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Déjà freaking vu. In fact, déjà déjà vu. Last April, a particularly unsympathetic death row inmate was denied habeas review by the Eleventh Circuit despite his incompetent attorney’s negligence. She botched the state collateral review petition, thereby missing the federal one-year deadline. The Eleventh refused to apply the Supreme Court’s Holland v. Florida (2010) decision, where the Court held that an attorney’s gross negligence warranted equitable tolling of the statute of limitations....

For federal civil and appellate practitioners, there are a few rule changes coming next week that you might want to make sure you’re ready for. One involves some significant changes to FRCP Rule 23 involving class actions, and the FRAP also has a big change to the rules for amicus briefs, and an extended due date for reply briefs. You can read more about some of the changes below. The federal rules now expressly prohibit interlocutory appeals on class certification decisions that are not either a denial or grant of class certification....

Governor Rick Scott and the Florida state Clemency Board have filed an appeal to the federal district court’s injunction which epicly slammed the two for violating the voting rights of felons. However, in addition to appealing the district court’s order, they sought a stay to prevent the enforcement of the injunction while the appeal was pending. Interestingly, while the district court judge seemed to have strong feelings in favor of restoring the voting rights of felons, the appellate court seems to be more in favor of the governor’s position....

Plaintiff’s petition for review of a decision of the Benefits Review Board of the US Department of Labor, affirming an ALJ’s decision that awarded hearing loss compensation to plaintiff under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) based on an audiogram that did not comply with the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), is granted and reversed because section 908(c)(13)(E) of the LHWCA mandates that hearing loss compensation be based on hearing loss determinations made in accordance with the AMA Guides....

If there was a prize for most tragic case dismissed on appeal, the case filed by John Gorman’s wife would certainly be a contender. The facts of Gorman v. Sharp really are tragic. After a recent promotion, Gorman attended an officer firearm safety training session, which he was required to attend for his job as the director of investigations with the Mississippi Gaming Commission. Unfortunately, the Special Agent in charge of training, Robert Sharp, forgot to replace his regular real firearm that he carried with a dummy firearm for a roleplaying exercise....

We’ve seen it again and again – startups revolutionize a traditional practice only to meet resistance from outdated or misapplied laws. When Square introduced an iPhone attachment that processed credit card payments (genius), it ran afoul of state money transmitter laws. Uber allows you to hail a taxi from your phone (brilliant), but it clashed with state and city taxi laws across the country. And now we have AirBnB. This ingenious startup allows you to sublet a spare room, or an apartment, for a few days at a time....

Paul Ceglia famously sued Facebook over what he claimed was a 50% ownership stake in the company. But the tables have now turned, after Ceglia was arrested Friday on suspicion of fraud. Back in 2010, Ceglia made headlines when he filed a suit against Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that he owned half of the social media company. As evidence, Ceglia pointed to a contract from 2003 between himself and Zuckerberg which claimed to show Ceglia invested $1,000 in the original stages of Facebook....

With the burgeoning cannabis businesses sprouting up across the country, more and more lawyers will be considering taking on general counsel duties for marijuana businesses. Some lawyers might even find themselves looking at job offers in the cannabis industry as the amount of regulatory and compliance work isn’t paltry. For those lucky lawyers considering the move in house in the cannabis business, below you can find a few pros and cons to consider....

SCOTUS decided to let stand a First Circuit decision to shield Planned Parenthood documents from an anti-abortion group. Customarily, SCOTUS did not give any reasoning for its decision. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia both dissented. They stated that confusion in the lower courts over the federal Freedom of Information Act should get SCOTUS review. The originally controversy – New Hampshire Right to Life v. Dept. of Health and Human Serv....

For lawyers, getting the newest iPhone usually isn’t job-critical, like it would be for an app developer. However, having the latest and greatest in tech can sometimes be good for business, or at least help you operate more efficiently. If you’re in the market for a new smartphone, or you’re just a die-hard Apple fan, the newest iterations of the iPhone (the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and iPhone Xr) are likely to please, though you might notice that there’s one a big differences this time around....

