How Appealing



Tuesday, August 16, 2022

“Divided Pa. Appeals Court Says Commerce in Arms Act Does Not Bar State Tort Claims; Five of nine Superior Court judges supported the Aug. 12 order reversing a trial court’s decision to sustain the defendants’ preliminary objections”: Aleeza Furman of The Legal Intelligencer has this report on an en banc ruling that the Superior Court of Pennsylvania issued Friday.

The Superior Court’s 5-to-4 en banc ruling consists of a per curiam order and opinion on behalf of three judges in support thereof; two additional opinions in support of the per curiam order (here and here); and two opinions dissenting from the per curiam order (here and here).

The ruling of the original, unanimous three-judge Pa. Superior Court panel, which was vacated on granting of reargument en banc, held that the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was unconstitutional. By contrast, a bare 5-judge majority on the en banc panel upheld the PLCAA’s constitutionality.

Posted at 3:14 PM by Howard Bashman



“DC Circuit Rejects Political Speech Limits for Judiciary Workers; An injunction blocking AO political activity restrictions on its workers applies only to the two employees who brought the challenge, Lisa Guffey and Christine Smith, and not all 1,100 AO employees”: Avalon Zoppo of The National Law Journal has this report on a ruling that a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued today.

Posted at 2:57 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Grace and Promise of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson”: ImeIme Umana has this article in the September 2022 issue of Vogue magazine.

Posted at 1:20 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Seventh Circuit on Voluntary Dismissals & Jurisdiction, Both Appellate and Article III: The Seventh Circuit addressed whether voluntary dismissals implicate appellate jurisdiction (and said ‘no’) or Article III jurisdiction (and said ‘yes’); But the issue isn’t jurisdictional at all; Voluntary dismissals instead implicate the possible waiver of appellate review.” Bryan Lammon has this post at his “final decisions” blog.

You can access last Wednesday’s ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit at this link.

Posted at 11:30 AM by Howard Bashman