In United States v. Kemmish, the defendant moved to dismiss a superseding indictment charging him with criminal offenses, arguing that an earlier administrative forfeiture of $16,660 in seized currency and money orders violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. The district court denied the motion. The court reasoned that Kemmish had received multiple notices of the seizure and forfeiture proceedings but chose not to file a claim or cost bond, making him a non-party to the administrative action. Because double jeopardy is a personal right that attaches only when a person faces an adjudication of guilt or innocence, and Kemmish had avoided any such proceeding by not claiming the property, no former jeopardy had occurred. The court therefore held that the pending criminal prosecution did not constitute double jeopardy.
This case involved four former employees of a construction company who resigned to start a competing business and sued the administrator of their non-contributory profit-sharing plan under ERISA, seeking a lump-sum payout of their vested benefits instead of the installment payments the administrator had approved. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California upheld the administrator's decision to distribute the benefits over ten annual installments, finding that the plan granted the administrator sole discretion over the form of payment and that his choice was neither arbitrary nor capricious. The court reasoned that the administrator's stated goal of protecting plan assets from funding direct competitors was consistent with fiduciary duties, that past practice showed lump sums were typically denied in competitive departures, and that any incidental benefit to the company did not invalidate the exercise of discretion. The court also denied the plaintiffs' request for attorney fees after weighing the relevant ERISA factors.
The case concerned a jurisdictional dispute between California and Oregon state courts over which had authority to decide the custody and placement of minor Debra Kay Templeton under the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA), 28 U.S.C. § 1738A. The mother and California court sought a declaratory judgment affirming California's continuing jurisdiction after it declared the child dependent and later ordered her return from placement with relatives in Oregon, but the Oregon court had asserted jurisdiction and refused to defer. The federal court held that Oregon had jurisdiction, reasoning that California initially possessed it under its own laws and the PKPA but lost it by failing to give the out-of-state custodians proper notice and opportunity to be heard before the March 1982 hearing terminating their custody, in violation of both state and federal requirements; Oregon then validly assumed jurisdiction as the child's home state.
In this case, a non-union bus driver sued his former employer (a transit district) and the union under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that his firing for nonpayment of agency fees violated his First Amendment rights because the fees supported political activities he opposed. The defendants asserted affirmative defenses including failure to exhaust grievance or internal union remedies, statutes of limitations, choice of remedies, and laches. The court struck these defenses, holding that exhaustion of remedies is not required in § 1983 actions, that the plaintiff had no meaningful access to contractual remedies controlled by the union, and that the cited labor-law precedents were inapplicable. It also imposed Rule 11 sanctions on the union's counsel for reasserting frivolous defenses and misrepresenting vacated case authority.
The case involved an attorney applicant who took California's Attorneys’ Examination, scored 69.4% (just below the 70% passing threshold), and was denied admission. He sued the bar examiners claiming that the Phase I grading process—which allows some applicants to pass based on partial grading and gives a statistical edge to those taking the full exam—violated his constitutional rights to equal protection, privileges and immunities, and interstate travel. The court granted summary judgment for the defendants, finding no genuine issues of material fact and that the grading system had a rational basis in efficiency and accuracy without discriminating against non-residents or burdening travel rights. It also dismissed damage claims due to immunity and jurisdictional issues under the Eleventh Amendment.
In Bruns v. Ledbetter, 32 investors who lost money on oil and gas leases sued 14 defendants, including promoters and affiliated companies, alleging 18 counts of fraud, securities violations, breach of contract, conversion, and related state and federal claims. Several defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and 9(b). The court held that the complaint failed to plead fraud with the particularity required by Rule 9(b) because it lumped all defendants together without specifying each one's role or acts, and it rejected plaintiffs' cited authorities as inapplicable. It also dismissed the RICO claim for lack of a distinct racketeering enterprise injury and the state-law claims for lack of pendent jurisdiction. The complaint was dismissed with leave to amend certain counts.