Despite a plaintiff’s argument that upholding the dismissal of the first hormone replacement therapy tort case to reach Pennsylvania’s highest court conflicts with succeeding case law in Pennsylvania’s HRT litigation, the state Supreme Court is leaving intact a judgment notwithstanding the verdict in favor of drugmaker Wyeth.

With Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearing set to start today, she is still an unfamiliar figure to most Americans, according to a poll released by C-SPAN. Only 19 percent of those polled could name Kagan in response to an open-ended question about the name of the current nominee.

The 2nd Circuit has certified to New York’s highest court the question of whether a copyright infringement action can be brought in New York against an out-of-state party that uploaded to the Internet unauthorized copies of books and made them available to readers from servers located outside the state. The circuit said that “determining the situs of injury” for purposes of the long-arm statute “in a copyright case requires analysis of state law and policy considerations this court is ill-suited to make.”

The first woman to sit on the nation’s highest court said Tuesday she wouldn’t be surprised if fewer justices attend State of the Union addresses after President Obama criticized a recent ruling at this year’s address. Sandra Day O’Connor told several reporters at New York Law School that it was never easy to get justices to attend

New York’s highest court refused to recognize the doctrine of primary assumption of risk as a defense against liability for injuries suffered during youthful “horseplay,” concluding the defense should only further the public policy goal of encouraging participation in sports and other recreational activities.