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    CCL told a West Virginia district court that the state attorney general failed to meet his burden in justifying a state law regulating attorney advertising related to drug and medical device cases that prohibits the use of certain words and adds a long list of disclaimers, in a reply brief in support of summary judgment.

    The law was enacted last year, based on the idea that consumers who see the advertisements soliciting business from those harmed by certain drug or medical devices would stop taking their medication or mistake the advertisements for medical advice. Representing two lawyers and one of their clients, along with the Segal Law Firm of West Virginia, CCL President Robert Peck obtained a preliminary injunction last June so that the law never went into effect. Earlier this year, plaintiffs sought summary judgment to turn the preliminary injunction into a permanent one, arguing that categorical bans against truthful, non-misleading advertising could not withstand constitutional scrutiny, such as a ban on telling consumers that the drug had been voluntarily recalled by the manufacturer.

     In addition, the disclaimers were burdensome, dominating the advertising and included a requirement that the lawyer provide medical advice by telling consumers not to stop taking a drug until consulting their doctors.

    In response, the West Virginia Attorney General, who was the defendant in the case, insisted that this was an ordinary consumer measure, justified by some polls and incidents in other states.

    Today's brief explained that the justification was a hollow one because it adopted precisely the paternalistic view that the Supreme Court has held cannot justify limits on protected commercial speech that is truthful and non-misleading. A ruling on the summary judgment motion is expected soon.

     Today, CCL filed briefs opposing motions to dismiss in two cases filed by the City of Miami Gardens, Fla. against Bank of America and Chase that accused the banks of discriminatory mortgage lending practices under the Fair Housing Act.

      The cases, pending for seven years, recently were reactivated after similar cases' appeals had run their course. The banks filed motions to dismiss, claiming the city lacks Article III standing, failed to meet the statute of limitations, failed to sufficiently allege proximate cause because the city's lost property tax revenue was too remote from the discriminatory mortgages to be actionable.

      In response the city's brief, largely written by CCL, argued that the city met the criteria for constitutional standing, alleged a continuing violation that allows relation back to earlier discriminatory loans because it identified more than one similar loan within the two-year period before the original complaint was filed, and met the standard for proximate cause because of the regression analysis it alleged, which every court to date has found sufficient.

     The banks will now have an opportunity to reply to the brief.

     CCL President Robert S. Peck spoke April 23 on bringing constitutional challenges at a seminar for the Workers' Injury Law and Advocacy Group (WILG) and then joined a reception at a conference of the International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA), where he received its Amicus Award.

     The WILG seminar introduced its lawyer-members to a new constitutional challenge resource developed by the organization. Members have grown concerned that states are passing laws that limit the eligibility and scope of benefits available through workers compensation to those injured in the workplace. Peck's remarks about the art and pitfalls of constitutional challenges covered different approaches and difficulties that the litigation often involves.

     The IMLA awards reception recognized Peck for his pro bono amicus brief in BP pllc v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was initiated by Baltimore in state court against major oil companies for their contributions to climate change and its impact on the city. The oil companies removed the case to federal court, but the federal court ordered the case remanded to state court when it found none of the grounds for removal were valid. Under a federal statute, an immediate appeal of that order was permissible because one of the grounds asserted for removal was that the oil companies' alleged liability was for work it did at the direction of the federal government. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the federal government did not direct the oil companies and refused to consider alternative grounds for removal because the federal law giving a right of appeal was limited to "federal-officer" grounds.

      The scope of the authorized appeal was the issue before the Supreme Court. At oral argument, the IMLA brief written by Peck was mentioned twice, a testament to the importance of issues only raised by that brief. A decision in the case is still forthcoming.

     A CCL-authored amicus brief asks the Missouri Supreme Court to strike damage limitations enacted by the state legislature as a violation of the right to trial by jury. The brief was filed on behalf of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys and the American Association for Justice.

    In 2011, CCL won a decision that struck the previous damage cap on jury-trial grounds. In the decision, Watts v. Lester E. Cox Med. Cntrs., the state supreme court held that a cap on a common-law cause of action invades the jury's province as the trier of facts, which includes the determination of compensatory damages. In response to that ruling, the Missouri General Assembly seized on the common-law cause of action analysis and enacted a "statutory cause of action" for medical malpractice. The new action, however, was identical to the old one, except for the institution of caps. 

