Jefferson v. Lias, 21 F.4th 74 (3d Cir. 2021). Back in 2019, this post discussed a circumstance where two of the three judges on a Third Circuit panel filed an opinion concurring in the panel’s unanimous opinion, of which those two judges were, of course, also part. Yesterday, a panel of three other Third Circuit judges went that one better in this case, which was brought under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983, and on other theories. The case involved “a police shooting that occurred during the course of a car chase,” as Judge Restrepo summarized it in his unanimous...

Though the Supreme Court of New Jersey and the Appellate Division are only just beginning to ramp up in the new Term, the Third Circuit has been pumping out published opinions in bulk, as it did late in August. Here are summaries of some of the five published opinions that the Third Circuit issued today: Bank of Hope v. Chon, 938 F.3d 389 (3d Cir. 2019). This opinion by Judge Bibas resulted from a suit by plaintiff against a number of defendants. One of those defendants began sending letters to plaintiff’s shareholders, asserting that plaintiff’s claims were groundless and were...

Even as the Appellate Division wound down the number of its published opinions in the second half of August, the Third Circuit seemed to rev up its publication of opinions. From August 14 through August 29, the court published thirteen opinions. Here are summaries of some of them (for full coverage of all of the court’s activities, check out Matthew Stiegler’s CA3blog): Golden v. New Jersey Institute of Technology, 934 F.3d 302 (3d Cir. 2019). This opinion by Chief Judge Smith involved an attorneys’ fee issue under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act, N.J.S.A....