For the first time at the federal appellate level, a court held that sports-related event contracts listed on a CFTC-licensed designated contract market are swaps the Commodity Exchange Act assigns exclusively to the CFTC — affirming an injunction against New Jersey’s attempt to police Kalshi through state gambling law. The same week, terrorism victims saw a decade-old damages award snap back into place in Manhattan, and the Supreme Court’s Monday orders list reshaped criminal and cert dockets from Washington to Oklahoma City.
Commodity Exchange Act · Designated Contract Market · Field Preemption
KalshiEX LLC v. Mary Jo Flaherty asks a deceptively simple question: when a federally licensed exchange lists contracts whose payouts turn on NFL games, does New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement still get to treat them like online sportsbooks? Judge David Porter, writing for the Third Circuit on April 6, 2026, answered no — the contracts are swaps traded on a CFTC-regulated DCM, so the CEA’s exclusive-jurisdiction grant likely field-preempts the state regime the Division invoked.
Kalshi operates a designated contract market licensed by the CFTC. New Jersey sent cease-and-desist pressure; Kalshi sued and won a preliminary injunction in the District of New Jersey. The state appealed. The majority affirmed: “Kalshi’s sports-related event contracts are swaps traded on a CFTC-licensed DCM, so the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction.” Judge Jane Richards Roth dissented, arguing Kalshi’s offerings are functionally indistinguishable from licensed sportsbook products and that preemption should not wipe out core state police powers.
Why practitioners care
Prediction-market startups and state attorneys general were already on a collision course in multiple districts. A published Third Circuit precedent — especially with a vigorous dissent teed up for rehearing or Supreme Court review — becomes the first appellate marker for how aggressively the CFTC’s DCM framework displaces state gaming law.
Sources: CourtListener (3d Cir. opinion) · Courthouse News (opinion PDF) · Law.com / NLJ
Second Circuit · Anti-Terrorism Act · Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act
In Waldman v. Palestine Liberation Organization, American plaintiffs injured in attacks abroad spent years watching a massive jury verdict evaporate on jurisdictional grounds. The Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization — upholding a 2019 statute designed to open federal courthouse doors in ATA suits — forced the Second Circuit to reconsider. On March 30, 2026, the panel granted plaintiffs’ motion to reinstate the district court’s judgment.
Sources: AP News · SCOTUSblog (April 7 roundup) · JNS (case caption Waldman)
Cert Denied · April 6, 2026 Order List · Tribal Tax / McGirt Civil Line
The justices declined review in Stroble v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, leaving in place a state supreme court decision that tribal citizens who live and work on non-trust private land within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation remain subject to Oklahoma income tax. The petition had tested whether McGirt v. Oklahoma’s recognition of reservation status for major-crimes jurisdiction should extend to civil tax exemptions for tribal workers.
Alicia Stroble, a Muscogee Nation citizen, argued her home and tribal employment meant Oklahoma could not tax her wages. Oklahoma’s high court disagreed in 2025, reasoning that extending McGirt beyond criminal jurisdiction into state taxation was a step it would not take without clearer federal direction.
A cert denial is not a ruling on the merits and carries no precedential weight. Still, for tribal governments and state revenue departments across former McGirt country, the denial leaves Oklahoma’s civil tax line untouched until a future vehicle reaches the justices.
Sources: The Oklahoman · SCOTUSblog case file · U.S. Supreme Court — Apr. 6, 2026 order list (PDF)
Administrative Procedure Act · 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) · NCES / IPEDS
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in the District of Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction on April 3, 2026, blocking the Department of Education from enforcing deadlines or penalties for the new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) component of IPEDS against public institutions in seventeen plaintiff states. The court rejected several statutory theories but found the rollout likely arbitrary and capricious — citing compressed timelines and the agency’s failure to grapple with the “dismantlement” context plaintiffs emphasized.
Relief is expressly not nationwide: institutions outside the plaintiff states remain exposed to enforcement unless they secure separate injunctive relief. The court ordered a $100 bond under Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(c) and required plaintiffs to preserve responsive records while the pause is in effect.
Sources: CourtListener (D. Mass. PI order) · Ogletree Deakins · National Law Review
First Amendment · Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation · Federalism
Chief Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida entered a preliminary injunction April 7, 2026, against portions of an executive order by Governor Ron DeSantis that designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations for state-contracting purposes. CAIR sued in late 2025; the court found a likelihood of success on First Amendment and federal preemption theories — noting that FTO designations are a federal State Department function, not a gubernatorial speech platform.
“The question before this Court is whether the Governor can, in a non-emergency situation, unilaterally designate one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in America as a ‘terrorist organization’ and withhold government benefits from anyone providing material support or resources to the group.”— Judge Mark E. Walker, preliminary injunction, Apr. 7, 2026 (via AP)
Sources: AP News
Copyright Act · Secondary Liability · No. 24-171 · Decided Mar. 25, 2026
In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, a unanimous Supreme Court held that an internet access provider is not contributorily liable for its subscribers’ direct infringement unless the provider intended the service to be used for infringement — provable only through classic inducement (Grokster) or by offering a service “tailored to” infringement lacking substantial noninfringing uses. “Knowledge plus inaction” is not enough. Justice Thomas wrote for seven; Justices Sotomayor and Jackson concurred in the judgment with a narrower route to the same result.
