The case involved a lawsuit by Marian Washington, coach of the Kansas Jayhawks women's basketball team, against Dick Vitale's basketball preview magazine and related parties for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The claims stemmed from statements in the magazine predicting poor performance due to "suspect coaching" and that the coach "usually finds a way to screw things up." The court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding that the statements were protected opinions under the First Amendment because they expressed subjective views rather than verifiable facts on a matter of public concern.
The case involved the Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA), representing Taiwan's interests in the U.S., seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent Northwest Airlines from applying the Warsaw Convention's liability limits to damage claims on flights to and from Taiwan, on the grounds that Taiwan is not a signatory and should not be treated as a province of the People's Republic of China. Northwest moved to dismiss, arguing there was no actual pending claim and any ruling would be an advisory opinion. The court granted the motion and dismissed the case, holding that it lacked jurisdiction because no definite case or controversy existed—the dispute was hypothetical and not ripe, with any injury from prior decisions being moot and future claims not yet arising. The court further found no standing, as it could not redress the claimed injury through the requested relief and lacked authority to issue broad prospective orders on treaty applicability.
This case concerned a challenge by Texas banks and trade associations to the National Credit Union Administration's approval of membership expansions for Communicators Federal Credit Union, including seven unrelated occupational groups and a large regional senior citizen/retiree association. The court reviewed the approvals under the Administrative Procedure Act for compliance with the Federal Credit Union Act's common bond requirement. It upheld the additions of the occupational groups as consistent with the NCUA's reasonable multiple group policy. However, it vacated the senior citizen/retiree association because the group lacked a sufficient associational common bond, having been formed primarily to obtain credit union services without adequate shared activities, dues, or member interaction. The court granted summary judgment in part to each side and permanently enjoined similar senior/retiree expansions.
In FEC v. NRSC, the Federal Election Commission sued the National Republican Senatorial Committee for allegedly making excessive contributions totaling $183,563 to the Jim Santini for Senate committee in 1985-1986 and failing to report them, in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. The enforcement action was filed in April 1993, more than six years after an administrative complaint was lodged and seven years after the underlying events. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment in part, dismissing the claim for civil penalties as time-barred under the five-year statute of limitations in 28 U.S.C. § 2462, which applies to FECA penalty actions, but denied summary judgment on the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. The core reasoning was that § 2462 serves as a catch-all limitations period for civil penalties where none is specified in the underlying statute, it begins to run when the claim accrues, and applying it here prevents open-ended threats of penalties in matters affecting core political activities.
The case involved the Bank of Cape Verde suing New York-based attorneys (the Bronson and Gibney defendants) who had provided legal opinion letters in connection with loans made by the Bank to entities later revealed to be operating a massive Ponzi scheme, after the Bank obtained an uncollectible default judgment against the borrowers. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The core reasoning was that the attorneys' contacts with the District of Columbia were minimal and not of a quality showing deliberate and voluntary association with the forum, as they had never represented the Bank, performed no work there, and only sent documents and made calls at the plaintiff's request, which did not satisfy the D.C. long-arm statute. The court dismissed the case with prejudice without reaching the merits or due process questions.
In Public Citizen v. Kantor, the plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief to require the United States Trade Representative and the Office of the United States Trade Representative to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, along with adopting procedures to ensure future NEPA compliance. The court denied the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and granted the defendants' motion. The ruling followed from the Administrative Procedure Act's requirement of final agency action for judicial review, which could not be satisfied because the Trade Acts assign final action on trade agreements to the President rather than an agency. Mandamus relief was also unavailable, as the relevant duties were not considered nondiscretionary given the President's role in the process.