The case centered on a mural painted by the plaintiff on a building exterior in the mid-1990s that suffered water damage in 2001-2002 from defendants' roof work, which allegedly failed to prevent overflow and sealing issues. The plaintiff sued under the Visual Artists Rights Act for intentional or grossly negligent destruction of a work of recognized stature and under copyright law for infringement. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint in full. It held that the copyright claim was time-barred by the three-year statute of limitations that began running upon the plaintiff's discovery of damage in January 2002, with no basis for equitable tolling, while the VARA allegations did not satisfy the statutory requirements for protected visual art or recognized stature.
This case involved Crow Construction Company's petition to vacate an arbitration award in favor of Jeffrey M. Brown Associates, Inc., arising from a construction project dispute in Brooklyn. The court granted the petition and vacated the award, finding evident partiality on the part of two arbitrators under the Federal Arbitration Act. The arbitrators had failed to disclose multiple prior and concurrent professional engagements with the law firm representing the respondent, including other arbitrations and mediations, some of which were not disclosed until after the award was issued, and they had disclosed their involvement to parties in a related arbitration but not to Crow. This created an appearance of bias that undermined the fairness of the arbitrator selection process.
The case involved The Limited, Inc. seeking declaratory judgment for coverage under a Product Tampering and Accidental Contamination Insurance Policy issued by CIGNA/ACE for losses from a voluntary recall of its Foam Burst body wash product after consumer reports of eye irritation from the aerosol dispenser. The court denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, granted the defendant's motion, entered judgment for the defendant, and dismissed the action. The core reasoning was that the events did not meet the policy's definition of Accidental Contamination, as there was no accidental contamination, adulteration, or pollution of a covered product resulting in bodily injury if used as intended, and no FDA finding of adulteration supported coverage. The court applied Pennsylvania insurance law to interpret the policy terms and found the claims outside the scope of coverage.
In Sanders v. City of Philadelphia, plaintiff Irma Sanders sued a police sergeant and the city after her arrest as a passenger in a reportedly stolen vehicle that was driving erratically, asserting federal claims of false arrest, unlawful detention, excessive force, malicious prosecution, and a Monell claim, along with related state tort claims. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the false arrest and unlawful detention claims, finding probable cause based on the vehicle's reported theft and the plaintiff's presence as a passenger, as well as on the Monell claim due to lack of evidence of a municipal policy or custom, and on the emotional distress claim because the conduct was not sufficiently outrageous. It denied summary judgment on the excessive force and assault and battery claims, determining that they raised factual questions for a jury, while other claims remained pending.
The case involved a dispute over whether a divorce judgment qualified as a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) under ERISA, allowing the plaintiff to claim rights to her deceased ex-husband's 401(k) benefits that were instead paid to his new wife. The court granted motions to dismiss the ERISA claims against the plan and related defendants, ruling that the divorce judgment did not meet the statutory requirements for a QDRO because it failed to clearly specify necessary details such as the addresses of the parties. As a result, the federal claims were dismissed with prejudice, and the court directed briefing on whether to retain supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.
Congregation Kol Ami, a Reform Jewish congregation, sought to purchase property in an R-1 residential district of Abington Township for use as a place of worship. The township's 1996 zoning ordinance prohibited houses of worship in residential districts while permitting other institutions such as municipal complexes and outdoor recreation facilities by special exception. The plaintiffs challenged the ordinance under the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions, claiming violations of free exercise of religion, free speech, equal protection, and due process. The court granted partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs, holding that the ordinance was unconstitutional as applied to them by the Zoning Hearing Board.