Bruce Field, a former Construction Project Manager for Denver Water, sued the Board of Water Commissioners after his 2008 termination, claiming retaliation for raising concerns about alleged fraud and irregularities in construction contracts on three projects. He asserted claims under the First Amendment, 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and Title VII. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment. The reasoning centered on Field's communications being made as part of his official duties overseeing projects and contracts, rendering them unprotected under Garcetti v. Ceballos for the First Amendment claim, with insufficient evidence of protected activity or causation for the remaining claims.
The case involves a minor child appealing through his mother the denial of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits by the Social Security Administration after an Administrative Law Judge found he did not qualify as disabled due to speech, cognition, and comprehension issues. The district court had jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) to review the ALJ's decision, which had been upheld by the Appeals Council. The court reversed the ALJ's denial and remanded the case for further proceedings, determining that the ALJ failed to make specific credibility findings regarding the mother's testimony and to provide an adequate narrative discussion connecting the medical and educational evidence to the conclusions on the child's functioning across the six regulatory domains.
The case involved a state prisoner suing an ICE agent under Bivens for allegedly violating his due process rights by lodging an immigration detainer that he claimed prevented him from bonding out or accessing community corrections during his pending criminal proceedings. The detainer was based on the plaintiff's initial statement that he was a Greek national without proper documentation and was later withdrawn after he provided proof of U.S. citizenship. The district court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, holding that the detainer did not affect the duration or conditions of the plaintiff's detention, which was imposed solely by state authorities, and that the plaintiff had not shown any constitutional violation or complied with procedural requirements for opposing summary judgment or seeking further discovery.
In Crosby v. Watkins, Petitioner David Crosby, convicted in state court of first degree sexual assault, false imprisonment, and prohibited use of a weapon and serving a 30-year sentence, filed a pro se application for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging three aspects of his trial and appeal: the denial of his motion to suppress statements made to police, the failure to grant a mistrial due to the destruction of taped statements, and the appellate court's ruling on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court, reviewing de novo the magistrate judge's recommendation, denied the application and dismissed the action with prejudice. The court reasoned that the petitioner's Miranda waiver was knowing and voluntary despite evidence of intoxication because he was coherent and responsive, that the destruction of tapes did not violate due process absent bad faith by police, and that the ineffective assistance claim was not properly presented to the state courts.
This case involves ongoing disputes between Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings (LabCorp) and Metabolite Laboratories, Inc. over royalty payments under a 1991 license agreement for biochemical assays, including homocysteine testing tied to a patent for detecting vitamin deficiencies. The disputes arose after a prior jury verdict in Metabolite I found that LabCorp infringed the patent and breached the license by switching to an Abbott immunoassay kit and stopping royalty payments. The court resolved cross-motions for summary judgment on post-mandate royalties and related contract claims by interpreting the agreement's terms for patent and know-how licenses, applying principles of contract enforcement that bind parties to the deal they made without relieving hardship from later events, and determining damages based on the position the non-breaching party would have occupied. The opinion also addressed evidentiary issues but ultimately enforced the royalty obligations without reviving the original agreement terms.
This case involved pharmacists employed by Wal-Mart who alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regarding overtime pay. The sole remaining issue was whether Wal-Mart's policy of prospectively reducing pharmacists' base hours and salaries in response to sales declines made them the functional equivalent of hourly employees, thus requiring overtime compensation. The court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation and granted summary judgment in favor of Wal-Mart. It reasoned that, per controlling precedent, the adjustments were not frequent enough—over 98% of plaintiffs had two or fewer changes, and the rest averaged one to two per year over several years—to invoke the "sham exception" that would deny the professional exemption. Therefore, the pharmacists remained exempt from FLSA overtime requirements.