DC Circuit

If you're a reader, you may have found yourself frustrated when your local library didn't instantly have a copy of the latest Colleen Hoover romance. If you're an academic, you've probably had to borrow several esoteric volumes from other libraries for your research because your institution didn't stock them. But…

Words matter everywhere. But we can't think of a place where a single word can matter more than a court of law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently rebuffed efforts to force the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to regulate airplane seat sizes primarily based…

The District of Columbia federal district court just ruled that the AT&T merger with Time Warner can move forward. The deal had been on hold for nearly a year and a half, and the massive ruling explicitly stated that if the government sought to stay the ruling pending appeal, the court would deny that motion. While this merger has been a lightning rod for controversy since being announced in 2016, it seems that all the hoopla was for naught.

In Mexico, "La Michoacana" refers to a Michoacan girl holding a specialty ice cream cone in advertisements. But in Paleteria La Michoacana Inc. v. Productos Lacteos Tocumbo, a federal appeals court said the reference is so commonplace it cannot be claimed by one business over another in the United States. The decision settled a decades-long issue in an international trademark dispute. Unlike the "paleta" ice cream, however, it was a bittersweet decision.

Today, we're taking a break from appellate opinions to look at one of the judges who issues those opinions. Here's a quick biography on D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge Karen LeCraft Henderson. Judge Henderson has served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals since July 1990, when she was appointed by President George H.W. Bush.Born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1944, Judge Henderson received her Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 1966.

The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines are just that. Guidelines. Suggestions. They're non-binding. In the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, they're not even presumptively reasonable. Judges are permitted to deviate from the Guidelines when sentencing criminal defendants, and an appellate court will typically uphold a lesser sentence as long as the judge explains her reasoning for deviating from the Guidelines.