Robert B. Maloney

In Littlefield v. Forney Independent School District, students and their parents sued the school district and its officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging a mandatory school uniform policy adopted in 1999 as violating their First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, along with other constitutional protections, based on philosophical and religious objections. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint, finding the policy lawful. The court reasoned that the policy was authorized by Texas Education Code § 11.162, included an opt-out process for bona fide objections with administrative review, and did not implicate protected speech because student clothing under the policy lacked a communicative element; related free exercise claims were not subject to heightened scrutiny and did not establish a constitutional violation.

civil rightsfree speechreligious liberty

In this case, credit card holders sued First USA Bank over its imposition of late fees and other assessments on their accounts, seeking to proceed individually and as a class action. The bank moved to compel arbitration based on a provision in the Cardmember Agreements or subsequent amendments, arguing that disputes must be resolved outside of court. The court granted the motion to compel arbitration, dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint without prejudice, and ruled on related motions to strike evidence. It reasoned that the plaintiffs had agreed to the arbitration terms either in their original agreements or through reasonable notice of amendments, that the provision was enforceable and not unconscionable under applicable law, and that the Federal Arbitration Act applied to require arbitration of the claims. The court also struck certain exhibits as irrelevant to the arbitration question but allowed others.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved the United States seeking civil forfeiture of three commercial properties in Duncanville, Texas, purchased by claimant Haisam Muhidin Sbini using funds from the Sterling Food Store. Sbini and employees had pleaded guilty to felony illegal redemption of food stamps after a scheme in which Lonestar EBT cards were used to record fake food purchases and pay recipients cash at a discount, generating over $369,000 in fraudulent federal deposits between 1995 and 1996. The government moved for summary judgment under 18 U.S.C. § 981(a)(1)(A) and (C) as property involved in or derived from violations of §§ 1957 and 1029. The court granted the motion, holding that undisputed evidence traced at least $109,919 of the purchase money directly to the fraud, that the properties were therefore forfeitable, and that the forfeiture did not violate the Excessive Fines Clause.

criminal lawproperty

This case involved a dispute between The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes over the interpretation of seniority and promotion rules in their 1982 collective bargaining agreement, specifically whether employees could accrue seniority in new positions without serving in them. The union struck in response to the company's actions regarding one employee's seniority, leading the company to seek an injunction under the Railway Labor Act. The court granted partial summary judgment, ruling that the dispute was a 'minor' one under the RLA because it concerned interpretation of the existing agreement rather than a change to it, and thus enjoined the strike, while denying requests for broader future injunctions.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

The case involved Absolute Resource Corporation suing Banc One Leasing Corporation, Robert Keaveny, and related parties after a proposed loan to develop Missouri mining property failed to close. Absolute claimed that a July 1994 proposal letter created a binding contract for a $2.5 million loan and that Keaveny made fraudulent misrepresentations about loan approval and third-party financing through the Hurst Trust. The district court granted summary judgment to Banc One and Keaveny on the contract and fraud claims. It reasoned that the letter was only a non-binding proposal subject to senior approval and due diligence, the deposit was refundable, and the alleged representations were non-actionable predictions or opinions rather than false statements of existing fact.

business & regulatoryproceduretorts & liability

This case was an employment dispute in which plaintiff James Carl Wakefield, an African American employee at State Farm, alleged race discrimination under federal and Texas civil rights statutes, along with civil conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress, based on actions such as a negative recommendation for a promotion, delayed expense reports, and altered performance evaluations allegedly influenced by his supervisors. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the claims lacked evidence of adverse employment decisions motivated by race, that a corporation cannot conspire with its own agents, and that the conduct was not extreme or outrageous enough to support an emotional distress claim. The court granted the motion in full and dismissed all claims with prejudice, applying the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework to find no prima facie case or pretext for discrimination, rejecting the conspiracy claims under established precedent, and concluding that the alleged actions amounted only to ordinary employment disputes insufficient for an intentional infliction claim.

civil rightslabor & employment

This case is a patent infringement action brought in Texas federal court by Adell Corporation, assignee of a patent for a spare-tire locking device used on pickup trucks, against Elco Textron, Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Illinois. Adell alleged that Elco manufactured and supplied component parts to General Motors that infringed the patent. Elco moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction or improper venue, or alternatively to transfer the case. The court granted the motion to dismiss, holding that Elco lacked sufficient minimum contacts with Texas under either a stream-of-commerce theory or general jurisdiction, because its shipments were directed to GM facilities outside Texas and its unrelated sales through an independent distributor in Texas were minimal and not purposeful. As a result, the motion to transfer was declared moot.

