Courtside

The U.S. Justice Department sued Idaho on Aug. 2, saying its strict new abortion law violates the federal law protecting the rights of women to have abortions when they are facing medical emergencies. The lawsuit is the first action by the Biden administration to challenge a state trigger law since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June. It occurred on the same day that voters in Kansas resoundingly rejected a ballot measure that would have given the state's Republican-controlled legislature the power to place restrictions on abortion or ban it outright.

A Baltimore family has filed a $25 million suit against the Sesame Place theme park in Pennsylvania for alleged "pervasive and appalling racial discrimination." The suit arises from a character meet-and-greet session where Sesame Street characters allegedly snubbed their child. This lawsuit comes after a viral video of a Rosita character passing by two Black girls and refusing their high-fives in favor of white children. The plaintiff was not in this video.

Meta's Instagram, the attention-seeking social media platform, is getting unwanted attention in the form of lawsuits. Through an attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center, two families are suing Instagram claiming the social media giant allegedly caused their daughters' eating disorders. But how can you hold a social media platform liable for harm to its users? Most likely, the attorney is suing under product liability laws.

A Texas court began proceedings to determine how much Alex Jones must pay the parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims for his defamatory statements. The defamation action arises from his denial and conspiracy theories regarding the deadliest classroom shooting in the U.S. There are two separate lawsuits where a Texas court found Jones guilty by default judgment. A default judgment is when a defendant does not answer a complaint in time or disregards court orders. In this case, the court entered a default judgment against Jones for failing to produce requested documents to the court.

June, lawmakers passed the Puppy Mill Pipeline Act with rare bipartisan support. If Hochul signs it, New York will become the sixth state in the last three years to ban the retail sale of puppies, kittens, and rabbits in pet stores. In addition, some 400 municipalities have bans in place. If there was strong evidence that pet retailers are being cruel to the animals, signing the bill into law would be a no-brainer. But it's not that simple. Even the animal rights groups that support the bill say the real culprit is out-of-state puppy mills that breed the animas in cruel conditions.

Billionaire Elon Musk has terminated his agreement to buy Twitter. He claims that Twitter misled him about the number of fake or spam accounts on the platform and failed to give him the information he needed to independently verify its estimates. Twitter responds that this is all pretext, and that the real reason why Musk wants out is that the market has tanked and his net worth has plummeted. Sit back and get ready for the legal fight of the decade. We'll play ring announcer.