The case involved defendant William Lawrence Cassidy, who was indicted under the federal stalking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2261A(2)(A), for using Twitter and other websites to post messages that allegedly harassed and caused substantial emotional distress to A.Z., a Buddhist leader in another state. Cassidy moved to dismiss the indictment on First Amendment grounds, arguing that the statute criminalized protected speech. The court compared Twitter posts and blogs to voluntary public bulletin boards that recipients could choose to view or block, distinguishing them from directed communications like emails or calls, and held that the statute as applied to these public postings violated the First Amendment, resulting in dismissal of the indictment.
The case involved Dr. Edward McReady, a former Collegiate Associate Professor at University of Maryland University College, who sued Governor Martin O'Malley, the university, and various staff members after his contract was not renewed and he was terminated in 2007. He alleged that these actions stemmed from his complaints about job assignments, course scheduling, and other internal matters, raising claims under the First Amendment, Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, abusive discharge, intentional interference with contracts, defamation, and breach of contract. The defendants moved for summary judgment, which the court granted while denying McReady's cross-motion, concluding that the evidence did not support any viable claims based on the undisputed facts regarding his employment disputes and communications.
The case involved criminal charges against Lauren Stevens, former associate general counsel at GlaxoSmithKline, for obstruction of justice, falsification of documents, and making false statements to the FDA during an investigation into the company's alleged off-label promotion of the drug Wellbutrin. The district court addressed multiple pretrial motions, including the applicability of a good-faith reliance on counsel defense and challenges to the indictment. The court determined that 18 U.S.C. § 1519 is a specific-intent crime, making the advice-of-counsel defense available, and found that the grand jury had been misinstructed on the law. As a result, the court dismissed the indictment without prejudice, allowing the government to seek a new indictment from a properly instructed grand jury, while denying or deferring rulings on other motions.
In Willever v. United States, the plaintiffs brought a Federal Tort Claims Act suit alleging that negligence by National Naval Medical Center staff caused Captain Edward Willever's death after he was found off his cardiac monitor and in cardiac arrest. The plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on liability on the ground that the United States was precluded from contesting it because it had not filed a certificate and report from a qualified expert with the Maryland Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office as required by the Maryland Health Care Malpractice Claims Act. The court denied the motion, holding that the state statute's expert-filing requirement does not apply to the United States under the FTCA because it would impose an unconsented burden inconsistent with sovereign immunity and because the FTCA requires plaintiffs to affirmatively prove negligence.
This case is a putative class action by former Marriott employees who received Retirement Deferred Stock Bonus Awards from 1966 to 1991 and allege that the company failed to pay the promised retirement benefits after they reached age 65, in violation of ERISA's minimum vesting rules, requiring reformation of the awards. Plaintiffs also brought a breach of contract claim. Defendants moved to dismiss on grounds including statute of limitations, failure to exhaust administrative remedies, improper simultaneous pursuit of ERISA claims under sections 502(a)(1)(B) and 502(a)(3), inapplicability of ERISA to pre-enactment terminations, and ERISA preemption of the contract claim. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, dismissing the ERISA vesting claim only as to plaintiff England (who left employment before ERISA's enactment) while allowing the remaining claims to proceed because the core dispute over ERISA's applicability to the awards must be resolved first and other defenses were premature or inapplicable at the motion-to-dismiss stage.
This case involved a surety company, Developers Surety, that issued performance and payment bonds for a construction project between AHL Development and Resurrection Baptist Church, with PNC Bank as a co-obligee. After the church declared AHL in default and demanded completion under the bonds, Developers Surety sued the church and bank for breach of contract, alleging improper payments and failure to follow contract procedures, while seeking a declaration that its bond obligations were discharged. The defendants moved to stay the litigation and compel mediation and arbitration pursuant to clauses in the building contract. The court stayed the action under the Federal Arbitration Act, holding that the contract's arbitration provisions were incorporated by reference into the bonds and that federal policy favoring arbitration bound the surety to those terms, with no waiver by the defendants.
