The case involved coin dealers who stored over $300,000 worth of rare coins in a safe deposit box at the Hyatt Regency-Indianapolis while attending a numismatic convention; the coins were later stolen from the box. The plaintiffs sued the hotel for the loss, claiming a bailment relationship and breach of duty of care. The court granted summary judgment to the defendant, ruling that the signed Safe Deposit Box Record expressly limited the hotel's obligations to ordinary care only for securities, jewelry, and valuable papers, stated that no bailment was created, and prohibited use of the box for money or other items. The court further held that the undisputed facts did not support the plaintiffs' estoppel argument based on the hotel's role as the convention's base hotel. Judgment was entered for the defendant with no recovery for the plaintiffs.
The case involved an Indiana inmate who filed a pro se civil rights action under section 1983 against federal officials, state agencies, police departments, and other individuals, alleging that pending and concluded criminal prosecutions against him resulted from personal vindictiveness by his federal parole officer. The court addressed multiple motions to dismiss and for summary judgment filed by the various defendants. It granted the motions to dismiss for most defendants on grounds including Eleventh Amendment immunity, lack of personal involvement in the alleged conduct, and failure to state a viable claim. The court granted summary judgment for the remaining defendants because the existence of probable cause for the plaintiff's arrest and charges defeated his claims for unlawful arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. The entire action was dismissed.
In this declaratory judgment action, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company sought a ruling that its underinsured motorist coverage policies issued to Indiana resident Robert Conway did not apply to injuries he sustained in a Kentucky car accident when his stalled vehicle was rear-ended by another Indiana driver, Jill Lantz. The court granted State Farm's motion for summary judgment. It held that Lantz's policy limits were not less than Conway's underinsured motorist limits, so Lantz's vehicle did not qualify as underinsured under the policy language and Indiana Code § 27-7-5-4(b). The court also ruled that the policies' anti-stacking provisions barred combining coverage from Conway's two separate policies, consistent with Indiana Code § 27-7-5-5(a).
This case concerns whether periodic payments from a structured personal injury settlement annuity, received by debtor Jonathon Striegel after a 1984 gunshot wound, constitute property of his bankruptcy estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541 and whether they qualify for exemption under Indiana Code 27-2-5-1. The bankruptcy court had ruled that the future payment stream was not estate property because the debtor lacked ownership interests in the annuity and that it was alternatively exempt as akin to future earnings. On appeal, the district court reversed, holding that the debtor possessed a pre-petition legal interest in the payments (characterized as a chose in action) that became part of the estate, that the arrangement was not a spendthrift trust excluding it from the estate, and that the cited Indiana exemption statute did not apply. The matter was remanded for the bankruptcy court to determine the extent to which the payments represent exempt wages or other categories under applicable law.
This case is a declaratory judgment action brought by American Family Mutual Insurance Company against its insured's employee, Jeffrey L. Lane, and others, seeking a ruling that the employer's liability policy provides no coverage for Lane's fight with John Taylor and imposes no duty to defend Lane in the resulting tort suit. The district court granted the insurer's motion for summary judgment. The court reasoned that although the incident occurred shortly after Lane clocked out on Arby's premises and began with Lane telling Taylor the restaurant was closed, Lane left the building of his own volition to engage in a personal fight unrelated to any employment duties, so the acts fell outside the policy's coverage for acts within the scope of employment.
This case involved Indiana's Medicaid eligibility rules for institutionalized recipients and the state's practice of 'deeming' income and resources from non-institutionalized spouses as available to them. The court reviewed compliance with its 1979 judgment, which required individualized factual findings of a spouse's actual needs instead of a fixed formula, and considered whether that judgment should be updated. The court found that the state had not fully complied with the resources provisions of the prior order but held that changes in federal law, including the Social Security Act and related Supreme Court rulings, required modification of the permanent injunction. The analysis focused on statutory requirements for determining what resources are reasonably available without addressing constitutional claims, which had been abandoned.
