In this case, North Carolina residents Timothy and Karla Slaughter sued Life Connection of Ohio (LCO), an Ohio organ procurement organization, alleging negligence in supplying a kidney that caused cancer after a transplant arranged through the national UNOS system. LCO moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, arguing its contacts with North Carolina were too remote and accidental. The court denied the motion, finding that LCO's regular practice of procuring and sending organs to North Carolina recipients satisfied the state's long-arm statute and comported with due process because the contacts were purposeful, foreseeable, and the state had a strong interest in protecting its citizens' health.
The case involved plaintiff James Mallas seeking attorneys' fees after prevailing against the United States in a lawsuit alleging wrongful disclosure of tax information by the IRS. The court had previously awarded Mallas $73,000 in statutory damages under 26 U.S.C. § 7431 for the IRS's failure to note that his tax shelter fraud convictions had been reversed on appeal. In this opinion, the court granted in part Mallas's motion for attorneys' fees, awarding $47,931 in fees and $820 in expenses, after determining that he was the prevailing party whose position showed the government's actions were not substantially justified, and allocating fees based on the number of original plaintiffs and the intertwined nature of the claims. The reasoning focused on the requirements under 26 U.S.C. § 7430 for recovering litigation costs in tax proceedings.
The case involved the Libertarian Party of North Carolina and affiliated plaintiffs challenging provisions of North Carolina General Statute § 163-96(b) and related election laws that required notarized acknowledgments or sworn testimony to validate petition signatures for new political parties seeking ballot access, along with a five-cent fee per signature. Plaintiffs argued these requirements, along with other statutes on voter registration and party recognition, violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court, adopting the magistrate judge's recommendation after reviewing stipulated facts and cross-motions for summary judgment, declared the notarization alternatives and per-signature fee unconstitutional as applied to Chapter 163, enjoined their enforcement, granted summary judgment in part to both sides, and dismissed all other claims. The core reasoning centered on the statutes' burdens on minor parties' ballot access, including high invalidation rates and double fees, which lacked sufficient justification under constitutional standards. Topics include elections, free speech, and civil rights.
This case involved a bankruptcy dispute where First Union National Bank and other lenders (the Bank Group) sought relief from the automatic stay to set off pre-petition credit card receivables from Brendle's Stores, Inc., which had filed for Chapter 11 protection. The bankruptcy court denied the motion, classifying the credit card slips as 'instruments' under North Carolina's UCC that required possession for a perfected security interest. On appeal, the district court reversed, holding that credit card slips are not instruments because they are not negotiable, not securities, and not writings transferred by delivery in ordinary business practice. The court reasoned that contracts between merchants, issuers, and banks govern these transactions and make possession impractical, aligning with UCC policy and a Permanent Editorial Board recommendation to treat credit card receivables separately. As a result, the Bank Group was permitted to exercise setoff rights on the receivables in the suspense account.
In Parsons v. Jefferson-Pilot Corp., a shareholder sued the corporation alleging that its 1990 proxy statement, which sought approval for an amendment to a stock option plan allowing grants to employees and officers including the CEO, contained material omissions and misrepresentations about the compensation committee's prior recommendations and the plan's limits. The court granted the plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment, holding that the proxy materials violated Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 14a-9. It reasoned that the undisclosed facts were material, that the proxies were obtained through deceptive disclosures, and that an essential causal link existed between the solicitation and the shareholder vote under the Mills analysis. The court rescinded the amendment, declared the stock grants null and void, and nullified the related proxies.
This case involved music publishers and ASCAP members suing a bar owner for unauthorized public performances of four copyrighted songs in her establishment, the Starlite Bar & Lounge, on April 20, 1991, including via live band and jukebox without an ASCAP license despite repeated offers. The court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment under the Copyright Act of 1976, awarding a reduced statutory minimum of $200 per infringement for a total of $800 in damages while denying attorney fees and declining to issue a permanent injunction at that time. The core reasoning was that the defendant infringed valid copyrights by permitting the performances without authorization, the jukebox was not exempt from licensing requirements because the bar charged for admission or music, and the defendant's conduct did not rise to bad faith or willfulness. The court noted that repeated unlicensed use would trigger an injunction and be deemed willful going forward.