This case involved former Chevron employee Richard Duste, who was terminated after an internal investigation found he had approved over $28,000 in fraudulent expense reports by a subordinate, including claims for entertainment at strip clubs, and who then sued the company for negligence, interference with contract, emotional distress, libel, breach of contract, unfair competition, and slander. The court granted Chevron's motion for summary judgment on all claims except slander. It reasoned that Duste failed to identify evidence creating a triable issue on the dismissed claims, such as showing a duty for negligence claims, actual malice or falsity for libel, or any unlawful business practice under the UCL, while the slander claim had sufficient factual support to proceed.
The case involved plaintiff Paul Rosenfeld's claims against JPMorgan Chase, California Reconveyance Company, and Bank of America arising from two 2006 mortgages on his California property originally issued by Washington Mutual, which failed in 2008 with its assets transferred to Chase under an agreement that excluded liability for borrower claims. After Rosenfeld sought a loan modification in 2009, stopped payments, and received a notice of default, he filed suit alleging twelve causes of action including wrongful foreclosure, rescission under federal law, RESPA violations, breach of contract and fiduciary duty, fraud, unfair business practices, quiet title, and declaratory relief. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, dismissing eleven claims without leave to amend and one (RESPA) with limited leave to amend only as to loan servicers, while allowing the twelfth claim for declaratory relief to be repled in the prayer for relief if appropriate. Dismissal rested on the legal sufficiency of the allegations under Twombly/Iqbal standards, the terms of the FDIC purchase agreement shielding Chase from liability, statutory bars such as those in TILA and RESPA, and the absence of fiduciary duties or viable fraud claims in the lending and servicing context.
In this case, plaintiff IO Group, Inc., doing business as Titan Media, sued defendant Jason Jordon for copyright infringement, contributory infringement, and vicarious liability under the Federal Copyright Act, alleging that Jordon reproduced, distributed, and publicly displayed the plaintiff's copyrighted adult entertainment videos and photographs on his commercial website nubianl01.com without permission. The defendant failed to defend the action after initially appearing, leading to re-entry of default. The court granted default judgment on the direct infringement and vicarious liability claims but denied it on the inducement claim, awarded $21,750 in statutory damages to compensate the plaintiff and deter infringement, and issued a permanent injunction against further infringing activity, while denying enhanced damages and attorneys' fees due to lack of evidence of willfulness and supporting documentation. The reasoning rested on the defendant's admissions by default, the commercial nature of the site, and the statutory framework allowing courts discretion in damages to promote compliance with copyright law.
This case arose from an August 10, 2004 encounter in Oakland between plaintiff Uganda Knapps, an employee at a residential facility for developmentally disabled adults, and several Oakland police officers who detained him while he attempted to assist a resident who had left the facility unaccompanied. Knapps brought federal claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging excessive force and malicious prosecution, along with supplemental state-law claims for negligence, false arrest/imprisonment, battery, and violations of California Civil Code sections 51.7 and 52.1. Following a bench trial, the court made detailed findings of fact based on conflicting witness accounts, assessed witness credibility, and applied legal standards including probable cause for detention, the reasonableness of any force used, and elements of the state tort claims. The court’s conclusions of law addressed whether the officers’ conduct satisfied constitutional and statutory requirements given the circumstances presented.
In Ray v. Antioch Unified School District, a student sued his school district under Title IX, alleging that he was repeatedly harassed and ultimately assaulted by fellow students due to perceptions that he was homosexual and because of his mother's transgender status, and that the school failed to act despite knowledge of the harassment. The court denied the school district's motion for judgment on the pleadings, which argued that Title IX does not cover discrimination based on homosexuality or transsexualism. The court reasoned that the complaint sufficiently alleged severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive sexual harassment based on sex stereotyping or perception, to which the school was deliberately indifferent, resulting in the deprivation of educational access, consistent with Supreme Court precedent in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education.
This case involved an insurance company's claims against airlines and cargo handlers for the loss of computer hard drives during an international air shipment from Ireland to California, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The court granted partial summary judgment, allowing Virgin Atlantic and Japan Airlines to limit their liability under Article 22(2) of the Warsaw Convention to a fixed amount based on cargo weight, declaring the issue of Ogden's coverage moot due to settlement, and ruling that Japan Airlines could not face punitive damages. The core reasoning was that the Warsaw Convention governs international air cargo transport and explicitly caps liability while precluding punitive awards, with the court finding no basis to exceed those limits here.
