On Friday, Judge Liman granted Blake Lively’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs, but denied her request for damages (including treble and punitive damages), following the court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Justin Baldoni and his production company accusing Lively of defamation arising from the filming of It Ends With Us (see our prior coverage of the cases here).

Last month, the parties settled their disputes, including Lively’s related lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and retaliation, but left for the Court to decide Lively’s request for fees, costs, and damages under California Civil Code Section 47.1.

Enacted in 2023 in response to the #MeToo movement, Section 47.1 establishes a qualified privilege for communications made without malice concerning sexual harassment, assault, or discrimination, and it permits a prevailing defamation defendant to recover attorneys’ fees, costs and damages.

Continue Reading Judge Liman: Rule 54(d) Does Not Authorize Blake Lively To Recover “Damages” For Dismissed Defamation Action Against Her

In an opinion Friday, Judge Vyskocil exercised her discretion in refusing to adjudicate a declaratory judgment action filed by journalist Michael Wolff in state court (later removed) seeking a declaration that he did not defame Melania Trump. Ms. Trump’s lawyers had sent Wolff a letter demanding he retract statements in a Daily Beast article that the publication has since withdrawn. The letter invoked a pre-suit notice requirement under Florida law and stated that, absent a retraction, Wolff would be sued for $1 billion, presumably in Florida.

Judge Vyskocil concluded that Wolff’s lawsuit was an “abusively presented spat” because he engaged in “blatant forum shopping” by racing to file the case in New York, apparently in hopes of triggering New York’s more defendant-friendly anti-SLAPP law:

Continue Reading Judge Vyskocil Dismisses, For “Blatant Forum Shopping,” Journalist’s Preemptive Suit Against Melania Trump Over Defamation Threat

In an opinion filed on Thursday, Judge McMahon granted summary judgment to plaintiffs on their claims that the Government’s April 2025 mass termination of more than 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities (“NEH”) grants was unconstitutional and ultra vires (see our prior coverage here). The court described a glaring departure from NEH’s established grant‑review process, under which officials affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) directed that grants issued during the Biden Administration be reviewed for purported connections to subjects such as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI”), “environmental justice,” and “gender ideology.” The court found that DOGE officials “exercised decisive authority over the selection and termination of NEH grants” absent statutory authority.

Continue Reading “The Devil Made Me Do It” Defense Rejected: Judge McMahon Grants Summary Judgment Against Government’s AI‑Driven Mass Termination of NEH Grants

In an opinion yesterday, Judge Furman allowed former AUSA Maurene Comey to pursue her wrongful termination claims in federal court, denying DOJ’s argument that the claim belonged exclusively before the MSRB. Comey’s main allegation is that she was fired because her father is former FBI Director James Comey, a political foe of President Trump. Comey was told that she was being fired under Article II of the Constitution, without further explanation.

Judge Furman ruled that the governing statute does not channel all disputes over civil servant firings before the MSRB but only those “taken ‘for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service.’” 5 U.S.C. § 7701(a). Comey “was not removed ‘for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service,’” but, “[i]nstead, Defendants cited one and only one reason for her removal: Article II of the Constitution.”

Judge Furman noted that this result may or may not be consistent with the underlying Congressional purpose to create uniformity for personnel actions. But, he added, this “gap” may be explained by the fact that Article II firings were not, until recently, “a thing”:

Continue Reading Judge Furman: New Practice Of “Article II” Firings Can Be Challenged In Federal Court Instead Of Before MSRB

In a decision Monday, Judge McMahon granted summary judgment in favor of the author of the Crave series of “romantasy” fiction in a suit accusing the author of allegedly lifting major aspects of the books from the plaintiff, an unpublished author who shared the same agent (see our prior coverage here).

Judge McMachon noted that, between the Crave series and in the plaintiff’s unpublished manuscripts (titled “Blue Moon Rising” and “Masqued” and referred to in the opinion as “BMR/Masqued”), she had read over 6,000 pages of “romantasy” fiction in an eight week period. The resulting opinion—157 pages—explains that the two series of novels are not “substantially similar” within the meaning of copyright law. Copyright “protection extends only to a work’s particular expression of ideas, not to the ideas themselves,” which is why, Judge McMahon explained, the “common trope of ‘boy meets girl from opposing factions/boy and girl fall in love/boy and girl end up dead’” is not protected, but specific expressions of that trope (Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story) are protected.

