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Threats of sham lawsuit against well-known singer constitute a crime, 9th Circuit says   Image from Shutterstock.com. Threats of baseless litigation can amount to extortion under the Hobbs Act, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco ruled Tuesday. In its opinion, the appeals court affirmed the conviction of Benjamin Koziol, who threatened to sue singer Andy Grammer over allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and assault and battery if the well-known entertainer did not settle with him for $1 million. Koziol had argued that the threat of litigation, even when “friv...

Legal Writing Justice Thomas goes rogue on the Bluebook with 'cleaned up' citation—to the delight of appellate lawyers   U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas went rogue on the Bluebook when he embraced an appellate lawyer’s suggestion for dealing with “citation baggage” that comes with some quoted material. Jack Metzler, an appellate lawyer with the Federal Trade Commission, outlined the problem in an article at SSRN in March 2017. When court decisions and briefs quote from an earlier source, and the earlier source sometimes quotes an...

Afternoon Briefs: Judge orders negotiation on 'race-norming’ claim in NFL case; judiciary considers amicus disclosure   Judge tosses challenge to ‘race-norming’ in dementia tests U.S. District Judge Anita Brody of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has dismissed a lawsuit challenging “race-norming” in dementia tests used to determine which retired NFL players qualify for compensation in a concussion settlement. Brody said the league and the class counsel in the $1 billion settlement should resolve the issue by negotiation. That apparently cuts out the lawyer who sued for Black pl...

6th Circuit judges trade barbs over references to Marshall Project, Grateful Dead in compassionate release request   Image from Shutterstock.com. Appeals judges ruling on a federal prisoner’s compassionate release request agreed that it should be denied but disagreed over sourcing in a dispute played out in a concurring opinion and a footnote. Judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati differed over a reference to reporting on COVID-19 prison cases by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit that reports on criminal justice issues. On the one side was Judge Chad A. Readler, an ...

Paul Brassil of Medfield has joined the company as senior vice president/chief information officer and will oversee PCU’s information technology and digital innovation efforts. Brassil has more than 25 years of experience in the information technology leadership field with entities such as Commonwealth Medicine (a division of UMass Medical School), the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, EMC Corp. and Siemens IT Solutions and Services Inc. He holds an MS in computer information systems from Bentley University in Waltham and a BA in Business Administration from Bridgewater State University. B...