1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

A former associate at Ropes & Gray was unable to revive his racial discrimination lawsuit after a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, The National Law Journal's Sheri Qualters reports. John Ray III alleged that he was racially discriminated against and fired because he complained about racial remarks made by the firm's parnters.

The firm told him in 2008 that he would not make partner and gave him six months to leave. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the firm didn't discriminate against Ray, but did retaliate against him for filing a charge with the EEOC.

Courthouse News' Jack Bouboushian reports that the First Circuit ruled that the Affordable Care Act requires the state of Maine to keep providing Medicaid coverage to 19- and 20-year-olds from low-income families: "the federal Department of Health and Human Services would not approve the change, because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires states accepting federal Medicaid funds to 'freeze' their Medicaid eligibility standards for children until 2019." The First Circuit ruled the requirement "does not step on state sovereignty ... as setting conditions of eligibility for participation in Medicaid is not a core state function, such as, for example, regulating state elections," Bouboushian further reports.

The National Law Journal's Mike Scarcella reports that the First Circuit, "while noting its concern about prolonged electronic surveillance, dismissed a Fourth Amendment challenge over law enforcement's secret monitoring of a suspect's vehicle." The appellate court concluded that federal law enforcement acted in good faith to use warrantless GPS tracking on a arson suspect's vehicle because they had good reason to suspect him of being a serial arsonist, NLJ reports..
 

There has been an increasing push by plaintiffs attorneys to pursue theories of liability against medical journals and medical publishers for harm allegedly caused to their clients from drugs they ingested. The National Law Journal reports that the First Circuit has rejected "a Massachusetts consumer protection case against two doctors, a medical journal and its publisher over an allegedly flawed article cited by defendants in birth-injury medical malpractice cases." The author of the opinion said "'the plaintiffs' theory of the case is imaginative but unpersuasive,"' The National Law Journal also reports.

The court did not reach the issue of the First Amendment in the case.