Thanks to smartphones, we all have a mini casino right in our pocket. The digital public square has turned everyday folks into authorities on a range of topics, but are you willing to bet on it?

A charter school network in Illinois was unable to secure a preliminary injunction in federal court blocking a state law requiring “union neutrality clauses” in charter agreements. The law falls within the state’s authority and reflects a permissible condition on public funding. The schools failed to show a strong likelihood of success on their free speech claims.

The Scranton School District did not violate its Individuals with Disabilities Education Act obligations, a Pennsylvania federal court ruled in this lawsuit brought by a mother who says the district should have evaluated her elementary school student sooner for special education services. She says the district ignored warning signs such as poor test scores and speech issues, but the court finds the student’s extreme absenteeism made it “impossible to untangle” academic struggles from the impact of truancy.

Santa Clara County officials largely won their motion for summary judgment on a federal lawsuit filed by former county employees who say they were denied the ability to continue working in person after they objected to the county’s Covid-19 vaccination policies. Some of the former employees did not exhaust their administrative remedies before suing, but at least one employee did, so her Title VII claim may proceed.

A Mississippi federal court approved a 12% water bill hike in Jackson, Mississippi, a “survival measure” for a city whose water and sewage pipes and treatment plants are stressed to emergency levels and have reached the end of $150 million in federal subsidies. The 12% rate increase will bring in $20.4 million in annual revenue for the court-appointed interim third-party manager of the water system, who “must aggressively pursue needed structural reforms to prevent further financial strain on the rate-paying public.”

The insurer NORCAL won its motion to bifurcate and stay counterclaims brought against it by the pediatric clinic that employed Johnnie Barto, a doctor serving at least 79 years for sexually assaulting more than 30 children, most of them his patients. The court will first determine whether NORCAL owes the clinic defense and indemnification from a state-court lawsuit alleging it covered up Barto’s behavior, then can address the clinic’s counterclaims for bad faith and breach of fiduciary duty.