Background: Shu Feng Hsu was caring for her eleven-month-old niece, Chloe Chen, in the family’s Quincy home when the child became unresponsive. Evidence showed that Chloe had appeared healthy that morning. A home recording later captured a baby crying, eleven distinct thuds, and coughing or gagging sounds shortly before Hsu called 911. A responding paramedic found…
Held: The SJC affirmed. On sufficiency, Justice Gaziano explained that a conviction may rest entirely on circumstantial evidence and that competing reasonable inferences belong to the jury. Chloe was healthy before being left as Hsu’s sole charge; the recording captured crying and repeated thuds; her condition deteriorated immediately afterward; and the medical evidence supported recent, nonaccidental blunt-force trauma. Although experts disagreed…
Background: South Carolina's Supreme Court held that taxpayers waited too long to challenge Oconee County's plan to finance wastewater improvements with $25 million in general revenue bonds. The decision gives section 11-15-30 of the South Carolina Code a broad and practical reach: once the county files and indexes the required record of its bond proceedings, a…
Held: Justice James, writing for a unanimous court, concluded the action was barred by the twenty-day limitations period in section 11-15-30. The statute says no action may be commenced “on account of the issuance” of covered bonds more than twenty days after the required records are filed and indexed. The court read “on account of” according to its ordinary meaning—“because of”—and…
Background: Sky Boutique Ltd., a project company owned and managed by a real-estate developer, contracted with residents of a Bat Yam apartment building to carry out a TAMA 38/1 seismic-strengthening and expansion project. Construction began in January 2024 but remained incomplete. The residents alleged that meaningful work had stopped and that they were living amid serious…
Held: Deputy President Noam Sohlberg granted the stay of the order commencing insolvency proceedings until the appeal is decided or the Court orders otherwise. He stressed that this was an interim ruling, not a final determination of the appeal’s merits. The balance of convenience did not clearly favor either side: the insolvency order could significantly affect the company, its managers, shareholders,…
Background: PSTV supplied marine fuel to Conex Petroleum Services Inc. under an English-law agreement requiring London arbitration. Conex Oil & Gas Holdings Ltd, CPS’s parent, later guaranteed CPS’s obligations under an English-law deed containing a non-exclusive English jurisdiction clause. After a dispute arose over the underlying account, PSTV demanded more than US$24 million under the guarantee…
Held: The Commercial Court dismissed the stay application. Because COGH had agreed to the non-exclusive English jurisdiction clause, it needed a strong reason to displace the parties’ contractual choice. The location of witnesses, documents, transactions, and assets, the availability and convenience of Liberia, and potential enforcement difficulties were foreseeable when the guarantee was made and therefore did not provide the required…
Background: Holly Anne Mathis was convicted of one count of felony incest involving her minor stepson and acquitted of a second count covering a later period. The Montana Supreme Court affirmed her conviction on direct appeal. Mathis later petitioned for postconviction relief, alleging prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, witness tampering, conspiracy, and actual innocence. She…
Held: The Montana Supreme Court affirmed. It held that Mathis had not presented newly discovered evidence supporting prosecutorial misconduct. The charging document’s references to her former husband’s crimes supplied context for the charges against her, and any objection to that document could have been raised on direct appeal. The Court also concluded that the undisclosed interview evidence would not have affected…
Background: Good Government Lincoln submitted three initiative petitions to amend the Lincoln City Charter. The proposals concerned city council term limits, aligning city elections with statewide elections, and allowing residents of areas governed by Lincoln to vote in city elections. The petitions were filed with the city clerk in August 2026 and were certified as meeting…
Held: The Nebraska Supreme Court issued a peremptory writ of mandamus directing the Lincoln City Council and city clerk to submit the three proposed charter amendments to qualified electors at the November 3, 2026, statewide general election. It held that article XI, § 4, is self-executing and imposes a mandatory, ministerial duty to submit a qualifying charter-amendment petition at the next…
Background: ConMed Corporation applied for a patent titled “Surgical Suction Apparatus Using Positive-Pressure Gas.” As amended, claim 1 covered a suction system comprising a surgical tool, canister, filter, and passive suction device. The claimed device used pressurized fluid to create a low-pressure region and included a muffler and a backflow-prevention valve having a slider and diaphragm…
Held: The Intellectual Property High Court dismissed ConMed’s claim and upheld the JPO decision. The reference’s statement that the suction attachment could be configured to couple to a surgical instrument sufficiently disclosed an embodiment containing a surgical instrument. The court also held that the reference, read with ordinary technical knowledge concerning medical suction canisters, disclosed fluid communication between the canister’s outlet…
Background: In an October 20, 2022 criminal judgment, the specially constituted Paris Assize Court, sitting on appeal in a terrorism-related prosecution, convicted six defendants of offenses including terrorist criminal association, ordinary criminal association, complicity in murder and attempted murder, aggravated theft and confinement, weapons offenses, aggravated violence and possession of incendiary or explosive substances.
Held: The Criminal Chamber held that a specially constituted assize court hearing a terrorism case generally has no authority to decide the admissibility of compensation claims, determine civil liability or prescribe joint and several liability. When damages are requested, it must confine itself to transferring those claims to the competent civil court. That rule also applies when the civil claims target…
Background: Allan Sellar’s estate principally comprised a waterfront property at Gymea Bay consisting of two adjoining lots and several structures, including a family home, waterfront cottage, boatshed and granny flat. His 1990 will, made under a mutual-wills agreement with his second wife, Tracey, left his “principal place of residence as at the date of my death”…
Held: Kunc J construed “my principal place of residence as at the date of my death” to mean the building that was Allan’s usual or settled home together with the property on which it stood. The Court held that the expression encompassed both lots and all improvements. The lots functioned as one property, the waterfront structures straddled their boundary, and the…
Background: Merck Serono applied for a supplementary protection certificate (SPC) for Mavenclad, an oral cladribine treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Its basic patent protected the treatment's particular pulsed dosage regimen, rather than cladribine as such. Mavenclad received an EU marketing authorisation in 2017.
Held: On a full rehearing, the High Court dismissed Merck's statutory appeal. Applying the CJEU Grand Chamber's decision in Santen, it held that the Regulation defines a “product” strictly as the active ingredient or combination of active ingredients. A new therapeutic application or dosage regimen does not make the same active ingredient a distinct product for Article 3(d).
Background: In 2011, Dejuan Carlton pleaded guilty in Stark County to aggravated murder and aggravated robbery, with firearm specifications, and received an aggregate sentence of 23 years to life. His later request to file a delayed appeal was denied.
Held: The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. R.C. 2725.04 requires a habeas petition to be signed and verified by the person seeking relief or someone acting for that person. Verification requires a sworn declaration of the truth of the petition’s factual statements.
Background: Rickey R. Mikami and Emilou N. Mikami pursued a tax appeal against the Director of Taxation for the State of Hawai‘i. The matter originated in the Tax Appeal Court and proceeded through the Intermediate Court of Appeals under appellate docket number CAAP-25-0000523.
Held: The Hawai‘i Supreme Court rejected the Mikamis’ application for a writ of certiorari. Its September 9, 2026 order therefore left the case without further review by the state’s highest court.