FindLaw News

[02/07] Mendoza-Pablo v. Holder
A petition for review of a BIA decision denying applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture is granted, as a child may be said to have suffered persecution and therefore be eligible for asylum where: 1) a pregnant mother is persecuted in a manner that materially impedes her ability to provide for the basic needs of her child; 2) that child's family has undisputedly suffered severe persecution; and 3) the newborn child suffers serious deprivations directly attributable not only to those facts, but also to the material ongoing threat of continued persecution of the child and the child's family.

Antitrust

Attorney's Fees

[02/07] Secalt, S.A. v. Wuxi Shenxi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.
In a suit claiming that the defendant's traction hoists infringed the trade dress of the plaintiffs' traction hoist, the district court’s grant of summary judgment, its finding of exceptionality, and its award of attorney’s fees under the Lanham Act are affirmed, where the plaintiffs did not present evidence sufficient to create a triable issue as to the nonfunctionality of its claimed trade dress, but the district court's award of non-taxable costs and certain taxable costs is reversed.

Bankruptcy Law

[02/02] Gentry v. Siegel
In bankruptcy proceedings in which former employees of the debtor filed claims for unpaid overtime wages, the district court's judgment affirming the bankruptcy court's denial of a Rule 9014 motion and its refusal to allow the claimants to pursue class actions is affirmed, where: 1) the bankruptcy court was within its discretion to rule that the bankruptcy process would provide a process superior to the class action process for resolving the claims of former employees; 2) notice of the bankruptcy process to the named claimants was not constitutionally deficient; and 3) with respect to unnamed claimants, the named claimants lacked standing to challenge the notice.

Civil Procedure

[02/07] Diaz v. Jiten Hotel Management, Inc.
In an age discrimination action against an employer, the district court's judgment in favor of the plaintiff is affirmed, where: 1) there was no error in the district court's decision to issue a mixed-motive jury instruction; 2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to certify the mixed-motive question to the state court; and 3) even if the district court erred by omitting a statute of limitations jury instruction, that error was not prejudicial.

Civil Rights

[02/07] Perry v. Brown
In a challenge to Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative approved by the voters amending the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, the district court's judgment invalidating the initiative is affirmed, with the following rulings: 1) the proponents of Proposition 8 had standing to bring the appeal on behalf of the State of California, whose people must be allowed to defend in federal courts the validity of their use of the initiative power; 2) however, Proposition 8 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the federal constitution, as the people may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment and strip them, without a legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry; and 3) the district court properly denied a motion to vacate the judgment, as the trial judge, who had been in a same-sex relationship for ten years, had no obligation to recuse himself or to disclose any personal conflict.

Class Actions

[02/06] Duran v. U.S. Bank NA
In a wage and hour class action brought by current and former business banking officers who claimed they were misclassified by the defendant bank as outside sales personnel exempt from California's overtime laws, and were thus unlawfully denied overtime pay, the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is reversed, where: 1) the trial plan erroneously relied on representative sampling and thus violated the bank's right to due process of law; 2) the trial court's refusal to allow the bank to introduce evidence to challenge the claims of certain class members violated its due process rights; 3) the statistical sampling methods, with their 43.3 percent margin of error, produced results so unreliable as to render the judgment unconstitutional; and 4) the trial court erred in denying a motion to decertify the class.

Commercial Law

[02/01] In re American Express Merchants' Litigation
In a class action asserting Sherman Act claims, brought against a charge card issuer whose card acceptance agreement purported to preclude a merchant from bringing a class action lawsuit, the district court's grant of the defendant's motion to compel arbitration and dismissal of the case is reversed, where the cost of plaintiffs' individually arbitrating their dispute with the defendant would be prohibitive, effectively depriving them of the statutory protections of the antitrust laws, and thus the class action waiver in the arbitration provision was unenforceable.

Communications Law

[02/02] Perry v. Brown
In a case in which a district court judge granted a motion to unseal a video recording of a trial presided over by his predecessor, which recording had purportedly been prepared by the trial judge for his in-chambers use only and was later placed in the record and sealed by him, the order unsealing the recording is reversed, where: 1) the Ninth Circuit assumed for the purposes of the case that the trial recording was subject to the common-law presumption of public access; and 2) the successor judge abused his discretion because the defendants in the trial reasonably relied on the trial judge's commitments in refraining from challenging his actions, and the setting aside of those commitments would compromise the integrity of the judicial process.

Constitutional Law

Consumer Protection

Contracts

[02/01] GECCMC 2005-C1 Plummer Street Office L.P. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.
In a suit alleging breach of lease agreements that the defendant bank assumed after it purchased a failed bank's assets and liabilities from the FDIC pursuant to the terms of a written purchase and assumption agreement, the district court's grant of the bank's motion to dismiss is affirmed, where under federal common law, the plaintiff lacked standing to bring suit under the agreement because it was not an intended third-party beneficiary of the agreement.

