Case Summaries
Construction
Cyberspace
Construction
[11/03]
Heritage Constructors, Inc. v. City of Greenwood
In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against a city for retaliation under the First and Fourteenth Amendments arising from the city's allegedly denying plaintiff a contract in retaliation for an earlier arbitration, summary judgment for the city is affirmed where: 1) a public contractor's right-to-petition claim must involve a matter of public concern, just as a freedom-of-speech claim must; and 2) plaintiff did not allege that its earlier arbitration was a matter of public concern.
[10/30]
Save Tara v. City of W. Hollywood
Under some circumstances an agency's agreement allowing private development, conditioned on future compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), constitutes approval of the project that must be preceded by preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR) under Pub. Resources Code sections 21100 and 21151. In this case, the City of West Hollywood's conditional agreement to sell land for private development, coupled with financial support, public statements, and other actions by its officials committing the city to the development was, for CEQA purposes, an approval of the project that was statutorily required to have been preceded by preparation of an EIR.
[10/30]
Consulting Eng'rs and Land Surveyors of California v. California Dept. of Transp.
In an action filed by plaintiffs seeking a judicial determination that the civil service provisions of Senate Bill 1026 -- requiring that certain work is affirmed where on the project must be performed by employees of defendant-Caltrans -- violated Article XXII and an order permanently enjoining defendant from implementing those statutory provisions, judgment in favor of plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) the trial court correctly held that the portions of certain statutes requiring that certain architectural and engineering work must be performed by architects and engineers employed by defendant-Caltrans were unconstitutional; and 2) defendant-Caltrans may choose to have this work performed by its employees, but the Legislature could not mandate that Caltrans do so.
[10/28]
Cohen v. Mem'l Sloan-Kettering Cancer Ctr.
In a suit under Labor Law section 240(1), summary judgment for plaintiff is reversed where no Labor Law section 240(1) liability exists where an injury results from a separate hazard wholly unrelated to the risk which brought about the need for the safety device in the first place.
[10/23]
Missouri Coalition for the Environment v. Fed. Energy Regulatory Comm'n
Petition for review of the FERC's authorization of the reconstruction of the Taum Sauk Pumped Storage Project, a hydroelectric generating plant, is denied where the FERC did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as its decision not to include the impacts of relicensed operation in its environmental assessment of reconstruction was not arbitrary or capricious.
[10/21]
Stringer v. Musacchia
Plaintiff who was injured while building a shed for an acquaintance while on a hunting trip was not an "employee" covered by Labor Law section 240(1), as he was providing casual, uncompensated assistance to another person with a repair or construction project in an informal arrangement that did not give rise to mutual duties or obligations between them and bore none of the traditional hallmarks of an employment relationship.
[10/21]
Brooks v. Judlau Contracting, Inc.
In an action brought by an ironworker for injuries sustained on the job while employed by defendant's subcontractor, dismissal of plaintiff's third-party claim against the subcontractor is reversed where section 5-322.1 of the General Obligations Law allows a general contractor, who has been found to be partially at fault, to enforce an indemnification provision against its subcontractor for that portion of damages attributable to the negligence of the subcontractor, so long as the indemnification provision does not purport to indemnify the general contractor for its own negligence.
[10/21]
Brothers v. New York State Elec. & Gas Corp.
In an action by a forestry worker injured on the job, alleging negligence by his employer for which defendant, which contracted with the employer to perform the work, should be held vicariously liable, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) a contractual obligation does not necessarily constitute a nondelegable duty in tort; and 2) on the facts of this case, liability could not be extended to defendant.
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Cyberspace
[11/18]
Surrey v. TrueBeginnings
In a case of first impression in California involving an online matchmaking service, someone who presents him or herself to a business with the intent of purchasing its services or products, but becomes aware of that business's practice of charging different amounts for such services or products based on gender and thereafter does not purchase those services or products, is not aggrieved by that practice so as to have standing to sue for violations of the Unruh Act and the Gender Tax Repeal Act. The court adopts a bright-line rule that a person must tender the purchase price for a business's services or products in order to have standing to sue it for alleged discriminatory practices relating thereto.
[11/10]
Bus. Sys. Eng'g, Inc. v. Int'l Bus. Machs. Corp.
In a diversity suit alleging a breach of contract when defendant allegedly failed to utilize and pay for the full value of work agreed upon with plaintiff, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where only individual statements of work and their corresponding purchase orders constituted contractual agreements between the parties, and no other enforceable agreements existed.
[11/07]
Andonissamy v. Hewlett-Packard Co.
In an employment-discrimination suit alleging a hostile work environment, retaliation, FMLA violations, and assault by a supervisor, summary judgment for defendants, and dismissal of the assault claim as untimely, are affirmed where: 1) plaintiff failed to establish a basis for employer liability on the hostile-environment claim; 2) plaintiff did not produce evidence that his termination was based on his national origin, or that it was in retaliation for his complaints about discriminatory behavior; 3) plaintiff failed to give defendant notice of any need for FMLA leave; and 4) the assault claim did not relate back to the original complaint and was barred by the statute of limitations.
[10/28]
Truckstop.net, LLC v. Sprint Corp.
In a case deciding whether the Court can review a district court's order addressing whether an inadvertently disclosed e-mail was attorney-client privileged, interlocutory appeal by defendant is dismissed where the Court lacks jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine because the allegedly privileged information has already been disclosed.
[10/23]
Golden Bridge Tech. Inc. v. Motorola Inc.
In a suit alleging that defendants violated the Sherman Act by conspiring not to deal with plaintiff, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where the circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy produced by plaintiff did not meet the threshold requirement of demonstrating the existence of an agreement in restraint of trade.
[10/20]
US v. Schales
A child pornography case is remanded to the district court with order to vacate either the conviction for receiving child pornography in violations of 18 U.S.C. section 2252(a)(2), or the conviction for possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 2252(a)(4)(B), due to violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause where: 1) possession of child pornography is a lesser included offense within receipt of child pornography; and 2) convictions on the two counts were based on the same conduct.
[10/20]
US v. Pierson
A conviction and sentence for attempted production of child pornography and attempting to induce a child to engage in criminal sexual activities is affirmed where: 1) sufficient evidence supported the convictions; 2) there was no abuse of discretion in permitting the government to cross examine defendant at trial about his prior 20-year old conviction for indecent contact with a child; and 3) defendant's prior conviction was a qualifying predicate offense for the purpose of applying both a U.S.S.G. section 4B1.5 enhancement for repeat and dangerous offenders, and the mandatory minimum sentence required under 18 U.S.C. section 2251(e) for offenders with a qualifying prior conviction under state law.
[10/20]
Net MoneyIN, Inc. v. VeriSign, Inc.
In a suit alleging infringement of patents describing systems for making automated payments over the Internet, judgments of invalidity for indefiniteness and anticipation, summary judgment that defendant did not induce infringement, and denial of plaintiff's motion to amend its complaint to allege inducement are affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded where: 1) proper claim constructions required a finding of invalidity of four claims for indefiniteness; 2) the district court acted within its discretion by denying plaintiff an opportunity to amend its complaint to include inducement claims which it had earlier disavowed; but 3) unless a reference discloses within the four corners of the document not only all of the limitations claimed but also all of the limitations arranged or combined in the same way as recited in the claim, it cannot be said to prove prior invention of the thing claimed and, thus, cannot anticipate.
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