U.S. District Judge Gene Pratter in Philadelphia can't resist cracking egg-related jokes every time she rules on allegations that egg producers conspired to inflate egg prices. But as always, her latest ruling is serious business for the defendants in the case.

The appellate court concluded that Solo followed its lawyers' advice about false marking when it decided what to do about cup lids stamped with an expired patent number. Even though Solo kept making the lids, the Federal Circuit found it didn't intend to deceive--a ruling that should dampen the firestorm of recent false marking suits.

Cite as: UFCW LOCAL 1776 v. ELI LILLY, 09-0222-cv, NYLJ 1202471926383, at *1 (2d Cir., Decided September 10, 2010)In re: Zyprexa Products Liability Litiga

Once again, a federal judge in Philadelphia has clipped the wings of some of the country's largest egg producers hoping to hatch their way out of multidistrict class action litigation over alleged price-fixing for eggs and egg products. And this time the judge got just a few dozen words into her decision before cracking her first chicken joke.

Shareholder M&A litigation is keeping a lot of lawyers awfully busy these days, especially in Delaware. But plaintiffs lawyers looking for guidance on a key provision of Delaware law related to such cases were turned away by the state's highest court this week, leaving them on the sidelines of derivative litigation over a $9 billion deal involving Freeport-McMoRan.

Plaintiffs lawyers missed a chance to strike a body blow to defendants facing breast cancer-related claims over a long-discredited synthetic estrogen treatment this week, when the first such case to go before a jury settled in the midst of trial.

A federal judge in Philadelphia allowed class antitrust claims against some of the country's top egg producers to move forward, though she granted motions to dismiss by one producer and an industry trade group.