Navy: opinion of the Court. Gold: concurred in the judgment (separate opinion).
Holding (syllabus): “The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement, which can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement.” Cox did neither.
Sources: Legal Information Institute (Cornell) · U.S. Supreme Court slip opinion (PDF) · Axios
January 6 Committee · Contempt of Congress · GVR
The April 6, 2026 order list included a grant-vacate-remand in Stephen Bannon’s criminal contempt case — sending the matter back to the district court where the Justice Department has already moved to dismiss the indictment after a change in administration enforcement posture. The maneuver does not erase the historical fact of the House referral; it relocates the fight to trial-level briefing on prosecutorial discretion and separation-of-powers norms.
SCOTUSblog’s morning read-through flagged the Bannon GVR alongside a new veterans-benefits case granted for OT2026 and a cert denial pattern in tribal tax litigation.
Defense counsel will seek dismissal with prejudice; judges still must resolve local rules on vacatur, restitution (if any), and sealed filings tied to the underlying contempt specifications.
Senate Judiciary · Controlled Substances Act · S. 545
On March 26, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 19-3 to advance the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act — bipartisan legislation that would place xylazine in Schedule III while carving protections for legitimate veterinary use. The markup occurred alongside other criminal-justice and law-enforcement bills and two U.S. Marshal nominations, reflecting the committee’s stacked enforcement agenda heading into spring floor congestion.
Schedule III treatment matters because it triggers DEA registration, prescribing quotas for human use (here largely irrelevant), and new trafficking penalties — while explicitly preserving ranchers’ access to animal tranquilizer formulations that have legitimate agricultural purposes.
Source: Senate Judiciary Committee press release (Mar. 26, 2026)
Ninth Circuit · Antitrust · App Store Remedies
After the Supreme Court declined interim involvement in 2024, Apple told the Ninth Circuit it intends to seek certiorari again in its long-running fight with Epic Games over App Store rules — this time spotlighting how Apple implements a 27% commission on purchases routed through external payment links ordered as equitable relief in the Northern District of California.
The question is no longer only “monopoly or not” — it is whether conduct remedies forcing rival payment rails can coexist with platform security claims without triggering California’s broad unfair-competition doctrines.
Sources: TechCrunch · SCOTUSblog (Morning Reads link)
Executive Order · NCAA · NIL / Transfer Eligibility
Responding to continued litigation over eligibility rules, President Trump signed an executive order Friday, April 4, 2026 (as reported by ESPN) directing the NCAA to draft regulations capping athletic participation at five years and generally limiting undergraduates to one penalty-free transfer before graduation. The order lands in a post-Alston world where courts already blew open NIL payments but left the association scrambling for enforceable national standards.
Mechanics lawyers will watch
Sources: ESPN · SCOTUSblog (Morning Reads)
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act · REMS · Abortion medication
Western District of Louisiana Judge David Joseph — denying Louisiana’s request to immediately block FDA’s 2023 rule allowing dispensing of mifepristone through certified pharmacies and the mail — stayed the case April 7, 2026, so the agency can finish a politically freighted safety review. The order leaves the 2023 framework in place for now but invites renewed motions if FDA misses a “reasonable” completion window.
GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories intervened to defend FDA’s approach; Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told reporters she will seek Fifth Circuit review. The dispute sits at the intersection of Dobbs-era state bans, FDA’s REMS discretion, and cross-border telehealth prescriptions.
Key phrase
“At this juncture, it is the completion of FDA’s promised good faith, evidence-based, and expeditious review [and] not ‘government by lawsuit’ that this Court finds to be in the public interest.”
Source: Reuters
Forward calendar
Concrete dates drive federal practice — from district court hearings on nationwide education data collection to the Supreme Court’s April sitting and long-scheduled immigration arguments at One First Street.
U.S. District Judge Saylor calendared argument on motions to intervene by higher-education associations in Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education, following the April 3 preliminary injunction.
Senate Banking leadership publicly targeted late April 2026 for committee consideration of market-structure legislation dividing SEC and CFTC turf — watch the committee notice for exact markup text.
The Court returns from its spring recess for oral arguments; Monday lists typically include high-salience civil and criminal matters from the January cert grants.
Consolidated argument in Noem v. Doe and Trump v. Miot over Syria and Haiti designations — reviewability of Homeland Security termination decisions.
Third Circuit panel split 2-1; New Jersey may seek rehearing en banc or file cert paperwork if the mandate issues — monitor Third Circuit docket 25-1922.
Sources: Ogletree (Apr. 13 hearing date) · SCOTUSblog (Apr. 20 sitting) · SCOTUSblog (TPS argument window) · Coindoo (Senate Banking late-April markup reporting)