News & Publications

On March 4, 2024, the Supreme Court vacated the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals' judgment in a case challenging Virginia Tech's bias intervention and response team policy, instructing the court to dismiss the case as moot. The Fourth Circuit decided the case in the university's favor last May,1 adding to a growing body of law addressing whether Speech First, an advocacy organization that purports to represent student speech on campus, has standing to challenge campus speech [...]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently reversed a summary judgment in favor of a police officer who had been sued for an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment arising out of an incident that had resulted in the shooting death of a pet dog. According to the appellate court, the conflicting accounts of what happened could only be resolved by a jury. Ray v. Roane, No. 22-2120 (4th Cir. Feb. 22, 2024). [...]

On January 18, 2024, the California Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated decision in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc., determining whether trial courts can dismiss Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims as unmanageable. The Court ultimately concluded that dismissing PAGA claims solely on manageability grounds — even if those claims are complex or time-intensive — is not among the tools that trial courts possess but left various other means for limiting or dismissing PAGA claims [...]