Copyright

Corporation & Enterprise Law

[02/03] Lawson v. FMR, LLC
In two separate but related cases under the whistleblower protection provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, alleging unlawful retaliation by employers that are private companies that act under contract as advisers to and managers of mutual funds organized under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the district court's denial of motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim is reversed, as the whistleblower protection afforded by section 806(a) of the Act applies only to the employees of public companies as defined in the Act, and not to an employee of a contractor or subcontractor of a public company reporting suspected violations relating to fraud against shareholders of the public company.

Cyberspace

Dispute Resolution & Arbitration

[02/03] Scandinavian Reinsurance Co. Ltd. v. Saint Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co.
The district court's grant of a petition to vacate an arbitral award is reversed, and on remand the district court is instructed to grant a cross-petition to confirm the award, where there was insufficient evidence before the district court on which to base a finding of "evident partiality" within the meaning of the Federal Arbitration Act despite the failure of two arbitrators to disclose their concurrent service as arbitrators in another, arguably similar, arbitration.

ERISA

[02/01] Muto v. CBS Corp.
In a putative class action complaint brought in New York by Pennsylvania residents against the plaintiffs' former employer and the employer's pension plan for benefits alleged to be due under ERISA, the district court's dismissal of the complaint as time-barred is affirmed, where: 1) the district court was correct in applying New York's borrowing statute directing it to look to Pennsylvania law for the applicable statute of limitations; and 2) plaintiffs' claims were untimely under Pennsylvania law.

Environmental Law

[02/07] Tri-Valley CAREs v. Dep't of Energy
In a challenge to the sufficiency of the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) environmental assessment of a prospective "biosafety level-3" facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the district court's summary judgment in favor of the DOE is affirmed, where: 1) the DOE took the requisite "hard look" at the environmental impact of an intentional terrorist attack; and 2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the plaintiffs' motion to supplement the record.

Ethics & Disciplinary

Ethics & Professional Responsibility

[01/12] US v. Lopez-Avila
In an appeal from a judgment of the district court denying defendant's motion to dismiss her drug trafficking indictment, judgment is affirmed where a mistrial due to the prosecutor's misconduct in misleading the court during his cross-examination of the defendant does not provide double jeopardy relief to defendant.

Evidence

Government Benefits

[02/03] Sauer v. Dep't of Education
In a suit by a California state agency seeking review of an arbitration award that made it liable to a blind vendor for failing to sue the federal General Services Administration (GSA) to vindicate the rights of the vendor to conduct business on federal property, the district court's judgment affirming the award is reversed, where: 1) the arbitration panel committed a legal error when it interpreted the Randolph-Sheppard Vending Stand Act as requiring the state agency to bring an action against GSA, and that the agency's failure to do so made it liable for compensatory damages; and 2) because the arbitration panel's ruling was not in accordance with law, it had to be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Government Contracts

[02/06] Laguna Hermosa Corp. v. US
In a suit brought by the former operator of a resort facility on federal land, seeking compensation from the United States for facilities that were allegedly retained and used by the Bureau of Land Management or by the resort operator's successor, the Court of Federal Claims' dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a claim is affirmed, where: 1) the trial court erred in concluding that the issues were identical to those in another case, and thus issue preclusion did not apply; but 2) the United States did not require the retention of the facilities under Public Law 96-375, so they remained the property of the resort operator and were abandoned.

Health Law

[01/30] Bernard v. City of Oakland
In a case in which retired firefighters or their surviving spouses contended that the City of Oakland and Union City were required to make additional payments toward their health care coverage pursuant to an amendment to the Public Employee Medical Hospital Care Act, the trial court's denial of mandamus relief and dismissal of the actions are affirmed, where: 1) it was appropriate to defer to the health care plan administrator's interpretation of the statutory language in dispute; 2) there was no error in allowing a witness to testify as an expert, and even if there was error, it was harmless; and 3) there was no merit to an assertion that a contracting agency that elects to make increasing contributions under Government code section 22892(c) must also comply with the minimum contribution provisions of 22892(b).

Injury & Tort Law

[02/03] Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Co. v. Roberts
In a suit brought by an insurer seeking a declaratory judgment that it was required to indemnify its insured for no more than 40 percent of a state court judgment because it had covered its insured for no more than 40 percent of the time in which the state court plaintiff was exposed to lead poisoning, the district court's judgment is: 1) affirmed in part, where it was correct in allocating the insurer's liability using the pro-rata time on-the-risk, and its decision to use the plaintiff's date of birth as the starting point for the period in which she was exposed to lead poisoning was sound; and 2) reversed in part, where the district court erred in holding the insurer liable for 24 months of coverage rather than 22, since under the insurance contract, coverage ended when the property was sold.

Insurance Law

Intellectual Property

[02/07] Adair v. Carter
On appeal a decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences holding that the appellants' single claim involved in an interference with the appellees was time-barred under 35 USC section 135(b)(1), the decision of the Board is affirmed, where: 1) to overcome a section 135(b) bar for a post-critical date claim, an applicant must show that such claim is not materially different from a pre-critical date claim present in the application or any predecessor thereto in order to obtain the benefit of the earlier filing date, and in this case the Board found material differences; 2) the Board properly presumed material differences between the plaintiffs' post- and pre-critical date claims; 3) the Board did not establish any absolute requirement that the pre-critical date claims must have been patentable to the plaintiff, and doing so would have been harmless error; and 4) the Board did not abuse its discretion in declining to consider a claim for the first time on rehearing.

