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Supreme Court

Maker of CBD products asks court to decide whether lawsuit under criminal racketeering law can go forward

The Petitions of the Week column highlights a selection of cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

Organized crime, from the mafia to small-time money laundering schemes, often evades criminal prosecution. To bolster efforts to fight organized crime, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, more than 50 years ago. In addition to the criminal penalties for violating RICO, the law also … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Justices will consider whether tech giants can be sued for allegedly aiding ISIS terrorism

In 2015, ISIS conducted a series of coordinated attacks around Paris that killed 130 people and wounded nearly 500 more. Two years later, 39 people were killed in an ISIS attack on an Istanbul nightclub during the early hours of New Year’s Day. This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases arising from the attacks. The justices’ decisions in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh could reshape legal liability for some of … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Justices debate whether Warhol image is “fair use” of photograph of Prince

Wednesday’s argument in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith wandered widely, as the justices considered whether a famous set of images that Andy Warhol based on a 1981 photograph of Prince by the award-winning photographer Lynn Goldsmith were such a “fair” use of the photograph that Warhol’s successors can license them for commercial use without the permission of (or compensation to) Goldsmith.

As Roman Martinez explained on behalf of the Andy Warhol Foundation (which controls the … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Justices to consider whether Warhol image is “fair use” of photograph of Prince

In Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith, the justices get another chance to offer their take on the “fair use” doctrine in copyright law. The case involves a set of images Andy Warhol based on a 1981 photograph of Prince by the award-winning photographer Lynn Goldsmith, herself famous for iconic photographs of musicians like Roger Daltrey and Bruce Springsteen. All agree that Warhol used the Goldsmith image as a basis for his images; Vanity Fair … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Does it walk and quack like a statute of limitations? Justices consider whether equitable tolling is available to veterans.

In Tuesday’s oral argument, the Supreme Court grappled with three main issues in Arellano v. McDonough, a case about retroactive disability benefits for veterans who failed to apply for those benefits within the one-year window prescribed by a federal statute. First, the court looked into whether 38 U.S.C. § 5110(b)(1) is a statute of limitations to determine whether the Irwin presumption, which allows for equitable tolling, applies. Second, if it is a statute of limitations, the court pondered … Read the rest