In this special episode, Mark and Kian welcome a third member to the podcast team – Lara Langeneckert, commercial litigator at Barnes & Thornburg and formerly of the Indiana Solicitor General’s Office and the Southern District of Indiana U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The team begins with a labor law extravaganza, discussing three significant cases under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): Jacks v. DirectSat, Acevedo v. Professional Transportation, and Walters v. Professional Labor Group. These cases address the requirements for (and distinctions between) class actions and collective actions under the FLSA, as well as the FLSA’s rules for when employers must compensate employees for commuting time.

The episode concludes with United States v. House, which explores whether the Fourth Amendment requires the police to obtain a warrant before using a pole camera (i.e., a video camera affixed to a utility pole) to observe a suspect’s home.

In this special live episode, Mark and Kian are hosted by the Federalist Society chapter of the Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. This episode is an appellate procedure extravaganza, with our hosts managing to cover four separate cases in under an hour – Gilbank v. Wood County Department of Human Services (a split en banc decision on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine), Indiana Green Party v. Morales (a First Amendment challenge to Indiana ballot-access rules), World Seed Church v. Village of Hazel Crest (a discussion of mootness, standing, and Rule 60(b)), and Vanegas v. Signet Builders (a split panel opinion discussing how personal jurisdiction applies to collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act).

In this month’s podcast, Kian and Mark address two cases dealing with two completely different but equally complex areas of federal law: securities litigation and Medicaid.

In Alcarez v. Akorn, the Court examined the avenues of federal review of so-called “mootness fees” in securities litigation. These fees arise when securities plaintiffs sue over lack of disclosures but the case is rendered moot when the company later provides the disclosure. Mootness fees then sometimes become part of the settlement of the now moot litigation. Alcarez provides a roadmap for how shareholders may intervene and oppose the payment of these fees.

The second case – Saint Anthony Hospital v. Whitehorn – came back to the Seventh Circuit on remand from the Supreme Court. The opinion addressed whether a hospital could invoke Section 1983 against state regulators to compel them to enforce timely payment by managed care organizations. It provides an in-depth examination of when plaintiffs may bring Section 1983 claims to enforce federal statutes enacted under the Spending Clause.