CCL President Robert S. Peck argued a Magnuson-Moss warranty case in the Seventh Circuit, contributed to a petition for certiorari in the Colorado Supreme Court filed today, had an amicus brief he wrote mentioned twice during oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court, and wrote a brief in opposition to a motion to dismiss filed in Illinois circuit court today.

      In Ware v. Best Buy Stores, the Seventh Circuit will decide whether a Geek Squad Protection Plan (GSPP) is a warranty or a service contract. The Wares were looking to purchase a $3,000 state-of-the-art television set in 2013. When the salesperson and store manager warned them that it would likely only last a couple years and suggested they extend the manufacturer's warranty with a five-year GSPP, which would give them $300 off the TV and free delivery, it was enough to seal the deal. When the set went bad in 2017 after years of problems and became unfixable, Best Buy offered them a discounted voucher for a new TV, saying that what the Wares bought was a service plan, not a warranty, despite language in the document that made it a warranty. The district court dismissed the putative class action, finding that an FTC regulation that said the payment of additional consideration made the GSPP a service contract. In today's appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Peck argued that Magnuson-Moss was designed to prevent consumer deception and that Best Buy had violated its provisions by multiple indicia that the bundled TV and plan was a single item that included a warranty. The court took the case under advisement.

      The Colorado Supreme Court filing came in a catastrophic medical-malpractice case, Smith v. Surgery Center, where the Court of Appeals took away a significant jury verdict because it said the ambulatory surgery center defendant could not have committed negligence because it was barred from practicing medicine by the corporate practice of medicine doctrine. The reply brief filed today argued that the jury held the center liable for its own negligence and that allowing the published opinion to stand without review would massively expand the doctrine to provide plenary immunity to the center regardless of what it did or what duties it assumed.

      The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in BP v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, concerning federal officer removal. Peck wrote an amicus brief on behalf of state and local government groups that, among other things, emphasized that BP's position would allow lawyers to manipulate the system to file interlocutory appeals that Congress had denied authority for. In response to a question from Justice Kagan, Victor Sher, representing Baltimore, invoked the CCL amicus brief. Later, the same amicus brief provided another answer.

     Finally, Peck wrote and filed an opposition to a motion to dismiss in a COVID-19 related nursing home case, Leja v. Bridgeview, in an Illinois state circuit court.