International Law

[02/01] US v. Lyttle
In a prosecution for numerous offenses relating to the defendant's involvement in a fraudulent high-yield investment program, before which the district court had granted a government application to suspend the statute of limitations pursuant to 18 USC section 3292 while the government sought the assistance of the Hungarian government in recovering records relating to transfers of the scheme’s proceeds into Hungarian bank accounts, the district court's denial of a motion to dismiss the indictment on statute of limitations grounds is affirmed, where: 1) the evidence was sufficient to support the district court’s order; 2) section 3292 does not require that the foreign evidence sought be necessary for an indictment, nor that it be obtainable only through an official request to a foreign government; and 3) district courts may rely on ex parte proceedings when deciding to issue section 3292 orders.

International Trade

[12/22] US v. Twenty Miljam-350 IED Jammers
In a case seeking civil in rem forfeiture, pursuant to 22 U.S.C. Section 401(a), of certain communication-jamming devices that the owner was charged with illegally attempting to export, the district court's judgment ordering forfeiture is affirmed where: 1) the claimant's stipulation not to contest forfeiture in exchange for dismissal of a criminal complaint was enforceable; and 2) the claimant lacked Article III standing to oppose the forfeiture because it could not cause him injury.

Judges & Judiciary

Legal Malpractice

[05/05] In Re: Teligent, Incorporated
In a dispute arising from an action for legal malpractice, judgment of the district court denying motion to lift bankruptcy protective orders and cross-motion for injunctive relief barring defendant from attacking the validity of a settlement agreement on the grounds of waiver is affirmed where: 1) defendant-law firm failed to make the requisite showing to lift orders; and 2) it was not a party in interest with standing such that its failure to contest the validity of settlement agreement constituted waiver.

Oil & Gas

Patent

Professional Malpractice

[12/08] Creekmore v. Maryview Hospital
Medical malpractice judgment is affirmed where the plaintiff's expert witness is found to be qualified to testify as to the standard of care under state law because he performs the same procedure in the same context at issue.

Public Utilities

[02/02] Eiskamp v. Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency
In a suit against a water management agency for declaratory relief and a writ of mandate to challenge increased groundwater augmentation charges for the operators of wells in the agency's jurisdiction, the trial court's judgment in favor of the agency on demurrer is affirmed, where a stipulated agreement in other litigation resolved the plaintiff's issue in favor of the agency, so that the present action was barred by the doctrine of res judicata.

Remedies

[01/26] Munoz v. Sociedad Espanola de Auxilio Mutuo y Beneficiencia de Puerto Rico
In a retaliation case under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) and Puerto Rico's general tort statute known as Article 1802, in which the jury found for the plaintiff, the district court's denial of the defendant's motion for judgment as a matter of law and motion for a new trial is affirmed, where: 1) the evidence presented at trial was enough to support the jury's finding of retaliation; 2) the appellants waived defenses based on the statute of limitations, the exclusive remedies bar, and a purportedly erroneous jury instruction; 3) the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find the requisite fault or negligence to sustain an Article 1802 claim; and 4) the awards of damages and attorney fees were proper.

Sanctions

[02/03] Biller v. Toyota Motor Corp.
In a dispute over the violation of an employment severance agreement, the district court's confirmation of an arbitration award is affirmed, where: 1) the severance agreement called for arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act; 2) the district court did not err by not conducting a merits review of the award; and 3) the arbitrator did not manifestly disregard the law governing the severance agreement. Denial of the appellant's motion for contempt is also affirmed, where under the plain terms of a permanent injunction issued by the court, the employer was entitled to delete documents from the appellant's computer.

Securities Law

[01/20] Huppe v. WPCS International Inc.
In a shareholder derivative action seeking disgorgement of short-swing profits realized by two limited partnerships that were beneficial owners of more than 10 percent of the shares of the issuer, the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff is affirmed, where: 1) the stock purchases were not exempt from Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or SEC Rule 16b-3(d) even though they were made at the issuer's request and with the board’s approval; and 2) under the definition of "person" in Section 16(b) and basic principles of agency law, the limited partnerships were beneficial owners for the purposes of determining ten percent holder status under Section 16(b), notwithstanding their delegation of voting and investment control over their securities portfolios to their general partners' agents.

Tax Law

[01/24] TIFD III-E, Inc. v. US
In a suit by a taxpayer partner challenging IRS notices of adjustment reallocating a large percentage of the partnership's income for the years 1993 to 1998 to the taxpayer away from two Dutch banks that had purchased an interest in the partnership, and imposing a penalty for underpayment, the district court's judgment in favor of the taxpayer is reversed, where: 1) the banks' interest was not a capital interest for purposes of qualifying them as partners within the meaning of IRC section 704(e)(1); and 2) the taxpayer failed to point to substantial authority supporting its position, so that the government was entitled to impose a penalty on the taxpayer for substantial understatement of income.

Trade Dress

Trade Secrets

Trademark

White Collar Crime

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