Supreme Court rules on securities fraud pleading requirements News
Supreme Court rules on securities fraud pleading requirements

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday ruled that plaintiffs bringing securities fraud claims cannot establish economic loss necessary for such claims by showing that stock prices were inflated at the time of purchase. In Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Broudo [Duke Law School case backgrounder], 03-932, the Court overturned a Ninth Circuit decision that plaintiffs could simply prove the stock price was inflated due to misrepresentations. In the class action case, the plaintiffs had claimed securities fraud by Dura Pharmaceuticals, which they alleged misrepresented pending FDA approval of an asthmatic spray device. Read the Court's unanimous opinion [PDF text], per Justice Breyer. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.