A letter of intent does not create a binding pledge for a charitable contribution, according to an appeals court in Virginia.  The Court has affirmed a trial court decision granting a declaratory judgment confirming that the potential donor has no obligation to fulfill its intention to give.

The federal District Court in Rhode Island (Mary S. McElroy) has granted a motion by several nonprofits, including the National Council of Nonprofits, for a nation-wide preliminary injunction to stop five federal departments from freezing funds authorized under the Biden era Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and ordered them to take “immediate steps to resume processing, disbursement, and payment of already-awarded funding.”

The federal District Court of Maine (John A. Woodcock, Jr.) has stopped the Department of Agriculture from cutting off federal funds for schools in Maine based on alleged violation of Title IX without following the due process required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

The federal District court for the District of Columbia (Trevor N. McFadden) has denied a motion for preliminary injunction brought by a group of advocacy organizations serving immigrant communities seeking to stop enforcement of new statutory registration requirements.  The Court denied the motion because the plaintiff groups failed to show that they have a substantial likelihood of standing.  (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. U.S.

The Tax Court has ruled that an appraisal of early Chinese art is not a “qualified appraisal” by a “qualified appraisal” for purposes of claiming a charitable contribution deduction, but that it will not penalize the donor because the donor had “reasonable cause” to believe that he had complied with the law.  The donor had previously settled a deduction claim with the Internal Revenue System when the claim was based on an appraisal by the same appraiser.

After James Jimirro, a resident of California, negotiated with the Paley Center for Media in New York to fund an annual program on the role of media in influencing thought and behavior, they signed a charitable gift agreement in 2016 under which Jimirro provided $1 million to fund the “James P. Jimirro Media Impact Series.”