The case arose from a 1993 fatal crash of a Westwind business jet at John Wayne Airport after it encountered wake turbulence from a preceding United Boeing 757 during a visual approach; the owners and operators sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act alleging negligence by FAA Headquarters in aircraft classification, separation standards, training, and research on wake vortices, as well as negligence by local air traffic controllers. The court granted judgment for the government after a bench trial. It held that the discretionary function exception to the FTCA barred all claims against FAA Headquarters, and that the evidence failed to show any breach of duty or causation by the controllers.
This case concerns whether wages paid by AAI Services, Inc. to foreign agricultural workers who had applied for Special Agricultural Worker (SAW) status under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 were exempt from federal employment taxes pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 3121(b)(1). The bankruptcy court granted summary judgment to the United States, holding that the workers did not qualify for the exemption under the Ninth Circuit's decision in Moorhead v. United States. The district court reversed, concluding after de novo review that the SAW applicants satisfied the statutory requirements for the exemption because they performed agricultural labor on a temporary basis as contemplated by the provision and its legislative history. The matter was remanded for further proceedings consistent with that holding.
This case involved homeowners who sued Allstate Insurance after the company denied their 1995 claim for earthquake damage to four rental properties from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, citing the policies' one-year limitations period. The plaintiffs alleged breach of contract, bad faith, fraud, and negligent misrepresentation. The court granted Allstate's motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that the limitations period began running on the date of the earthquake and that the plaintiffs' delayed claim filing and lawsuit were time-barred. It rejected arguments for tolling or waiver, noting that any potential tolling ended quickly when the inspector indicated no coverage would apply, and waiver was impossible after the period had expired. All claims were dismissed as they depended on the insurer's refusal to pay benefits under the time-barred policies.
The case involved a 1991 securities fraud class action by shareholders against Occidental Petroleum, alleging the company misled investors about maintaining its dividend before cutting it; the parties reached a settlement providing no direct cash payout but promising limits on future dividend cuts through 1997, and class counsel sought nearly $3 million in fees based on claimed benefits to shareholders including a rise in stock price. After an initial approval of the fees followed by a Ninth Circuit remand for further explanation, the district court on reconsideration awarded approximately $1.1 million instead. The court reduced the requested hourly rates from $465–$495 to a $375 cap, finding them unreasonably high even for complex litigation and noting that some tasks could have been handled by lower-rate associates, while also concluding that expert opinions linking the settlement to any stock price increase were speculative and unsupported by direct evidence of benefit to the class.
This case is an employment discrimination lawsuit brought by Andrew Jenkins, a Black male former employee of MCI Telecommunications Corp., and his wife against MCI and his supervisor, alleging that his termination after eleven years was due to race and gender discrimination as well as retaliation for complaining about workload. Jenkins had fallen significantly behind on duties including responding to customer emails, despite offers of assistance from management, and he was replaced by a Hispanic male. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all claims. It reasoned that the federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 failed for lack of state action, while the Title VII, FEHA, and related state claims failed because Jenkins admitted his performance deficiencies and provided no evidence that MCI's stated reason of poor performance was a pretext for unlawful discrimination or retaliation.
In Sussman v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., the owners and employees of Psychic Marketing Group sued ABC and its journalists after an undercover investigation involving a hidden camera and microphone, an ambush interview, and a national broadcast on PrimeTime Live exposed their 900-number psychic operations. Plaintiffs brought claims under the federal eavesdropping statute, state eavesdropping laws, common-law fraud and conspiracy, and spoliation of evidence. The court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, dismissing the state statutory claims as time-barred, finding no triable issue of damages from the intrusions alone for the fraud claims (as opposed to the broadcast), holding that the federal statute does not impose liability on journalists who record their own conversations, and dismissing the spoliation claims for lack of prospective litigation. Some individual plaintiffs and defendants were also dismissed by stipulation.