LATEST SUMMARIES

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, CIVIL PROCEDURE, COMMUNICATIONS LAW, GOVERNMENT LAW
• Council Tree Communications, Inc. v. Fed. Communications Comm'n

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, EVIDENCE, GOVERNMENT LAW, HEALTH LAW, LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW
• Sec'y of Labor v. Trinity Indus., Inc.

CRIMINAL LAW & PROCEDURE, EVIDENCE
• US v. Lafferty

LATEST SUMMARIES

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, CIVIL PROCEDURE, COMMUNICATIONS LAW, GOVERNMENT LAW
Council Tree Communications, Inc. v. Fed. Communications Comm'n, No. 06-2943
Petition for review of FCC orders enacting new rules regarding competitive bidding for wireless communications spectrum licenses is dismissed as it was incurably premature because: 1) one order was non-final, and another had not been published in the Federal Register at the time the petition was filed; and 2) neither the law of the case doctrine nor the All Writs Act allowed the court of appeals to excuse the prematurity. Read more...

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, EVIDENCE, GOVERNMENT LAW, HEALTH LAW, LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW
Sec'y of Labor v. Trinity Indus., Inc., No. 06-2121, 06-2271
Petitions for review brought by the Secretary of Labor and an employer of decisions upholding two violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act but reclassifying them as "non-serious" is granted as to the Secretary's petition and denied as to the employer's where the reclassification was erroneous because employer's failure to test for asbestos in a situation in which it was presumed to be present was a "serious" violation under applicable regulations, and there was no need to show that a contractor's employees suffered any actual or significant exposure to asbestos. Read more...

CRIMINAL LAW & PROCEDURE, EVIDENCE
US v. Lafferty, No. 06-1901
In a prosecution for offenses arising from a burglary, denial of defendant's motion to suppress statements she and an alleged confederate made during a custodial interrogation is reversed as: 1) police failed to scrupulously respect her demand to remain silent by putting her in an interrogation room with her alleged confederate after she had invoked her right to remain silent and after he promised to give a confession; 2) no valid and meaningful waiver of her rights occurred; and 3) a ruling that the confederate's statements were admissible against her as adoptive admissions was improper as a court errs in permitting the government to use a criminal defendant's silence in the face of police interrogation. Read more...