     In the underlying action, the plaintiff alleged her physicians were negligent during childbirth and in post-partum care, requiring the mother to undergo multiple surgeries and suffer permanent injuries. The jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiff, but its assessment of $1 million in noneconomic damages was lowered by the trial court due to the cap.

     The amicus brief filed by CCL argues that Watts was correctly decided, that respected studies by independent academics demonstrate that the rationales behind damage caps are invalid, that merely codifying the common law does not transform a common-law cause of action into a statutory one, and that the jury-trial right applies to statutory causes of action that are analogous to ones that existed at common law. For those reasons, the Court should strike the new damages caps for the same reasons it struck the earlier version, the brief concludes.

    Two different federal district court judges denied motions to dismiss in three cases where an Illinois nursing home was sued over injuries and deaths due to COVID-19 and the nursing home's failure to take appropriate measures to stop the virus's spread in its facility.

    In the three cases filed against Westchester Operating Company, the nursing home operator, Judges Thomas Durkin and Manish Shah held that the separate claims for negligence and willful and wanton misconduct survive the motions to dismiss because the pleaded complaints allege that either Winchester was not eligible for the immunity that the Illinois Governor granted health care providers by executive order or that the pleading of willful and wanton misconduct satisfied an exception to the executive orders.

    The plaintiffs alleged that Westchester failed to take steps to protect its residents from the pandemic, affirmatively punished residents who complained, ordered staff who contracted COVID-19 to continue to work, and rendered no assistance to the State of Illinois that would qualify it for immunity under the Governor's orders. In moving to dismiss Westchester argued that the immunity order abrogated the Illinois Nursing Home Act's negligence standard and that the Act provided no liability for willful and wanton misconduct. Both judges found the arguments without merit. The three cases, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois will now proceed.

    The plaintiffs are represented by Levin and Perconti, as well as the Center for Constitutional Litigation, whose Robert S. Peck wrote the briefs opposing the motions to dismiss.

     As a member of the legal team representing the victim of a shooting by an off-duty Chicago police officer, CCL filed a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. 

     In the underlying case, Michael LaPorta was shot in the head by an off-duty officer, using his service revolver, during an argument the two were having at the officer's home. LaPorta survived, but suffered devastating injuries that will require lifetime care. The officer, who was the subject of 19 different complaints about his use of violence both on and off the job, but never disciplined, believed himself above the law. Even after this shooting, for which he was never disciplined, fellow officers attempted to cover up his crime and the City of Chicago attempted to defend its liability by claiming that the shooting was a suicide attempt.

     A jury found the city liable for its policies, customs, and practices of not disciplining police officers so that they could act outside the law with impunity because of their status. The Seventh Circuit reversed the verdict, holding that the city had no obligation to protect anyone from private violence from an off-duty police officer. 

    The new petition asks the court for reconsideration because precedent holds that a municipality can be liable for injuries where the city's policies, customs, and practices are the "moving force" behind the injury. By requiring that the injury be carried out by a state actor, as the opinion did, the brief argues that the panel improperly overruled existing precedent.

    The petition was primarily written by Chicago-Kent law professor Carolyn Shapiro. Others on the case besides CCL include the Romanucci & Blandin law firm of Chicago, Michael Rathsack of Chicago, and David Rudovsky of Philadelphia.

     CCL filed separate oppositions to motions to stay discovery filed by Bank of America and Chase in Fair Housing Act cases brought by the City of Miami Gardens, Florida. The banks, defendants in separate cases before the same judge, filed motions to dismiss the city's lawsuits against them, claiming that the city lacks standing, that the city cannot satisfy the statute of limitations, and that the city does not adequately plead that the banks are the proximate cause of the city's loss of property tax revenue as a result of discriminatory mortgage lending. Shortly after filing the motions to dismiss, the banks asked the court to stay discovery until their motions are decided.

    In its opposition to the stays, CCL's brief argues that precedent rejects stays unless two conditions are met. First, the motion to dismiss must be so strong that the city has no real defense to it. Second, that the motion to dismiss has been pending for an unseemly length of time, making a stay proper. Neither condition is met, CCL told the court. A slew of judicial decisions in related or similar cases supports the validity of the city's complaint, plus the motion to dismiss is so recent that the City has not yet filed its response.

     CCL represents Miami Gardens along with the City Attorney's office, Trial and Appellate Resources in California, and the Peretz law firm in Oakland, California.