procedure

This case is an employment dispute in which plaintiff Heidi Darland, a former employee of defendant Staffing Resources, Inc., alleged that she was subjected to sexual harassment by a coworker on August 15, 1997, and was later terminated in retaliation for reporting the incident, in violation of Title VII. The undisputed facts showed that after Darland reported the conduct, the employer investigated, placed the coworker on leave, terminated him for inappropriate conduct, and required both employees to undergo drug testing after the coworker alleged Darland may have used drugs; Darland tested positive and was terminated. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint with prejudice. On the harassment claim, treated as a hostile-environment claim, the court held that Darland failed to establish that the alleged conduct affected a term, condition, or privilege of employment. On the retaliation claim, the court concluded that the termination was based on the positive drug test rather than the protected activity of reporting harassment.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case involved a qui tam lawsuit under the False Claims Act brought by relator Peter Jensen Thornton against Science Applications International Corp. and subcontractors, alleging they submitted false claims for unperformed work, testing, and materials on a government security system contract for the Western Currency Production Facility. The government intervened, investigated, and reached a settlement with the defendants that included $230,000 in cash, waivers of claims, and access to software source code; the relator objected to the settlement terms but the court had already approved it as fair. The court determined that the total settlement value was $1.03 million and awarded the relator a 22.33% statutory share amounting to the full $230,000 cash portion. The court denied the request for attorneys' fees and costs because only the relator, not his attorney, has standing to seek them under the statute, and the relator did not request them.

criminal lawbusiness & regulatory

This case is a securities fraud class action brought by purchasers of FoxMeyer Health Corporation stock against the company and its officers under sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants made materially false statements and omissions about the company's operations, including the performance of a new automated distribution center and the profitability of distribution contracts, which inflated the stock price before the subsidiary's bankruptcy filing ended the class period. The court denied defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and failure to plead fraud with particularity. Accepting the complaint's allegations as true, the court found that the plaintiffs had sufficiently identified specific misrepresentations attributable to the defendants under Rule 10b-5 and that group pleading was adequate for corporate officers' statements.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case is an employment discrimination suit in which plaintiff Abraham, an Asian-Indian respiratory therapist over age 40, alleged that his hospital employer failed to promote him to director of the cardiopulmonary unit because of his age and national origin, in violation of Title VII, the ADEA, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed all claims with prejudice. The core reasoning was that, even assuming the plaintiff made out a prima facie case, the employer articulated a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason—the selected candidate was better qualified—and the plaintiff offered no evidence creating a genuine issue that this reason was pretext for discrimination; additional claims concerning an earlier promotion decision by a prior employer were dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and lack of vicarious liability.

labor & employmentcivil rights

The case involves petitioner Anthony Udenze, a Nigerian national who entered the U.S. on a student visa, obtained conditional permanent resident status through marriage to a U.S. citizen, and later faced revocation of that status and deportation proceedings after the INS determined the marriage was a sham entered to evade immigration laws. Udenze filed multiple petitions and motions with the INS, BIA, and federal courts seeking review of adverse decisions, suspension of deportation on hardship grounds, and stays of removal, leading to a complex series of administrative and appellate actions spanning several years. The district court granted the respondents' motion to dismiss, holding that it lacked jurisdiction over Udenze's claims for review of the INS and BIA decisions. In the alternative, the court found that Udenze had not shown constitutional error or abuse of discretion by the agency in its handling of his case, including the revocation and denial of suspension requests. The court also denied related motions for injunctive relief, evidentiary hearings, and summary judgment, dismissing all claims with prejudice.

immigrationprocedure

This case was an employment discrimination suit brought by a cosmetics salesperson against her employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Texas Labor Code. The plaintiff alleged that the employer harassed her, failed to accommodate her autoimmune thyroid disorder and pregnancy-related restrictions, reassigned her to less lucrative positions, and retaliated against her by suspending and terminating her after she objected to a floating sales role. The district court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on all claims. The court assumed without deciding that the plaintiff was disabled and could assert a hostile work environment claim but found no genuine issue of material fact supporting any of her ADA, FMLA, or retaliation allegations, as the evidence showed the employer had provided leaves, accepted medical restrictions, and offered equivalent positions without adverse consequences tied to protected activity.

labor & employmentcivil rights

In Johnson v. Hines Nurseries, Inc., plaintiff Leonard C. Johnson sued his former employer and supervisors under the Americans with Disabilities Act after a subcranial hemorrhage led to long-term disability leave and benefits, alleging failure to provide reasonable accommodation that would have allowed him to work part-time, and also brought a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on both claims. On the ADA claim, the court held that Johnson lacked standing because his prior representations of total disability to the Social Security Administration and his insurer judicially estopped him from asserting he was a qualified individual who could perform essential job functions with accommodation, and he provided no evidence of a feasible accommodation. On the emotional distress claim, the court concluded that the alleged conduct, consisting of refusal to accommodate and insensitive remarks, did not meet the legal standard of extreme and outrageous behavior.

