A Steptoe blog about civil litigation in the Southern District of New York
In an opinion last week, Judge Caproni ruled unlawful a memorandum issued by the Department of Interior that interpreted a provision of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (“MBTA”) that prohibits killing “by any means whatever . . . at any time or in any manner, any migratory bird” to exclude incidental, unintentional killing.
The opinion begins:…
Continue Reading Judge Caproni: Agency Cannot Rewrite Statutory Prohibition on Killing Migratory Birds to Carve Out Unintentional Killings
The New York Post is reporting today that the SDNY is suspending all jury trials scheduled to begin next week, based on concerns over the spread of the caronavirus. [Update: The Order suspending jury trials is here, and it also states that judges “are strongly encouraged to conduct court proceedings by telephone or video…
Last week, seven major publishers filed a lawsuit claiming that a new captioning service offered by audiobook company Audible, Inc. violates copyright law. The “Audible Captions” feature transcribes the narration from the audiobook and displays the text on-screen, so that listeners-slash-readers can follow along in real time. Although previous Audible offerings have allowed users to…
Judge Caproni recently held in the context of a SEC enforcement action that communications with an outside compliance firm were not privileged. The communications at issue contained advice from a compliance consulting firm which, though staffed by attorneys, provided advice pursuant to a consulting agreement that specifically disclaimed the attorney-client relationship.
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Continue Reading Judge Caproni: Compliance Communications Prepared Outside of Attorney-Client Relationship Are Not Privileged
In an opinion yesterday, Judge Caproni warned Christopher Bandas, an attorney who serially files class action objections, about his apparent practice of attempting to use local counsel as a shield against sanctions, though she ultimately declined to sanction Mr. Bandas:
Bandas’ failure to provide any legitimate support for [the class objection] would be enough to
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