This case involves a securities class action brought by a pension fund against Ambassador's Group and its executives, alleging violations of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act, as well as control person liability under Section 20(a). The plaintiff claimed that the company made misleading public statements during the class period by failing to disclose the loss of its primary middle school mailing list, which accounted for a significant portion of its business, and instead using an inadequate replacement list that led to poor performance and a subsequent stock price drop. The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing failure to state a claim, inadequate pleading under the PSLRA, and lack of a strong inference of scienter. The court denied the motions to dismiss, finding that the alleged omission rendered the company's statements misleading and that the executives' positions and involvement in core operations supported a sufficient inference of scienter, including for statements made on conference calls where they were present.
This case involved Newmont USA Ltd. and Dawn Mining seeking partial summary judgment against three insurers (Continental, OneBeacon, and INA) for allegedly breaching their duty to defend in an underlying CERCLA action concerning pollution and cleanup costs at the Midnite Mine uranium site in Washington. The court granted the motion in part, ruling that Continental and INA had breached the duty to defend under their policies but that OneBeacon owed no such duty because its 1969-1972 policy did not cover the relevant occurrences. The court denied summary judgment on the claims of bad faith and violations of the Consumer Protection Act against all three insurers, finding the record insufficiently developed on issues such as the insurers' conduct and any resulting harm to the plaintiffs. The decision rested on analysis of the policy language regarding coverage for property damage from occurrences, the allegations in the EPA's complaint, and the lack of evidence supporting the bad faith elements.
In Henricksen v. ConocoPhillips Co., a former gasoline tanker truck driver and his wife sued ConocoPhillips alleging that his acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) resulted from occupational exposure to benzene in the company's gasoline products, bringing claims of negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranty. The court granted the defendant's motions to exclude the testimony of the plaintiffs' expert witnesses on causation grounds, finding their opinions unreliable under the Daubert standard due to insufficient scientific support, lack of peer review, and other methodological flaws. Consequently, the court also granted summary judgment on both general and specific causation, determining that the plaintiffs lacked admissible evidence to establish a causal link between the exposure and the disease, leading to dismissal of the case with prejudice.
This case involves the United States seeking summary judgment to recover over $12.8 million in response costs incurred through 2004 for investigations and studies at the Midnite Mine Superfund Site from defendants Newmont USA Limited and Dawn Mining Company under CERCLA. The defendants did not dispute the total amount spent but challenged recovery of certain costs as inconsistent with the National Contingency Plan, including duplicative sampling and actions by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, awarding most costs as recoverable while excluding approximately $520,000 in agency costs that the government conceded and identifying genuine factual issues on whether other sampling was unnecessary or the EPA's remedy selection arbitrary. The ruling rested on the undisputed cost records, concessions at oral argument, and the requirement to view evidence favorably to the defendants on NCP consistency challenges.
This case concerned whether the United States qualified as an "owner" under CERCLA and thus could be held liable for cleanup costs at the Midnite Mine Superfund Site, a former uranium mine on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the issue. The court found that the United States had acquired the land as conqueror without any treaty or cession, created the reservation by executive order without congressional action transferring ownership, and retained plenary authority over the lands, including by opening mineral rights to entry under federal mining laws. On this basis, the court denied the United States' motion and granted the defendants' motion, holding that the United States is an owner under CERCLA.
This case involves a dispute in the bankruptcy proceedings of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane over whether individual parishes or the diocese itself owns the real property of churches and schools. The Bankruptcy Court granted summary judgment to the Committee of Tort Litigants, ruling that the diocese owned the properties outright with no interest held by the parishes. On appeal, the District Court reversed this decision, finding that the parishes had at least a beneficial interest in the properties based on evidence of their purchase, construction, and use, and that the diocese held title only in a trustee-like capacity. The court remanded the matter to the Bankruptcy Court for further proceedings, while affirming the denial of the diocese's cross-motion for summary judgment due to remaining factual issues.