Last year, T-Mobile appeared to be destined to be merged into oblivion, much like Nextel and Cingular. Though the FCC nixed the deal with AT&T, T-Mobile actually appears to be doing better in the aftermath. The FCC approved a merger with MetroPCS last month and in the meantime, the magenta-hued carrier has announced a handful of changes that could make them competitive for all types of consumers — from teenagers to legal professionals....

A number of companies have banned Gchat at work. Should yours follow suit? Google’s chat feature is an inexpensive way to communicate with colleagues (along with friends and family) and combat mental fatigue from insanely long workdays. But companies like global auditing firm KPMG believe Gchat’s costs outweigh its benefits and gave it the axe years ago. Here are a few of the reasons why companies are banning Gchat at work:...

The U.S. Department of Labor has settled allegations that a Silicon Valley company, Electronics for Imaging, paid temp workers from India as little as $1.21 an hour to install networking infrastructure at its new headquarters in Fremont, California. EFI, which makes digital printing software and hardware, apparently flew network technicians from Bangalore, India, to the San Francisco Bay Area in late 2013, working them as many as 122 hours a week and paying them in Indian rupees....

The Tampa Bay Rays are a popular baseball team, but not everybody is a fan. Chad Fernandez, for example, is suing the team for sending him promotional text messages. He apparently could have deleted or stopped them, but oh well. Seriously, what will Fernandez do when he gets an unsolicited text from the President of the United States? Unsolicited Texts In his baseball suit, Fernandez says the unsolicited texts violated the Telephone Consumer Privacy Act....

In 2011, the Supreme Court considered the whether it was constitutional to extend a defendant’s sentence to make her go to rehab. The Court unanimously ruled no, no, no. So how do you differentiate between a judge suggesting that a defendant take advantage of prison rehab during an above-guidelines range sentence, and a judge sentencing a defendant to a longer term to make rehab available? The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals offers some insight....

If the internet could vote, who would win the award for making the biggest social media mistake? President Trump could win for “covfefe,” “special council,” or any number of social media faux pas. But that would be like a rigged election; it wouldn’t be fair. The award could go to a lawyer because, when you count them, lawyers make social media mistakes all the time. Nominations are open, but here are three of the biggest:...

Patent trolling, the process of threatening or engaging in abusive and often baseless patent litigation, has long been lamented in the legal and technology industries. You may have experienced it yourself, if your company has received demands for licensing payments for engaging in actions as common as sending emails or making photocopies. Reformers have increasingly called for limitations on these practices, finally leading to action from Congress. However, that action doesn’t go far enough, according to some advocates....

As Indiana and Arkansas were considering “religious freedom” bills that, opponents argued, would give companies the right to discriminate, several high profile corporations took public stances against them. Apple, Salesforce, American Airlines and even Walmart spoke out against the legislation. Yeah, Walmart, the second largest corporation in America, often reviled by progressives, contacted the Governor of Arkansas and urged him to veto his state’s RFRA legislation. Why? What’s Wrong with More Corporate Protections?...

Like most retailers, Zappos’ user agreement included a clause requiring claimants to submit to arbitration. But unlike most situations, it turns out the agreement didn’t bind anyone. The issue came out of a lawsuit against the company following an alleged breach of user privacy. Zappos customers banded together to file a class-action suit against the company. The popular online shoe retailer tried to force them to submit to arbitration. That move didn’t go so well....

Millennials get a really bad rap – especially from the Baby Boomer set, which ironically raised the Millennial generation, notes Entrepreneur. Many have said that the very same complaints about Millennials – laziness, a sense of entitlement – have been the same complaints about every generation just as they are coming of age. If these negative stereotypes about Millennials have made you slow to hire any from that cohort, here are some reasons why you should reconsider....