Background: The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed a $154,661.25 default judgment arising from a 2015 Gillette car accident, holding that the plaintiff made a sufficiently diligent search for the defendant before using Wyoming’s nonresident-motorist statute. Samantha Ritter sued William Lopez four years after the accident. Campbell County sheriff’s deputies tried several times to serve Lopez at the…
Held: Justice Kari Jo Gray, writing for a unanimous court, held that Ritter satisfied the due-diligence prerequisite for substituted service. Wyoming’s nonresident-motorist statute treats use of Wyoming roads as an appointment of the Secretary of State to receive process when the motorist cannot be served personally in Wyoming. Although the statute does not expressly say “due diligence,” Wyoming precedent requires a…
Background: Boston police investigated a January 2021 robbery and shooting at a Jamaica Plain apartment complex. A cellular-phone seller reported that a customer took two phones and later fired a gun when the seller tried to recover them. Detective Allison Eng repeatedly reviewed surveillance footage from the building. The footage showed a masked suspect with a…
Held: The SJC held that Palmer was seized when several officers began chasing him, before he discarded the drugs. Under article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, a seizure occurs when police objectively communicate through words or conduct that they will use official power to compel a person to stay. A pursuit designed to effect a stop can be the…
Background: Eldad Levy sought certification of a securities class action against Epitomee Medical Ltd. and several of its officers. Epitomee had agreed with Nestlé Health Science that, if its weight-loss capsule satisfied the FDA clinical-trial protocol and additional contractual conditions, Epitomee would receive a grant of $10 million to $25 million and Nestlé would distribute the…
Held: Justice Ofer Grosskopf denied leave to appeal without requesting a response. The Supreme Court emphasized that trial courts have broad discretion over procedural matters, including whether to admit additional evidence, particularly in class-action proceedings, and that appellate intervention is reserved for exceptional cases. The District Court had properly considered the timing and nature of the evidence, the explanation for the…
Background: The Pan-NOx Emissions Group Litigation comprises approximately 1.6 million claims against 16 vehicle manufacturers. In an earlier liability judgment, [2026] EWHC 1753 (KB), the court rejected most of the claimants’ allegations concerning prohibited defeat devices but found that a Mercedes coolant-temperature setpoint device and a PCD split-injection device were prohibited defeat devices in certain sample…
Held: Mr Justice Constable refused the stay in the Mercedes group litigation order, allowing the reduced Mercedes quantum trial to proceed. He held that the trial retained real utility despite involving only three Mercedes sample claimants. It could determine important questions of legal principle, materially narrow future disputes, assist settlement and potentially avoid or reduce the scope of a later Pan-NOx…
Background: Maricruz Sanchez was fatally shot while driving on Route 14 in Milford, Delaware. Witnesses saw another vehicle pull alongside her sedan before shots were fired, and surveillance footage indicated that the suspected vehicle was a blue Nissan Rogue. Investigators traced the rental SUV to a man who had obtained it for his cousin’s daughter and…
Held: The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the Superior Court properly denied Jean-Baptiste’s motion for judgment of acquittal. Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the jailhouse witnesses’ accounts of Jean-Baptiste’s admissions, together with evidence connecting him to a blue rental Nissan seen near the shooting, allowed a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt…
Background: Rascals International Ltd and ZURU Inc alleged that Grant Taylor, a founder and former active participant in the Rascal and Friends nappy business, helped JJK Group Ltd acquire and relaunch the competing Treasures brand. Although Taylor had ceased practical involvement with Rascals, he remained formally registered as a director while awaiting the final payment under…
Held: The Court dismissed all claims against JJK and Taonga. Most of the information Taylor supplied was not confidential, and although some information was confidential, JJK’s directors neither knew nor were wilfully blind to that status. They also did not know or deliberately avoid knowing that Taylor remained formally a Rascals director. Taylor did not personally benefit from JJK’s acquisition, and…
Background: The Borough of Seaside Park sought to acquire the Desert Palm Inn, owned by Shree Jyoti, LLC, through eminent domain. In April 2022, the Borough adopted an ordinance stating that the acquisition would further a public use and promote residents’ health, safety, and welfare, but the ordinance did not identify the particular use planned for…
Held: The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed. It held that neither the Eminent Domain Act nor the Local Lands and Buildings Law requires a municipality to identify the particular public use within the ordinance authorizing acquisition by condemnation. The Eminent Domain Act does not prescribe the contents of an authorizing ordinance, and the Local Lands and Buildings Law requires acquisition “by…
Background: Callan Davidson was charged with murdering his mother, Cheryl Anne Davidson, at a tourist park in Gunnedah on 25 October 2024. Davidson, who had been living an itinerant life and sleeping in a tent, had displayed paranoia, delusions and other disturbed behaviour for an extended period. His mother had tried to obtain mental-health assistance for…
Held: Campbell J accepted the opinions of two forensic psychiatrists that Davidson had suffered from severe, chronic schizophrenia since at least early 2022 and was experiencing active psychosis at the time of the killing. Although Davidson knew the nature and quality of his actions, the illness, including paranoid delusions and command hallucinations, left him unable to reason with a moderate degree…
Background: Tyquan Turner was convicted of felony murder, first-degree robbery, and conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery for the 2013 shooting death of Miguel Rodriguez in Hartford. The state’s evidence included eyewitness testimony, evidence connecting Turner to proceeds from the sale of the victim’s jewelry, and historical cell-site location information (CSLI) from a phone identified as Turner’s.
Held: The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed. It held that trial counsel rendered deficient performance by failing to challenge or otherwise respond to the misleading GeoTime video, which actively overstated what the CSLI could show. Although counsel’s general plan to focus on weaknesses in the eyewitness identifications and downplay CSLI was not objectively unreasonable, he did not carry out that strategy in…
Background: Alfred Oscar Pasley was the defendant-appellant in a criminal case brought by the State of Hawaiʻi. The matter reached the Hawai‘i Supreme Court after proceedings in the Intermediate Court of Appeals under appellate docket number CAAP-24-0000766.
Held: The Hawai‘i Supreme Court rejected Pasley’s application for a writ of certiorari. As a result, the court declined to review the Intermediate Court of Appeals proceeding.
Background: J.M. alleged that Catucky Derby, Inc., a delivery contractor, sent her and another employee, Chad Cupp, to St. Louis as part of a contingency team. The company arranged or controlled the property where the employees stayed. According to the amended complaint, Cupp sexually assaulted and raped J.M. there after an evening out with coworkers. J.M.…
Held: The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of every claim. Chief Judge Tavitas first concluded that the trial court should not have dismissed the premises-liability and negligent-security claims sua sponte because the employer’s motion did not directly challenge them. A trial court ordinarily may not dismiss claims on its own initiative unless it lacks jurisdiction or a statute or procedural…
Background: A Pennsylvania State Police trooper stopped Carl Eric Gould on Route 283 in Dauphin County after Gould remained in the passing lane. When the trooper approached the rental car, he smelled cannabis. Gould said a prior passenger had smoked inside the vehicle and admitted that he did not have a Pennsylvania medical-marijuana identification card. The…
Held: In a published opinion, the Superior Court affirmed. Judge Kunselman agreed that the drug inquiry extended the detention beyond the mission of the original lane-use stop. The extension was nevertheless lawful because the odor, Gould's drug-trafficking history, his use of a rental car, and the travel route supplied reasonable suspicion that criminal activity might be underway. Asking whether Gould possessed…