The federal District Court of Rhode Island (John J. McConnell, Jr.) has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop holding up funds under its existing obligations to states and nonprofit organizations in violation of an earlier preliminary injunction.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, has granted a stay of a temporary restraining order that would have forced the Department of Education to fund previously awarded contracts under the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Program.

When an attorney in New Mexico was found guilty of contempt of court by refusing to proceed to trial in defiance of orders and warnings, he was found guilty of contempt and sentenced to ten days in jail (with ten days suspended) and ordered to pay a $1000 fine to the New Mexico State Bar Foundation.

On appeal, the state Supreme Court has held that the order to pay a fine to a third party is permitted under the judiciary’s “inherent and uniquely broad” contempt power and the state Constitution.

Whether a local land use regulation imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion is a question of law for the court and not a question of fact for a jury, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held.  It has joined the reasoning of the First and Sixth Circuits in determining that the decision-maker under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) is the court and not the jury.

A fundraiser for the New York Public Interest Research Group who lost the ability to work on a commission basis when his job was modified to a supervisory role during Covid has lost a claim for discrimination on the basis of “associational pregnancy” for supporting his partner’s pregnancy discrimination claims with the same employer. A federal District Court in Manhattan has ruled that a pregnancy discrimination claim can be brought pursuant to the statute only by a pregnant individual, not by a partner or spouse.

The federal District Court in the Northern District Court of California (Edward M. Chen) has issued a national ruling postponing the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security’s determination to withdraw the temporary protected status of Venezuelans within the country.

The federal District Court in the District of Columbia (Amy Berman Jackson) has preliminarily enjoined the Trump Administration’s effort to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the Court had previously intervened to prevent mass firings of employees.