In Green v. Heidelberg U.S.A., plaintiff William Green sued his former employers, Heidelberg Eastern, Inc. and Heidelberg USA, Inc., alleging wrongful termination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Green had filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC in May 1993, but he and his attorney repeatedly failed to respond to the agency's requests for an interview and information needed to investigate and attempt conciliation. The EEOC dismissed the charge for failure to cooperate in September 1993, after which Green filed his federal complaint in December 1993. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that Green's lack of cooperation meant he had not exhausted the required administrative remedies under 29 U.S.C. § 626(d), depriving the court of subject-matter jurisdiction. The court denied the defendants' separate motion for Rule 11 sanctions.
This case involved multiple shareholder actions against DWG Corporation and its controller Victor Posner, including class, derivative, and declaratory claims alleging violations of a 1991 consent decree that imposed court-appointed directors and oversight to prevent self-dealing, waste, and asset diversion. The court approved a settlement that transferred control of DWG to the DWG Acquisition Group led by Nelson Peltz and Peter May, resulting in dismissal of the pending claims with prejudice. The core reasoning focused on the practical benefits of the change in control as equivalent to the relief sought, weighed against the costs of continued litigation and the company's deteriorating financial condition that risked bankruptcy and loss of key assets like Arby's and RC Cola.
The case involved plaintiffs who operated an auto parts business in Liverpool Township from 1986 to 1989 under a permit but in violation of the township's zoning resolution requiring junk or unlicensed vehicles to be stored in an enclosed building after 15 days. After receiving notice of daily fines for noncompliance, plaintiffs closed the business and sued the township trustees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging inverse condemnation through a regulatory taking and denial of equal protection due to selective enforcement of the ordinance against them but not others. The court denied plaintiffs' motion to amend their complaint and granted defendants' motion for summary judgment. The inverse condemnation claim was rejected because plaintiffs had not first pursued available state procedures for seeking compensation. The equal protection claim failed for lack of any allegation that the differential treatment was based on race or membership in a protected class.
In this bankruptcy appeal, debtor J. Barry McLaughlin challenged the dismissal of his motion claiming the IRS violated the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 by collecting proceeds from an IRA account after he filed a Chapter 7 petition, seeking damages for the alleged violation. The court affirmed the bankruptcy court's ruling that the IRS did not violate the stay. The core reasoning was that the IRS's pre-petition notice of levy on the cash-equivalent IRA account transferred ownership to the government, extinguishing the debtor's interest so the funds were not part of the bankruptcy estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541 and received no stay protection; this differed from precedents involving non-cash assets where actual seizure or surplus potential might preserve debtor rights.
The case was a defamation lawsuit brought by a former railway employee against his employer, alleging that supervisors made false statements accusing him of dishonesty as part of a plan to reduce the workforce and avoid paying benefits; the employee had been discharged in 1982 and the discharge was upheld by the Public Law Board in 1983. After the case was removed to federal court and remanded by the Sixth Circuit for a determination of the proper forum, the district court held an evidentiary hearing involving the collective bargaining agreement, hearing transcripts, and related documents. The court decided that the action should be terminated in federal court because the defamation claims are inextricably intertwined with the collective bargaining agreement under the Railway Labor Act. The core reasoning was that resolving the claims required interpreting the agreement, including the employee's seniority rights, his assertions before the Public Law Board, the board's findings on fraud and termination, and the fact that the statements were made during the board hearing.
This case involves the United States suing Ohio Edison Company under the Clean Water Act for failing to construct a cooling tower by the September 1985 deadline required by its NPDES permit to limit heated water discharges from its Niles, Ohio power plant into the Mahoning River. The court granted summary judgment to the defendant on the claim for injunctive relief because a superseding 1987 NPDES permit eliminated the cooling tower obligation in favor of a load management program. The court denied summary judgment on the claim for civil penalties, reasoning that the prior permit's terms remained enforceable and that Section 309(d) authorizes penalties for violations even without fault or after permit modifications, with the amount to be determined later based on statutory factors.