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December 20, 2017 by Heather Stevens
We are off for the holidays, and so end the year with a quick review of recent decisions from the Law Court and First Circuit. Thanks to all for reading and for the feedback received in 2017. A surprising number of folks seem interested in reading about Maine law – we had 400 readers on […]
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December 15, 2017 by Heather Stevens
Looking at the summaries of oral arguments heard last week, one struck my eye, so I listened in. The merits of the dispute go to the legality of the Maine PUC’s net metering rule, an issue we won’t discuss. It’s a jurisdictional issue the Commission raised, with impact beyond this particular case, which I’d like […]
December 13, 2017 / December 13, 2017 by Heather Stevens
There were a slew of decisions issued by the Law Court last Thursday. Let’s take a peek and discuss a few. A smelly oops State of Maine v. Dubois Livestock, Inc., 2017 ME 223. The holding is that when someone has a license issued by the DEP permit, at least under 38 M.R.S. s. 347-C […]
December 8, 2017 by Heather Stevens
Spanked You can’t be compelled to arbitrate a claim if you never signed an agreement to arbitrate, or even knew it existed. That’s the bottom line of a November 21 decision, Ouadani v. TF Final Mile LLC, No. 17-1583. Seem fairly logical to you? Me too. And to the Court (Judges Lynch and Selya, with our […]
December 4, 2017 by Heather Stevens
This quarter’s Maine Bar Journal has an article by an attorney, Jeff Goldman, of counsel at Morgan, Lewis in Boston. It’s called The Law Court’s Troubling Opinion of the Justices, and criticizes the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous advisory opinion on the Ranked Choice Voting (“RCV”) statute. Contrary to the title and vocabulary of the […]
November 28, 2017 / November 16, 2017 by Heather Stevens
I don’t comment on the substance of matters pending before the Law Court that involve me, but we were involved in an oral argument recently that reminded us of a useful tool in preparing for briefing and argument that is generally applicable, whatever the substantive issue in the appeal might be. The argument that reminded […]
November 21, 2017 / November 16, 2017 by Heather Stevens
A few entries ago, summarizing the First Circuit Judicial Conference, we noted how a Harvard librarian explained how attempts were being made to address “link rot” – when opinions cite to a website, and later, that cite disappears (and if not gone, you don’t know if the site has been changed since the opinion was […]
November 14, 2017 by Heather Stevens
The Supreme Court issued a decision last week made for appellate wonks, in which the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers (where I am a board member) not only filed an amicus brief supporting the position where the unanimous Court landed (AAAL Brief), but got a shout out in a footnote – Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing […]
November 8, 2017 / November 3, 2017 by Heather Stevens
A reader has alerted me to a dandy notice of appeal issue now pending before the Law Court involving the apparent clash of two civil rules – catnip to appellate jockeys! The case is Perry v. Dean, Docket No. BCD-17-412. Attached is a copy of an order reinstating the appeal that presents the issue. (Order […]
November 1, 2017 by Heather Stevens
One area of law I find of interest, given its First Amendment grounding, is the Noerr-Pennington doctrine – the protection of the right to petition from antitrust liability. There’s a new First Circuit decision discussing the sham exception to that doctrine, under which an antitrust suit is allowed to go forward based on the defendant’s […]