civil rightslabor & employmenttorts & liability

Dennis Pedini was held in contempt and sentenced to jail and a fine for violating a state trial judge's gag order in a high-profile drug case. He sought federal habeas relief after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his state petition, contending that the order was an overbroad prior restraint on his First Amendment speech rights because it was not supported by a showing of serious threat to trial fairness or consideration of less restrictive alternatives. The magistrate judge concluded that Texas does not apply the collateral bar rule to unconstitutional speech restrictions, allowing merits review, and that the order satisfied the Nebraska Press standards by addressing a clear danger to the defendants' Sixth Amendment fair-trial rights from pretrial publicity. The district judge adopted the recommendation and denied the habeas petition.

criminal lawfree speechprocedure

The case involved plaintiff Bonnie Westfall, a former manager at GTE North Incorporated and GTE Corporation, who was terminated in 1994 following an internal investigation into the prepayment of vendors for contract work without definitive agreements, which the company deemed a violation of its policies. Westfall sued for sex discrimination under Title VII and the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, age discrimination under the ADEA and TCHRA, disability discrimination under the ADA and TCHRA, as well as defamation, breach of contract, promissory estoppel, wrongful discharge, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, alleging the termination was discriminatory while GTE maintained it was for policy violations. On defendants' motion for summary judgment, the court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. The court found that GTE had articulated legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for the discharge but that Westfall had produced sufficient evidence, including of disparate treatment of male employees and pretext, to create genuine issues of material fact on the sex discrimination claims, precluding summary judgment on those counts under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case concerned whether a state court default judgment against debtor Kenneth Pancake for fraud, based on allegations that he accepted kickbacks as a loan officer for a savings association, created a nondischargeable debt in his bankruptcy proceeding under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(11). The bankruptcy court granted summary judgment to creditor Reliance Insurance Company, ruling that the judgment had preclusive effect under collateral estoppel because the fraud issues were actually litigated despite being entered as a discovery sanction. The district court reversed, holding that the record was insufficient to establish that the key fraud facts had been fully and fairly litigated, as the judgment referenced evidence only in the context of discovery noncompliance and lacked proof of a merits hearing or testimony.

procedure

This case involves a pro se civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 brought by plaintiff Carl G. Tiemeyer against two Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services employees, alleging they fabricated evidence and reports of child sexual abuse to justify a court-ordered separation from his son and administered medication improperly. The defendants moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), asserting qualified immunity. The court granted the motion and dismissed the claims with prejudice, holding that Fifth Circuit precedent in Doe v. State of Louisiana and Kiser v. Garrett establishes that the contours of a parent's substantive due process liberty interest in family integrity are not sufficiently clear to overcome qualified immunity when state officials allegedly manufacture false evidence during a child welfare investigation.

civil rightsfamily lawprocedure

The case involved Dallas Healthcare, Inc., a nursing facility participating in Medicare and Medicaid, seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the Health Care Financing Administration and state agencies from terminating its provider agreements and withholding payments after surveys found it non-compliant with participation requirements. The court denied the application, holding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the facility had not exhausted the mandatory administrative hearing and review process under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1395cc(h), 405(b), and 405(g). The request for injunctive relief was directly tied to the claim for benefits rather than collateral to it, and no exception to exhaustion applied since the plaintiff was an indirect beneficiary and had not shown the narrow circumstances for waiver recognized in precedents like Mathews v. Eldridge. The ruling emphasized that judicial review is available only after the administrative process is complete.

healthcarefederal powerprocedure

This case involved the FDIC, as successor to an insolvent savings and loan association, seeking to recover under a savings and loan blanket bond issued by U.S. Fire Insurance Company for losses allegedly caused by employee dishonesty. The bond named the association and a related entity as insureds and included provisions for termination of coverage upon takeover by state or federal regulators, as well as restrictions on purchasing a discovery rider after such a takeover. The court granted the insurer's motion for summary judgment on the breach of contract claim, finding that coverage had terminated due to the regulatory takeover and that the plain language of the bond and rider prevented the FDIC from obtaining extended coverage. It also granted summary judgment on the related claims for breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing and violations of the Texas Insurance Code, as there was no valid coverage under the policy. The court ordered the return of any unearned premium but dismissed the FDIC's claims with prejudice.

business & regulatory