     CCL asked the Fourth Circuit to take supervisory authority over a case challenging the constitutionality of the Virginia cap on medical malpractice damages because the federal trial court has postponed ruling on the cap's validity and insisted on moving forward with a trial in which it cannot award any damages. The petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition invokes the higher court's authority to confine the lower court to its legitimate jurisdiction.

     In the petition filed March 26, CCL explains that J.S., a minor, filed this declaratory judgment action and medical malpractice case against the defendant to seek compensation for debilitating injuries that were caused by a failure to diagnose the injury following an automobile collision. A joint tortfeasor settled the case against it for $2 million before the current suit was filed. Virginia law limits damages in medical malpractice actions to a total of $2 million, even though, in this case, J.S.'s medical expenses are estimated to be $3.3 million. CCL had argued that because the federal district court cannot award any damages, the liability claims fail the test for standing under Article III of the Constitution, which require the court to be able to provide a remedy, among other things. However, CCL pointed out the court can provide a remedy in the constitutional challenge because it could find the statute unconstitutional and enjoin its operation. Doing so, then, would open the door to trying the underlying malpractice action.

    However, in early March, the district court determined that reaching the constitutional question would constitute an improper advisory opinion because there is no entitlement to additional damages until there is a jury verdict above the $2 million damage cap. It set the case for trial. The petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, however, argues that the trial court got it backwards. A trial of a case in which it can award no damages would be the advisory opinion that the Constitution forbids, because Virginia does not authorize medical malpractice cases to be brought when $2 million in damages have already been paid. The CCL petition directs the court to a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, where the issue was whether nominal damages of $1 were sufficient to find Article III standing and held that it was because even nominal damages provide concrete vindication to a plaintiff. Yet, in J.S.'s case, CCL points out, not even one penny of damages could be awarded, so the parties would be invoking federal judicial resources for a case that cannot vindicate the plaintiff's complaint.

     Under the procedure for petitions for mandamus, the parties must await a decision from the Fourth Circuit that invites the other parties and possibly the lower court to file a brief in opposition. If no such invitation issues, the petition is denied. CCL is cocounsel in the case with the MichieHamlett law firm in Charlottesville, Virginia.

     The Supreme Court rebuffed efforts by Ford Motor Company to further narrow plaintiffs' options on where they can bring a lawsuit for vehicle defects that result in injury or death in an unanimous decision, relying in part on an amicus brief filed by CCL on behalf of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) and Public Justice. 

     In consolidated cases from Montana and Minnesota, Ford argued that it could not be sued in either state in cases where the vehicle at issue was originally purchased in another state. Instead, it said, plaintiffs were limited to the place of purchase, the place where the car was designed, or the state where Ford has its headquarters, because only those places have a causal link to the alleged defect. The Court, however, rejected that argument, holding that "[w]hen a company like Ford serves a market for a product in a State and that product causes injury in the State to one of its residents, the State's courts may entertain the resulting suit."

    In the AAJ and Public Justice brief, CCL pointed out that Ford encouraged owners of their vehicles to service and maintain the cars with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts, whether they bring their cars to dealerships, auto shops, or work on the vehicles themselves. On a Ford owner's website, the company promotes its OEM parts with the slogan, "Keep Your Ford a Ford." Only the CCL-authored brief made this point in the filings before the Supreme Court. Justice Elena Kagan's opinion for the Court adopted the argument, demonstrating that Ford maintained a relationship with the vehicle and with every owner of a Ford through its promotion of those parts and noting the slogan promoted by the company of "Keep Your Ford a Ford." The use of these facts and argument by the Court testifies to the effectiveness of CCL's brief.

     CCL President Robert S. Peck, author of the brief, was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying that the Court's decision was a "step back from the brink" as it arrested a trend of personal jurisdiction decisions dating back to 2011 that increasingly narrowed the eligible jurisdictions for lawsuits against out-of-state companies.

     Counsel in two Fair Housing Act cases filed a new joint proposed scheduling order as the case resumes after being in civil suspense. In both cases, the City of Miami Gardens, Florida, sued banks over allegedly discriminatory mortgage lending practices that resulted in loss of property values and diminishing the property taxes the city could collect. The cases were filed in 2014, but were stayed repeatedly while related or similar cases proceeded through the federal appellate courts, including trips to the U.S. Supreme Court in which CCL represented both Miami and Miami Gardens.

     In the current cases, Miami Gardens separately sued Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. The city filed an amended complaint in January after the case was revived. The proposed scheduling order, filed March 15, outlines the parties agreed and conflicting positions on deadlines and various issues.