On April 20, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order declining to review an appeals court decision that permits a securities fraud lawsuit to go forward despite the absence of evidence that any loss suffered by shareholders was caused by the defendant’s alleged misrepresentations. The decision was a setback for WLF, which filed a brief urging review. WLF argued that frivolous securities fraud litigation will continue to be a plague on the business community unless the courts are willing to weed out such lawsuits before defendants are required to respond to expensive and time-consuming discovery requests. WLF argued that the appeals court decision essentially eliminates the “loss causation” requirement as a check on frivolous securities litigation alleging stock fraud. WLF argued that the appeals court’s pleadings standard for securities fraud cases is not faithful to a 1995 federal law designed to permit early dismissal of insubstantial securities fraud suits.