Court: United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-25

The First Circuit denied motions filed by federal defendants and intervening states seeking a stay of a district court injunction pending appeal. The court held that the movants failed to make a strong showing that they are likely to succeed on their arguments that the Plaintiff States lack Article III standing or that their claims are unripe. The court applied the four-factor test from *Nken v. Holder* for granting a stay, focusing primarily on the likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable injury. Regarding standing, the court affirmed the district court’s finding that the Plaintiff States suffered concrete, particularized injuries sufficient to establish Article III jurisdiction. These injuries included: (1) immediate planning and compliance costs incurred by states forced to divert staff resources to develop strategies for complying with the Executive Order’s directives; (2) certainly impending financial losses from having to replace already purchased mail-in ballot envelopes that do not meet the Executive Order’s design requirements; and (3) a credible threat of criminal prosecution against state and local officials for failing to comply with the Order’s voter eligibility verification mandates, particularly given the Order’s potential conflict with state laws regarding 17-year-old voters in primaries. The court distinguished this case from *Clapper v. Amnesty International USA* and *Trump v. New York*, noting that unlike those cases, the Executive Order here explicitly targets state officials and creates a direct, immediate dilemma requiring action before the upcoming September and November 2026 elections. Regarding prudential ripeness, the court found that the intervenor states failed to demonstrate that legal issues regarding the President’s authority under the Constitution required further factual development, as the core question was a purely legal one. The court also determined that the remaining *Nken* factors did not favor a stay: the federal defendants’ claims of irreparable harm were speculative and outweighed by the immediate harms the Plaintiff States would face if the injunction were lifted; the public interest favored maintaining the status quo to prevent voter confusion and potential disenfranchisement; and the government waived argument on the public interest factor. The practical consequence is that the district court’s injunction remains in effect, prohibiting federal defendants (excluding the President) from implementing Sections 2 and 3 of Executive Order 14399 regarding the November 3, 2026, and earlier federal elections within the Plaintiff States. The government may proceed with implementing the Order in other states or for elections occurring after November 3, 2026.

Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

Docket: 8:23-cv-02189-FWS-JDE

The ninth-circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ putative class action against Suzuki Motor of America, Inc., for brake failures in purchased motorcycles. The court applied de novo review under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), utilizing the plausibility standard established in *Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly* and *Ashcroft v. Iqbal*, which requires complaints to raise a right to relief above the speculative level by providing fair notice of the claim and its grounds. The court held that Plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege a specific design defect or causation, as their Third Amended Complaint described general corrosion processes without identifying how those processes arose from a manufacturing or design flaw rather than natural wear, nor did it sufficiently link the alleged corrosion to the brake failures experienced. Additionally, the court found no abuse of discretion in denying Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration under Rule 59(e) and their request for leave to amend, noting that Plaintiffs waived these arguments by failing to develop them adequately on appeal and failed to provide specific facts or expert report details that would cure the pleading deficiencies. Consequently, the dismissal stands and the case is closed.

Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

Docket: 3:22-cv-00956-AMO

The ninth circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a securities fraud action brought under §10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 10b-5, in which the plaintiff alleged that SunPower Corporation’s risk factor statements were misleading because they failed to disclose a known product defect involving over-torqued screw nuts. Reviewing de novo, the court held that the district court correctly applied the standard for falsity regarding forward-looking risk disclosures, ruling that such statements are only actionable if the plaintiff plausibly alleges that the defendant knew the risk had already materialized at the time of the statement. The court determined that the risk of harm ripens into actual harm only when the defendant discovers the defect; therefore, the plaintiff was required to plead particularized facts showing that SunPower executives possessed contemporaneous knowledge of the over-torquing defect. Because the plaintiff’s allegations that defendants knew of the defect were too speculative to survive a motion to dismiss under *Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly*, the primary securities fraud claims failed. Consequently, the court affirmed the dismissal of the controlling-person liability claim under Section 20(a) and the denial of the motion for an extension of time to serve additional defendants as moot.

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Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

Docket: 2:21-cv-02398-KJM-AC

The ninth-circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment and permanent injunction against Six Flags Theme Parks, Inc., its parent company, and Park Management Corp for violating Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Act. The court applied a standard of review that examines factual findings for clear error, legal conclusions de novo, and the scope of the injunction for abuse of discretion, noting that appellate review of injunctive relief is correspondingly narrow due to the district court’s considerable discretion. The court held that the challenged monitoring provisions—including requirements for quarterly compliance reports, a three-year-and-thirty-day retention of jurisdiction, and access to records by plaintiff’s counsel—were not overbroad and constituted a proper exercise of the district court’s discretion. The court reasoned that these measures were necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiff, who sought future accommodations at the park, and were supported by factual findings that Six Flags’ violations resulted from systemic training and policy failures rather than isolated negligence. The court found no showing that the monitoring provisions were overly burdensome to the defendant. The practical consequence is that the permanent injunction remains in effect, requiring Six Flags to make good faith efforts to provide reasonable accommodations to deaf or hard-of-hearing guests at its Discovery Kingdom park and national call center, subject to the affirmed monitoring and reporting obligations.

Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurance carrier and its claims administrator on the insured’s breach of contract, common law bad faith (*Hayseeds*), and statutory bad faith claims. The court applied de novo review to determine whether there were genuine disputes of material fact. Regarding the *Hayseeds* claim, the court held that the insured failed to establish the “necessity” of legal services required to recover damages, as it did not demonstrate that a settlement would not have occurred but for its attorney’s intervention. The court noted that the insured refused reasonable pre-trial mediation terms and, after filing for bankruptcy, failed to engage in settlement negotiations or respond to the insurer’s attempts to resolve the underlying claim. Regarding the statutory bad faith claims under the West Virginia Unfair Trade Practices Act, the court affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the relevant statutory subsections apply only to third-party claims and do not provide a cause of action for an insured against its own insurer. The practical consequence is that the judgment for the defendants stands, and the defendants’ cross-appeal seeking affirmation on alternative grounds was dismissed as unnecessary.

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Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

Docket: 3:23-cv-03490-RS

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of Mimi Weiss’s employment discrimination claims under Title VII and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), holding that she sufficiently alleged a failure to accommodate her religion. The panel applied the standard that an employee satisfies the notice requirement for a prima facie case by providing only enough information about her religious needs to permit the employer to understand the existence of an actual conflict between those needs and employment expectations, without requiring the employee to justify the validity or sincerity of those beliefs. The court concluded that Weiss plausibly alleged she informed TPMG of her belief and its conflict with the vaccine mandate by identifying herself as a Christian Jew and citing specific religious doctrines prohibiting the introduction of foreign substances into her body. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion, while a privacy claim was addressed in an accompanying memorandum disposition.

Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Abbott Laboratories in a products liability action brought by the mother of a preterm infant who died from necrotizing enterocolitis after being fed cow’s-milk-based formula. Applying West Virginia law, the court held that the plaintiff failed to establish causation under her failure-to-warn theory because she could not demonstrate that an alternative warning would have prevented her daughter’s death. The court reasoned that the proposed counterfactual inferences were speculative: treating physicians already knew of the risks associated with formula feeding; hospital policy prohibited the use of unpasteurized donor milk from other patients due to disease transmission risks; and establishing a formal donor milk program was a resource-intensive process that would not have been feasible in time. Additionally, the court affirmed the denial of the plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), ruling that the proffered new witness testimony was not newly discovered because it was available during discovery and would not have altered the outcome.

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Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

The fifth-circuit granted the government’s motion for summary affirmance and affirmed the district court’s judgment upholding Luis Joel Gonzalez-Pena’s conviction and sentence for illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). The court held that Gonzalez-Pena’s argument challenging the constitutionality of the enhancement in § 1326(b) is foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent in *Almendarez-Torres v. United States*, which permits judges to find only the fact of a prior conviction without requiring it to be submitted to a jury. This position is further supported by circuit precedent in *United States v. Pervis* and the Supreme Court’s clarification in *Erlinger v. United States*. Consequently, the court denied the government’s alternative motion for an extension of time and left the district court’s judgment in effect.

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Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

The fifth circuit affirmed the district court’s preliminary injunction regarding the monitoring and filtering requirement of Texas House Bill 18 (H.B. 18) but vacated the injunction as it applied to the SEAT plaintiffs’ challenges. The court held that the CCIA plaintiffs’ challenge to the monitoring and filtering requirement succeeded because the provision is preempted by Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes digital service providers from liability stemming from their publication or curation of third-party content. The court reasoned that requiring platforms to monitor and filter specific categories of speech treats them as publishers subject to state-controlled standards, thereby falling within Section 230’s preemptive scope. Conversely, the court ruled that the SEAT plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the monitoring, targeted ads, and unlawful ads requirements because they failed to demonstrate a substantial risk that digital service providers would censor their specific speech in response to the law. Additionally, the court noted that the SEAT plaintiffs’ challenge to the age-verification requirement was foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent in *Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton*. The case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-24

The fifth-circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of an indictment for illegal reentry and remanded with instructions to reinstate it. The court held that the defendant failed to satisfy the exhaustion requirement of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d), which is a prerequisite for collaterally attacking a removal order in such prosecutions. Specifically, the court found that an administrative motion to reopen remained available to the defendant because he could have challenged the *in absentia* removal order based on insufficient notice at any time, regardless of his departure from the United States. Because this administrative remedy was not exhausted, the defendant could not proceed with a collateral attack, and the district court erred in dismissing the charges.

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