt from MDL jurisdiction, regardless of when medical evidence establishing the diagnosis is presented. The court rejected respondents'…
Background: Jermaine Lewis pleaded guilty to assault in the first degree in January 2021 and was sentenced to ten years incarceration with execution suspended after five years, followed by five years of probation. In April 2023, while on probation, Lewis was arrested for risk of injury to a child. The allegations involved sending sexually explicit text…
Held: The Connecticut Appellate Court held that a defendant's constitutional right to testify in a probation revocation proceeding is equivalent to that in a criminal trial, and that a waiver of this right must be knowing, intelligent, and voluntary to satisfy due process. The court found no compelling reason to distinguish between criminal proceedings and probation revocation hearings on this issue.…
Background: The Appellants—a family consisting of Amy Ying Jun Liu, Jia Bin Liu, and Lian Di Liu—were reassessed by the Minister of National Revenue for multiple taxation years. The Minister identified amounts in their bank accounts and assumed they owned shares in offshore corporations generating unreported income in the form of employment income, business income, and…
Held: Justice Clark granted the motion and struck the impugned paragraphs. The court held that amended subsection 152(9) of the Income Tax Act does not permit the Minister to advance an alternative FAPI argument when the original assessment did not include FAPI and the argument is based on entirely new transactions involving foreign affiliates that were not considered in the initial…
Background: Lim Tean was convicted at first instance of three charges under section 33(1)(a) of the Legal Profession Act for acting as an advocate and solicitor without a valid practising certificate. The charges encompassed issuing a writ of summons, commencing and defending court proceedings on 32 occasions, and preparing court-related documents and instruments on 32 occasions.…
Held: The Court of Appeal summarily dismissed the motion without setting it down for hearing. The court found that none of the four proposed questions satisfied the cumulative conditions required under section 397(1) of the CPC. Specifically, each question either was not a question of law of public interest, did not arise from the case, or would not have affected the…
Background: GEAP filed an internal appeal (agravo interno) challenging a decision by the court that refused to admit GEAP's special resource appeal (agravo em recurso especial). The original decision denied admissibility on a single but crucial ground: GEAP failed to specifically challenge the application of Súmula 7 of the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (a binding jurisprudential…
Held: The Superior Tribunal de Justiça unanimously rejected GEAP's internal appeal. The court held that an appeal challenging an inadmissibility decision must specifically address all grounds cited by the lower court. Article 932, III of the Code of Civil Procedure imposes a mandatory requirement that the appealing party affirmatively refute each basis for inadmissibility—not merely state that no factual re-examination is…