This case involved an excess insurer, California Union, suing a primary insurer, Excess, for alleged bad faith refusal to settle a lawsuit against their mutual insured arising from the disappearance of a shipment of shirts valued at over $200,000. The court dismissed the claim after a bench trial. Under New York law, the primary insurer owes the excess insurer a duty of good faith to attempt settlement when liability is clear and exposure exceeds policy limits, but the court found no bad faith because the initial demand came before discovery and liability was unclear, the excess insurer received notice of later demands and the decision to proceed to trial without objecting, and the primary insurer had no further duty to make counteroffers or explicitly relinquish control.
The case involved Alaska Textile Co., the beneficiary of two letters of credit issued by Chase Manhattan Bank at the request of Lloyd Williams Fashions, seeking damages for Chase's alleged wrongful dishonor of the credits after documents were presented with discrepancies including late shipment presentation and unauthenticated corrections on packing lists. Chase inspected the documents, noted the discrepancies, sought but did not receive a waiver from Lloyd, and ultimately dishonored the credits, holding the documents at the presenting bank's disposal. The court dismissed the claim, applying New York law and the Uniform Customs and Practices for Documentary Credits, which require strict compliance with the credit terms for honor and allow an issuing bank a reasonable time to examine documents and give notice of refusal. The court found that the discrepancies justified dishonor under the strict compliance rule and that Alaska had waived its right to enforce the UCP's timeliness provisions by presenting the documents on an approval basis while seeking Lloyd's waiver.
The case involved a passenger suing Royal Jordanian Airlines and Bengal Travel Service for breach of contract and negligence after the airline refused to honor tickets for a flight to Calcutta, leaving the passenger and his son waitlisted despite the issuance of tickets marked as confirmed. The court dismissed all claims against Jordanian Airlines, finding no obligation to reinstate confirmed status after a flight cancellation and reinstatement, but held Bengal liable as the passenger's agent for issuing confirmed tickets despite knowing the waitlisted status. It awarded the plaintiff repayment of ticket costs, additional expenses from the delay, and damages for emotional distress caused by Bengal's actions. The ruling rested on agency principles and the absence of any industry obligation or proven contract breach by the airline.
McGraw-Hill, Inc. sued Comstock Partners, Inc., Comstock Partners Strategy Fund, Inc., and Comstock One, L.P. for trademark infringement, claiming that defendants' use of the name 'Comstock' in their investment advisory and fund management businesses infringed McGraw-Hill's registered 'COMSTOCK' service mark for electronic real-time stock and commodity quotation services, which McGraw-Hill had acquired in 1988. The court found no infringement after a bench trial. It reasoned that the parties' services were not closely related, that defendants' sophisticated institutional and high-net-worth clients would not likely confuse the sources, and that the name 'Comstock' for defendants originated from the historical Comstock Lode rather than any intent to copy the mark. Judgment was entered for the defendants, dismissing the complaint.
This case involved a dispute over a breached contract for the sale of real property in Amagansett, New York, where the plaintiffs were the sellers and the defendant attorney sought to purchase the home. The plaintiffs sued after the defendant canceled the contract citing inability to obtain a mortgage and stopped payment on her deposit, despite a contractual requirement to use best efforts to secure financing within a set period. The court decided that the defendant was personally liable for any breach, piercing the corporate veil because the purchase was for personal use rather than corporate purposes under New Jersey law, and that she had breached the contract. It awarded the plaintiffs $23,000 in damages measured by the difference between the contract price and the later resale price, finding that minimal mortgage applications did not satisfy the best efforts obligation under New York law.
In this case, American Express sued MasterCard for trademark infringement and related claims under the Lanham Act and New York law, alleging that MasterCard's use of a "Gold MasterCard" infringed its registered "GOLD CARD" service mark for charge cards. The court determined that "GOLD CARD" is a generic or commonly descriptive term combining the generic word "card" with the descriptive adjective "gold," which cannot receive trademark protection without proof of secondary meaning or distinctiveness. Because the mark was found to be generic, the court dismissed the complaint in its entirety, while also addressing and largely rejecting MasterCard's counterclaims for cancellation of the mark. The decision turned on established trademark categories from cases like Abercrombie & Fitch, concluding that the term was too broad and descriptive to be enforceable as a source identifier for financial services.