SCOTUS rebuffs fetus personhood appeal, Dentons in India, Kasovitz sanctioned, Boies Schiller drops clients
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SCOTUS will not go into the question of whether a fetus has constitutional rights. We preview the high court's calendar for the week ahead, including cases relating to Andy Warhol paintings, the death penalty, and banning meat that doesn't adhere to animal welfare standards. Global law firm Dentons has the first-of-its-kind combination with an Indian law firm to enter an isolated market. Law firm Kasowitz has been sanctioned in a fight with the wife of Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter and Boies Schiller plans to drop clients via radio and social media ads. Let's get into it:
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to decide whether fetuses are entitled to constitutional rights in light of its June ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide, steering clear for now of another front in America's culture wars.
?? This week at SCOTUS: Warhol, animal welfare, overtime pay
The?U.S. Supreme Court?justices return for their second round of arguments in the?new term this morning. The high court today will hear a death penalty case and an industry challenge to the constitutionality of a California animal welfare law. On Wednesday, the justices take up a?key intellectual property dispute?centering on paintings by the late artist?Andy Warhol, and there's an employment question over when?highly paid workers?deserve overtime pay.
In the animal welfare case,?Mayer Brown's Timothy Bishop?will argue for petitioners?National Pork Producers Council?and the?American Farm Bureau Federation.?Leah Douglas?reports?that they are challenging an order that dismissed their lawsuit to invalidate a 2018 ballot initiative passed by voters barring sales in California of pork, veal, and eggs from animals whose confinement failed to meet minimum space requirements. California?Solicitor General Michael Mongan?will argue for the state's interest, and?Jeffrey Lamken?of?MoloLamken?for the?Humane Society?and others backing the states.
The?Warhol-related case?on Wednesday raises this question,?as reported by?Blake Brittain: What is the line between art and copyright theft when an artwork is inspired by other material? The case centers on how courts decide when an artist makes "fair use" of another's work under copyright law.?Latham's Roman Martinez?represents?the?Warhol Foundation?as the petitioner that turned to the high court.?Lisa Blatt?of?Williams & Connolly?will argue?for celebrity photographer?Lynn Goldsmith, who sued the foundation over Warhol's paintings based on a 1981 photograph she took of rock star?Prince.?
Here are the top SCOTUS decisions from this morning:
Global law firm Dentons said it is launching a combination with Indian law firm Link Legal, giving the global law firm a domestic foothold in India's large but historically isolated legal market.
The combination, which Dentons said is the first time an international law firm has combined with a law firm in India, will add 130 lawyers in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad to Dentons' vast legal franchise while allowing Link Legal to tap into Dentons' platform of more than 20,000 professionals in 80-plus countries.
A 1961 law prohibits non-Indian law firms from practicing in the country. But the firms said Dentons Link Legal will still be operated by Indian lawyers, who will maintain local control over billing rates and recruitment.
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To clients, Dentons appears as "one firm, but from a regulatory perspective, we’re always very separate," Dentons global chair Joe Andrew said
Dentons has long employed a Swiss verein business structure, allowing its international branches to operate under a shared banner as largely separate legal entities. Profit sharing is limited, but so is tax exposure across international jurisdictions.
U.S. courts have not always been receptive to Dentons' insistence that its different branches are separate. The U.S. International Trade Commission and Ohio's state courts have both ruled that Dentons improperly ignored client conflicts between its U.S. and Canadian branches in a patent case, leading to a $32 million legal malpractice verdict that the firm is still?contesting.
"Defendants are not free to ignore a court-imposed deadline in favor of their preferred schedule."
Judge Joseph Curley?of Palm Beach County, Florida, in a ruling that?sanctioned?law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres?for failing to respond in a timely manner to the malicious prosecution?lawsuit brought?by the wife of?Marvel Entertainment?chairman?Ike Perlmutter.
Curley ruled that Laura Perlmutter was entitled to attorneys' fees after the Kasowitz firm and its former partner, Michael Bowen, did not file their answer by Aug. 9, as Curley had ordered.
The Kasowitz firm and Bowen did not respond to Perlmutter's lawsuit until 38 days after a deadline in August. A Kasowitz spokesperson said the firm "had no prior notice or proper opportunity to be heard" and that there was "no basis for the entire lawsuit."?
A Kasowitz firm spokesperson told Reuters that Curley's fee award was "unwarranted and contrary to longstanding accepted practice."
Boies Schiller?no longer wants to represent about 1,400 Colombian clients who claim to have been victimized by paramilitary forces that received financial support from?Chiquita Brands International?between 1997 and 2004.
But dropping out of the just-reinvigorated multidistrict litigation against Chiquita has become a considerable challenge for Boies Schiller — especially with Chiquita itself opposing the firm's latest request to end its representation of plaintiffs suing the company.?
Alison Frankel?has the story?of Chiquita's resistance to a Boies Schiller strategy to use radio and social media ads to notify clients of its withdrawal plans. Boies Schiller says clients won't be harmed because co-counsel are still on the case. Chiquita counters that plaintiffs' lawyers, at the very least, should know how to apprise clients of significant developments.
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