United States: Trials & Appeals & Compensation

In 1951, the Peace Information Center (PIC) and five of its officers were indicted for willfully failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The PIC was founded in April 1950 by several activists, including its chairman, author W.E.B. Du Bois, to educate Americans about peace and to gain support for a ban on nuclear weapons.

On May 1, 2026 a federal jury in Miami found former Florida Congressman David Rivera guilty after a five-week trial of conspiracy to violate FARA, failure to register under FARA, and other crimes. Esther Nuhfer, one of Rivera’s associates, was convicted of the same FARA offenses.

In In re Ocugen, Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 25-2653, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 29926 (3d Cir. Sept. 30, 2026), a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit...

In contract litigation, damages provisions often do more work than parties expect—and sometimes less than litigants later claim. The First Department’s decision in Gamma USA, Inc. v. Pavarini McGovern, LLC is a useful reminder that courts will read damages limitations by their actual scope, not by their perceived practical effect.

Two recent federal court decisions highlight the evolving landscape of trade dress protection in the food industry, with Van Leeuwen Ice Cream securing a $23.785 million judgment against Rebel Creamery for packaging infringement, while J.M. Smucker successfully defended its Uncrustables design marks against Trader Joe's motion to dismiss. These cases demonstrate the critical differences between pleading requirements and trial proof standards, while emphasizing the importance of establishing distinctiveness,

The Federal Circuit's denial of Eli Lilly's en banc petition in Teva v. Eli Lilly solidifies a critical distinction between method-of-treatment claims and composition claims under Section 112. This precedential decision upheld a $177 million jury verdict and established that when a claimed method involves a well-known genus that is not itself the invention, the written description and enablement requirements focus on whether the method works, not on structural diversity within the genus.

A Michigan cannabis grower proved its case. A jury found that the buyer breached its supply agreement and awarded the grower $31.8 million in damages. But the grower still walked away without an enforceable verdict.

The Ninth Circuit has amended its opinion in a securities fraud class action against a pop culture collectibles manufacturer, clarifying that the company's risk disclosures improperly framed already-realized harms as hypothetical future risks. The court denied petitions for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc, maintaining its partial reversal of the district court's dismissal of claims under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act.

Expert reports are often invaluable in civil and criminal cases. In general, these reports provide the trier of fact with an opinion from an expert witness who possesses specialized knowledge, skill or experience on technical or scientific issues in dispute that are beyond the trier of fact’s knowledge or experience.