Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup Friday, December 11, 2020

Each week, the Appellate Advocacy Blog Weekly Roundup presents a few tidbits of news and Twitter posts from the past week concerning appellate advocacy. As always, if you see something during the week that you think we should be sure to include, feel free to send a quick note to either (1) Dan Real at DReal@Creighton.edu or on Twitter (@Daniel_L_Real) or (2) Catharine Du Bois at DuBoisLegalWriting@gmail.com or on Twitter @CLDLegalWriting.

Supreme Court Opinions and News:

This week, the Court rejected an appeal from parents challenging a school policy that allows transgender students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity.  In rejecting the appeal, the Court let stand a federal appeals court decision throwing out the parents’ suit against a Dallas school district.  More from Bloomberg HERE.

As Amy Howe posted on Twitter, the Court this week declined to act on President Trump’s petition for review of a decision from the Second Circuit holding that the President violates the First Amendment when he blocks people from his Twitter account.

This week, the Court heard arguments in a case involving a collection of medieval Christian art on display at a Berlin museum.  In the suit, the heirs of several German Jewish art dealers sought relief, alleging that the art had been sold to the Nazis under duress.  More about the case and the arguments from SCOTUSblog.

This week, the Court heard arguments in another case involving the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act, in a repeat appearance of a case that was decided just a few years ago. The key question the Court will address is whether the court or the arbitrator is the appropriate one to determine whether the parties’ dispute is arbitrable.  The case seems highly similar in that respect to the issue the Court addressed the last time it heard the case.  The summary from SCOTUSblog is HERE.

One of the more noteworthy cases heard by the Court this week was one involving “Facebook robocalls” — unwanted text messages from Facebook — and whether the dialing of a number from a database counts as a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition against automatic telephone dialing systems. More about the case from Bloomberg, SCOTUSblog, and Law and Crime.

This week, the Court issued an opinion holding that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows individuals to seek money damages from individual federal employees who violate their religious freedom.  See the opinion HERE.

Federal Appellate Court Opinions and News:

This week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in a case applying the false claims act to set-aside contracts.  The ruling arguably strengthens the hand of the government and of whistleblowers in cases against companies awarded government set-aside contracts who do not meet the requirements of the particular set-aside.  See more from the National Law Review.

Appellate Practice Pointers:

Earlier this week, Judge Bergeron posted right here at the Appellate Advocacy Blog about pointers for zoom oral arguments based on his experience serving as an appellate judge for dozens of virtual arguments.  Check out his tips HERE.

Matthew Stiegler offered up a Twitter thread this week laying out several basic for competent typography that is worth checking out.