SCOTUS rules for Trump in Colorado ballot appeal, Harvard law dean named interim provost, and lawyers who voided Musk's pay want $6 billion fee ➡️
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☀️ Good morning from The Legal File! Here are today's top legal stories:
⚖️ Trump wins Colorado ballot disqualification case at SCOTUS
The U.S. Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a major victory on Monday as he campaigns to regain the presidency, overturning a judicial decision that had excluded him from Colorado's ballot under a constitutional provision involving insurrection for inciting and supporting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
The justices unanimously reversed a Dec. 19 decision by Colorado's top court to kick Trump off the state's Republican primary ballot on Tuesday after finding that the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment disqualified him from again holding public office.
Trump's eligibility had been challenged in court by a group of six voters in Colorado - four Republicans and two independents - who portrayed him as a threat to American democracy and sought to hold him accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. election, was also barred from the ballot in Maine and Illinois based on the 14th Amendment, but those decisions were put on hold pending the Supreme Court's ruling in the Colorado case.
The ruling came on the eve of Super Tuesday, the day in the U.S. presidential primary cycle when the most states hold party nominating contests. As lawsuits seeking to disqualify Trump cropped up across the country, it was important for his candidacy to clear any hurdles to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.
The Supreme Court resolved the Colorado ballot dispute speedily, a timeline that stands in contrast to its slower handling of Trump's bid for immunity from criminal prosecution in a federal case in which he faces charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss. Trump's trial has been put on hold awaiting the outcome of the Supreme Court's decision - a benefit for him as he campaigns against Biden.
🏫 Harvard law dean named interim university provost amid leadership churn
Harvard University has named law dean John Manning as its interim provost to oversee academics across the university, with law professor John Goldberg becoming interim law dean. Both Manning and Goldberg will assume their new roles from March 14, the university said.
The changes come amid leadership turmoil at the storied Ivy League university. Former Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2 amid criticism of her December congressional testimony regarding campus antisemitism and allegations of plagiarism in her academic work.
Gay, who denied plagiarizing, was president for only six months. Manning was among the candidates in the search that led to her appointment.
Former Harvard Provost Alan Garber was named interim president following Gay’s departure, opening up the provost position that Manning will assume. Manning joined the Harvard Law faculty in 2004 and became dean in 2017.
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💉 US court to weigh Obamacare mandate to cover HIV drug, cancer screenings
The Biden administration is set to urge the 5th Circuit to preserve a federal mandate that requires health insurers to cover preventive care services including HIV-preventing medication and cancer screenings at no extra cost to patients.
The preventive care mandate, which covers a wide range of services chosen by a federal task force, is part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare because it was championed by then-President Barack Obama.
The arguments scheduled before a three-judge panel of the appeals court stem from a lawsuit brought by a group of businesses, including Texas-based Christian wellness center operator Braidwood Management, objecting to the requirement that they provide coverage for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
Braidwood and the other plaintiffs sued specifically over mandatory coverage for PrEP, which they said violates their religious beliefs by encouraging homosexuality and drug use.
💸 Lawyers who voided Elon Musk's pay want $6 billion fee
The lawyers who voided Elon Musk's $56 billion compensation as excessive are seeking a record $6 billion legal fee, payable in Tesla stock.
"We recognize that the requested fee is unprecedented in terms of absolute size," law firms Bernstein Litowitz, Friedman Oster & Tejtel and Andrews & Springer said in a filing with Delaware’s Court of Chancery. The fee works out to an hourly rate of $288,888, they said.
The company would pay the lawyers who represented Richard Tornetta, a shareholder who sued Musk in 2018 over the pay package, which a Delaware judge nixed in January.
The electric vehicle maker is being asked to pay the fee because it benefited from the return of Musk's pay package, which the legal team said will result in the return to the carmaker of 266 million shares. The company may object to the fee, as it has a fee request in a similar case over the pay for its directors.
Musk blasted the request as "criminal," posting on his X platform that "the lawyers who did nothing but damage Tesla want $6 billion."
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