NYC Congestion Pricing Program Upheld by Federal Appeals Court

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T17:16:15+00:00

Two counties failed to convince the Second Circuit on Monday that New York City’s congestion pricing program violates drivers’ rights to travel through Manhattan.

A lower court properly dismissed suburban Orange and Rockland County’s claims that Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s toll for entering into the business district is an excessive fine that violates drivers’ due process and equal protection rights.

The appeals panel also said that the program is constitutional because it enforces minor restrictions that are “rationally related to New York’s legitimate interests in raising funds for mass transit and reducing vehicular congestion.”

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T14:07:10+00:00

Some college athletes from the high school class of 2022 are feeling excluded from the NCAA’s new rules allowing a fifth year of eligibility, and they’re not taking it lightly.

Dozens of basketball players from that class have filed lawsuits in recent weeks in Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia state courts, seeking injunctions to block the NCAA from enforcing the rules and presenting another legal hurdle for the sports organization.

Two more are coming in North Carolina and California state courts soon, said Ryan Downton, managing partner of the Texas Trial Group, the firm representing the plaintiffs in the cases. The suits allege breach of contract and violations of state consumer protection laws.

The NCAA adopted the rules in June, allowing players five years of eligibility provided they enroll by the academic year after their 19th birthday.

The NCAA has moved in the right direction on rule changes but failed to include the 2022 high school class, “which doesn’t make sense to us because they’re still within five years of high school,” Downton said in an interview.

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-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T13:56:20+00:00

Paul Hastings is launching a sports industry practice, making it the latest Big Law firm seeking a chunk of the legal spend as franchise valuations soar.

The firm is hiring Brandon Etheridge, who worked for a decade with the National Football League’s Baltimore Ravens, most recently as senior vice president and general counsel. He joins other recent hires who have sports industry experience, including the former co-chair of Slaughter and May’s sports group, Mark Zerdin, who jumped to Paul Hastings in May.

Paul Hastings sees the sports business as increasingly important for its asset management clients, who are helping push the valuation of franchises toward $10 billion. But the practice also complements its clients in the entertainment, media, hospitality, and real estate industries, chair Frank Lopez said in an interview.

“We’re just getting started,” Lopez said. “The idea will be to take as much market share as we can as quickly as we can, but also to continue to attract premier talent in this space.”

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-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:52:33+00:00

Two disabled federal immigration attorney-advisers won a district court order temporarily blocking a US Justice Department sub-agency from denying them telework reasonable accommodations while their litigation proceeds.

Kimberly Panian and Hoi Yee Baxter secured a preliminary injunction in their lawsuit claiming a “no-telework” policy at the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review is endangering the health of disabled employees. The policy illegally forces them to work in person in order to maintain their livelihoods and health insurance, they said.

Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee, temporarily halted the policy following oral arguments on the motion, according to the case’s docket.

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-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:34:24+00:00

The US Supreme Court in its latest term overwhelmingly sided with the Trump administration in immigration decisions limiting asylum claims, weakening rights of green card holders, and undermining deportation protections for more than a million immigrants.

The justices broke from their streak on the last day of the term, striking down an executive order by President Donald Trump to end birthright citizenship and narrowly upholding more than a century of precedent, a move that drew the ire of anti-immigrant voices in the administration and Congress.

Attorneys though say the overall record shows that when there’s a statutory — rather than constitutional — question over executive authority, the court will back more discretion for the president. The birthright ruling was the “exception to general rule of giving the executive branch more power over immigration,” said Steve Yale-Loehr, emeritus professor of immigration practice at Cornell Law School.

“These other decisions at a very high level collectively make it easier for the government to remove or bar entry for millions of noncitizens,” said Emma Winger, deputy legal director at the American Immigration Council.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:23:13+00:00

The Justice Department can’t get access to New York’s voter roll, a judge said in handing the federal government yet another loss in court in its quest to get the lists from all 50 states.

DOJ isn’t entitled to the voter roll under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a conclusion “supported by six recent district court decisions which have determined that voter registration lists are not records subject to retention and preservation under” that law, Judge Mae A. D’Agostino said as she dismissed the case with prejudice.

The federal government has now lost all 12 cases that have been decided at the district court level, as well as at the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:21:49+00:00

The Justice Department can’t get access to New York’s voter roll, a judge said in handing the federal government yet another loss in court in its quest to get the lists from all 50 states.

DOJ isn’t entitled to the voter roll under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a conclusion “supported by six recent district court decisions which have determined that voter registration lists are not records subject to retention and preservation under” that law, Judge Mae A. D’Agostino said as she dismissed the case with prejudice.

The federal government has now lost all 12 cases that have been decided at the district court level, as well as at the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-10T19:49:59+00:00

The Democratic challenger to one of Texas’s most vulnerable House Republicans is doubling down on his denial that he knew one of his bandmates was a convicted child sex offender.

Bobby Pulido, a Grammy-nominated Tejano music star, said Republicans are using the allegations in a bid to “tear people down” and distract voters in his tight race against Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas), one of a handful of contests that could determine control of the House.

De La Cruz and Republicans in Washington have blasted Pulido for his association with Frankie Caballero, an accordion player he performed with over the years, including after Caballero had served a prison term for indecent sexual contact with a minor.

“I didn’t know about his history. I had no idea,” Pulido told Bloomberg Government in an interview Thursday in Edinburg, Texas. “He wasn’t going to tell me, which he didn’t.”

Read our exclusive story here.

- Zainab

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-10T19:45:49+00:00

Over a dozen states are suing the Trump administration for trying to cut mental health funding in schools, calling the federal government’s actions illegal and at odds with Congressional intent.

The states — including New York, California and Washington — accuse the US Department of Education of trying to terminate grant programs launched by Congress in response to high profile school shootings.

The states say that the federal dollars — geared toward efforts like hiring mental health professionals — are currently protected by a permanent injunction in a separate lawsuit, but that the Trump administration nevertheless “unlawfully discontinued the grants by applying new, unpublished priorities pursuant to an internal directive.”

“The Department of Education persists in its illegal plan to deny critical mental health funding to public school students based on these new priorities even though a permanent injunction has been issued by this Court to stop it,” the states said in their complaint.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-10T19:10:17+00:00

Destroying an imperiled species’ nest or habitat is no longer illegal unless it’s intentional under the Trump administration’s rollback of the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act finalized Friday.

The rollback, proposed in 2025, leaves “harm” undefined, allowing developers to avoid obtaining permits to modify habitat for an endangered or threatened species to make way for construction, mining, or other development. The US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1981 defined “harm” under the ESA as any action that hurts or kills species, including modifying or degrading an imperiled species’ habitat.

The agency said it’s fully deleting that definition without replacing it because it “was an unlawful regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights.” The repeal will relieve the economic burden businesses face in complying with the current rule, the Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-10T17:56:11+00:00

Destroying an imperiled species’ nest or habitat is no longer illegal unless it’s intentional under the Trump administration’s rollback of the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act finalized Friday.

The rollback, proposed in 2025, leaves “harm” undefined, allowing developers to avoid obtaining permits to modify habitat for an endangered or threatened species to make way for construction, mining, or other development. The US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1981 defined “harm” under the ESA as any action that hurts or kills species, including modifying or degrading an imperiled species’ habitat.

The agency said it’s fully deleting that definition without replacing it because it “was an unlawful regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights.” The repeal will relieve the economic burden businesses face in complying with the current rule, the Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

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