For the case at hand, Judge McMahon explained that many of the overlapping plot elements were nothing more than staples of “romantasy” genre, including ones common to the “granddaddy” of the genre, the Twilight series:

Continue Reading After Reading 6,000 Pages of “Romantasy” Fiction, Judge McMahon Dismisses Suit Over Allegedly Copycat Book Series

In an opinion today, Judge Engelmayer dismissed all claims brought by retired Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau against the makers of the “30 for 30” documentary about the Jets 1980 defensive line, colloquially known as the “New York Sack Exchange.” Gastineau’s main grievance was that the documentary misleadingly portrayed a tense interaction with Brett Favre, who Gastineau accuses of taking a “dive” in 2001 so that Giants defensive end Michael Strahan could eclipse Gastineau’s single-season sack record.  According to Gastineau, the incident was deceptively edited to omit context showing that, in fact, he harbored no animosity towards Favre.

Continue Reading Judge Engelmayer: Former “New York Sack Exchange” Defensive End Cannot Sue Over Allegedly Misleading ESPN Documentary

On Tuesday, Judge Cronan dismissed for the second time plaintiffs’ putative class action alleging that defendant Supergoop’s sunscreen contains a lower SPF than labeled. Both times, the Court found that plaintiffs failed to establish standing by inadequately pleading injury-in-fact.

Rather than pursuing a direct theory of injury based on the products actually purchased, plaintiffs argued a theory of injury “via indirect means by linking the results of their independent testing of the same product line to the Purchased Products.” The named plaintiffs purchased Supergoop sunscreen on four separate occasions throughout 2023 and 2024. However, they did not test the SPF levels of the bottles they bought. Instead, counsel for plaintiffs arranged for the SPF testing of separate bottles of the same type of sunscreen, purchased in a different month in 2023, on the theory that the testing would apply to “all products by the same manufacturer that have the same combination of active ingredients.”

Continue Reading Judge Cronan: Plaintiffs Fail to Allege Injury-in-Fact Against Supergoop Sunscreen, Again

In an opinion filed on Friday, Judge Caproni denied the National Football League’s renewed attempt to compel arbitration in an employment discrimination action brought by a putative class of current and former NFL coaches (the “Coaches”). Initially filed in 2022, the lawsuit alleged systemic racial discrimination in the hiring, retention and termination of NFL coaches and executives.

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, the NFL moved to compel arbitration, which was granted as to certain claims and denied as to others. On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s refusal to compel arbitration claims against the Giants, Broncos and Texans, while declining to rule on jurisdictional grounds on the claims that had been compelled to arbitration. The Second Circuit explained that “the NFL failed to provide a neutral forum that could even be called an ‘arbitration’ and that [plaintiff] could not effectively vindicate his statutory rights in the forum that the NFL provided, given the designation of the NFL Commissioner as the default arbitrator and the lack of express arbitral procedures.”

In light of the Second Circuit’s ruling, the Coaches moved for reconsideration of the district court’s earlier order compelling arbitration of the remaining claims. “[T]o conform to controlling law,” Judge Caproni granted the Coaches’ motion and denied the NFL’s motion to compel arbitration in full. 

Continue Reading Judge Caproni Denies NFL’s Motion To Compel Arbitration Against Coaches on Reconsideration

On Thursday, Judge McMahon granted a motion by a putative class of federal grant recipients to compel the production of certain documents withheld by defendants National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Department of Government Efficiencies (DOGE) as privileged. The underlying discovery pertains to a class action challenging the mass termination of approximately 1,400 NEH grants last year.

Continue Reading Judge McMahon: DOGE Lacks Statutory Authority to Establish Attorney-Client Privilege with Other Agencies

In an opinion filed January 23, Judge Daniels denied a motion (covered here) in which DoorDash and Uber sought to preliminarily enjoin, as improperly “compelled speech,” a new New York City law requiring that online food ordering services provide an option to tip before the order is placed and to include an option for a tip of at least 10%.

DoorDash and Uber used to customarily include a tip option before the order was placed, but, in December 2023, the City passed a “Minimum Pay Law” for delivery workers, and so they moved the tip prompt to a screen that would appear after checkout—and which resulted in a significant decline in tips. The new law was passed in response to the tip decline.

Judge Daniels concluded that the DoorDash and Uber were unlikely to succeed on the merits because the speech at issue was commercial speech—speech that is “linked inextricably” to a commercial transaction—and so subject to less First Amendment protection. Judge Daniels rejected the plaintiffs’ effort to characterize the law as forcing them to “convey the City’s preferred message regarding tipping,” and found that the speech at issue merely reflected their “economic interests” in a commercial transaction:

Continue Reading Judge Daniels Refuses To Preliminarily Enjoin City Law Requiring Online Food Orders To Include An Upfront Tipping Option