Recent Cases & News

Case Summaries

Commercial Law

[09/09] Ecuadorian Plaintiffs v. Chevron Corp.
In an action alleging that defendant-Chevron polluted the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest over the course of several decades while engaging in oil extraction in the region, the district court’s order directing plaintiffs' consultants to submit to a foundational deposition is affirmed where: 1) it made no sense to require defendant to seek the consulting firm's documents from an Ecuadorean official, given the plaintiffs' denial that they provided any such documents to the official and his interest in denying receipt of the firm's material; and 2) the record did not clearly demonstrate that defendant was attempting to evade restrictions on discovery in Ecuador.

[09/08] Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Comm. v. US
In a complaint filed by a committee of domestic producers and processors of warmwater shrimp challenging the U.S. Department of Commerce's final results of its antidumping duties on certain frozen warmwater shrimp from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Court of International Trade's dismissal of the complaint is reversed and remanded as the court erred by dismissing the case without reaching the merits of the committee's claims, as substantial evidence supports Commerce's decisions to calculate the surrogate shrimp value based on the NACA Survey data and to exclude Bionic's financial statements in calculating the surrogate expenses.

[09/03] Flying J, Inc. v. Hollen
In plaintiff's facial challenge to Wisconsin's gasoline pricing regulations, district court's grant of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is reversed and remanded and a permanent injunction against enforcing provisions of the regulations is dissolved as the lack of evidence in the record supporting plaintiff's allegations of collusive conduct by gasoline dealers is fatal to its claim that the motor vehicle fuel provisions of the Unfair Sales Act are preempted by the Sherman Act as it cannot be found on the face of the statute any compelled or authorized conduct that constitutes a violation of federal antitrust law.

[09/03] Superior Seafoods, Inc. v. Tyson Foods, Inc.
District court's denial of plaintiff's Rule 60(d)(3) motion to vacate an underlying consent judgment involving a series of trademark-related actions stemming from plaintiff's sale of a seafood-products business to defendant is affirmed as, given the facts, and given the equitable requirement that the party seeking relief be free from negligence and fault, the district court clearly did not abuse its discretion in finding equitable relief inappropriate in this case.

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Contracts

[09/08] Scottsdale Ins. Co. v. Univ. Crop Protection Alliance, LLC
In a declaratory judgment action seeking a ruling that a pollution exclusion in defendant's insurance policy relieved plaintiff of any obligation to defend or indemnify defendant, summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) in the insurance policy coverage context, a declaratory judgment action is ripe irrespective of whether the underlying litigation is ongoing or resolved; and 2) the underlying complaint made clear the relofted particulates at issue were toxic, and therefore, would qualify as "pollutants" under the policy.

[09/08] McKissick v. Yuen
In an action against plaintiff's former company and two of its former officers, accusing them of perpetrating a fraud that rendered her stock options in the company worthless, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) the parties' separation agreement unambiguously barred plaintiff's claims; and 2) although the separation agreement entitled defendant to recoup the attorney's fees it incurred in defending the suit, the agreement did not permit the company to recover the fees it incurred in prosecuting a counterclaim against plaintiff.

[09/08] Butler v. Yusem
In a dispute over an agreement to construct a commercial retail and office building, the Fourth District court's holding that failure to establish justifiable reliance is a bar to recovery based on fraudulent misrepresentation is quashed, as the district court failed to properly apply the tipsy coachman principle, and the matter is remanded for the trial court to reconsider whether plaintiff is entitled to relief based on his claims for fraudulent misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation.

[09/08] Rafael Rodriguez Barril, Inc. v. Conbraco Indus., Inc.
In a contract dispute, district court's finding that a forum selection clause in the contract was not displaced by Puerto Rico's Sales Representatives Act of 1990, in dismissing the suit is affirmed as, the substantive issues as to choice of law, as well as the merits of the contract termination controversy, are to be resolved in the forum chosen by the parties. Here, the forum selection clause in the agreement fixes North Carolina, and the forum selection clause is not forbidden by Law 21.

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Government Contracts

[09/08] Massie v. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev.
In a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), seeking to compel action that they claim was unlawfully withheld by HUD, district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of HUD is reversed where: 1) section 311 did apply to HUD's management and disposition of the property at issue in this case; 2) HUD failed to make a determination that the property was not feasible for continued assistance and therefore failed to comply with the terms of section 311; and 3) grant of summary judgment on the issue of the cause of the displacement of the tenants is improper, and the matter is remanded for additional fact-finding on the issues of whether the tenants were displaced due to a federally financed project and, if so, whether the tenants who were entitled to relocation assistance at Uniform Relocation Act (URA) levels received such assistance.

[09/01] US ex rel. SNAPP v. Ford Motor Co.
District court's denial of plaintiff's motion to file a second amended complaint concluding that the proposed amended complaint, which included a list of contracts that the government allegedly entered into as a result of fraudulent representations on the part of Ford, did not allege with sufficient particularity the existence of a "claim" as defined by the False Claims Act (FCA), is affirmed as, because no holding of Bledsoe II affected the circuit's law on the questions at issue before the district court, the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding that its original rationale for not permitting plaintiff to file its second amended complaint pursuant to Rule 59(e) still obtained and that permitting such a filing was not otherwise "required in order to prevent an injustice."

[08/31] Great W. Contractors, Inc. v. Irvine Unified Sch. Dist.
In plaintiff-contractor's suit against a school district (District), challenging the District's rejection of plaintiff's bid to remodel two elementary schools, trial court's judgment in favor of the District is reversed where: 1) trial court was incorrect in rejecting plaintiff's lowest bid as nonresponsive as, under D.H. Williams, 146 Cal.App.4th 757 (2007), a public agency cannot reject the bid of the lowest bidder on a public works project on the theory that the bid is nonresponsive to the agency's request for bids when, in substance, the real reason for the rejection is that the agency thinks the lowest bidder is "not responsible" - at least not without giving the lowest bidder the chance for a hearing on whether the lowest bidder really is "not responsible"; and 2) the trial court abused its discretion in rejecting plaintiff's admittedly belated request to amend.

[08/27] Kirby Lake Dev., Ltd. v. Clear Lake City Water Auth.
In developers' suit against a water authority for inverse condemnation, the judgment of the court of appeals in favor of the water authority is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the authority's refusal to include a reimbursement measure in every bond election constituted a breach of its contracts with the developers; 2) because the Legislature has waived the authority's immunity from suit for this breach, the court of appeals' judgment is reversed and remanded to consider authority's remaining issues; and 3) court of appeals' judgment that the authority's actions did not rise to the level of a taking is affirmed.

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