Source: https://www.omtrial.com/blog
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:54:49+00:00

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Waymo v. Uber. Qualcomm v. Apple. ZeniMax v. Oculus. While high profile trade secret cases like these have become more prevalent in headlines over the past couple of years, intellectual property cases do not only arise in the context of well-known corporations. The number of trade secret cases in general has risen exponentially, due in part to the increase in startups, small tech firms, and the mobility of employees. Oftentimes, smaller businesses rely on trade secret protection for designs and processes to avoid the upfront expense of obtaining patents, which require public disclosure of the underlying science or process and typically only provide protection for a set number of years.
In its July 2018 decision in United States ex rel. Polukoff v. St. Mark’s Hospital, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a doctor’s medical judgement can be “false or fraudulent” for the purposes of the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733.
In 2003, “litigation holds” became one of the hottest topics in e-discovery. This shift was due to United States District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin’s decisions in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg. Looked at collectively, the judge made clear that, once a party reasonably anticipates litigation, it must take special actions to preserve relevant electronic evidence. Colorado courts take the same approach. See, e.g., Turner v. Pub. Serv. Co. of Colorado, 563 F.3d 1136, 1149 (10th Cir. 2009)(duty to preserve evidence arises when party "knew, or should have known, that litigation was imminent").
A recent 11th Circuit opinion held that False Claims Act (FCA) relators can invoke a three-year statute of limitations measured from when the government receives notice of the violation, even in a case in which the government declines to intervene.
Ogborn Mihm, LLP is pleased to announce five lawyers have been included in the 2019 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America.
On February 21, 2018, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Digital Realty Trust v. Somers, Case No. 16-1276, -- US – (2018), holding that in order to be protected from retaliation for internal reporting under the Dodd-Frank Act’s Section 21F as a “whistleblower,” which is defined in the statute, the individual must have first made a disclosure to the SEC under the Act’s bounty system. While the decision was not the death blow to Chevron deference that some expected, given Justice Gorsuch’s apparent hatred of the doctrine, it was a significant limitation on the protections for whistleblowers.
The firm’s Colorado Super Lawyers are Murray Ogborn for personal injury plaintiffs; Michael Mihm for professional liability plaintiffs; Mike Ogborn for business litigation; Susie Hardie Jacks for bankruptcy, and Thomas Neville for business litigation.
The court in Wussow v. Bruker Corp., decided on June 28, 2017, ruled that whistleblower claims brought under the Dodd-Frank Act are subject to mandatory arbitration.
Join whistleblower attorney Clayton Wire and the law firm Ogborn Mihm LLP on July 28th at 12:00 pm MST at ilovewhistleblowers.com for a free webinar: Whistleblower Protections & Incentives.
On June 7, 2017, a jury decided in favor of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. after an 8 day trial to determine whether Jason Blasdell had been wrongfully terminated in violation of public policy. Blasdell claimed he was fired after raising concerns about SpaceX’s compliance with 18 U.S.C. Section 38, a federal statute prohibiting fraud against a customer involving aircraft or space vehicle parts. The former Avionics Test Technician working on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft alleged that he had been wrongfully terminated after voicing concerns about the falsification of test results following safety testing and misrepresentations in connection with SpaceX’s multi-billion dollar contracts with customers including NASA. Specifically, Blasdell claimed that managers told him to sign off on parts quality regardless of whether he could verify their compliance with protocol. Blasdell claims he voiced his concerns to management, as far up as SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk.
Generally, in a legal malpractice case the plaintiff must prove that it would have achieved a better result, but for the attorney’s malpractice. In the litigation context, this means that the plaintiff must prove that it would have succeeded on the underlying claim or defense, but for the attorney negligence, often referred to as proving the “case within the case.” In the transactional context, the plaintiff often uses the “better deal, no deal” dichotomy to prove causation. Under the “no deal” prong, the plaintiff can prove causation by establishing that, but for the attorney negligence, it would have achieved a better result had it not entered into the transaction at issue. Alternatively, under the “better deal” prong, the plaintiff can succeed by proving that, but for the legal malpractice, it would have achieved a better result through a better and different “deal” or agreement than the transaction at issue. A New York appellate court in Leggiadro, Ltd. V. Winston & Strawn applied a broad and plaintiff friendly interpretation of the “better deal” prong of this causation paradigm.
Generally, in Colorado, an employee who is hired for an indefinite amount of time is considered an at-will employee, meaning employment may be terminated by either the employee or the employer with no notice for any reason or no reason at all. However, Colorado has some protections against whistleblower retaliation for employees in both the public and private sectors.
On May 22, 2017, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) adopted amendments to its whistleblower rules, continuing its three-year effort to strengthen the commission’s whistleblower program and its ability to protect whistleblowers from employer retaliation. The amendments expand the commission’s ability to pursue retaliation claims on behalf of whistleblowers and prohibit confidentiality agreements that interfere with whistleblowers’ communications with the CFTC.

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