In this case, plaintiff Judith Icasiano sued her insurer Allstate and employee Tana Golden after a 1999 multi-car accident that led to criminal charges against her for vehicular manslaughter. The policy promised defense of covered suits, but no civil lawsuits had yet been filed, and Allstate offered only limited pre-suit investigation while willing to defend any future suits and pay policy limits. Icasiano alleged tortious breach of the implied covenant of good faith, promissory fraud, negligent misrepresentation, conspiracy, and breach of contract, claiming Allstate and Golden failed to provide adequate defense and investigation, made false promises, and conspired to cut costs. The court granted Golden's motion to dismiss with prejudice, finding she was fraudulently joined and that no actionable conspiracy existed with her employer; it granted Allstate's motion to dismiss with leave to amend because the policy imposed no duty to defend pre-suit claims, reliance was unreasonable as a matter of law, and fraud was not pled with required specificity under Rule 9(b). The court also denied remand, holding diversity jurisdiction was proper once the non-diverse defendant was dismissed.
In this case, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought a civil enforcement action against Hahn Truong and other defendants for alleged violations of federal securities laws, including Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, through insider trading in Molecular Dynamics, Inc. stock ahead of disappointing earnings announcements. The defendants moved for summary judgment, contending that the SEC lacked sufficient probative evidence beyond mere suspicion. The court denied the motions, holding that the evidence could allow a reasonable jury to infer that defendants possessed and traded on material non-public information, and rejecting the application of a heightened evidentiary standard drawn from antitrust cases.
This case is a patent infringement lawsuit in which Faroudja Laboratories and General Instrument sued Dwin Electronics, alleging that Dwin's products infringed five claims of U.S. Patent No. 4,998,287. The patent covers an apparatus that detects whether a video signal originated from film using a 3:2 pull-down method and then generates a progressive-scan display to improve resolution. The district court issued a claim construction order interpreting disputed elements of the patent claims after a hearing, relying primarily on intrinsic evidence such as the claims, specification, and prosecution history, along with the ordinary meaning of terms and the legal standards from Markman v. Westview Instruments. The court defined key phrases including the preamble requirements, the 'comparing' means, and synchronization functions, while noting that some structural equivalents would be factual issues for a jury.
The case involved plaintiff Daniel Reed, who was severely injured at the 1996 Burning Man festival when a driver ran over his tent on remote BLM land in Nevada; Reed sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act alleging negligence by the BLM in issuing a special recreation permit to the event organizers and in failing to enforce the permit, warn participants, or enforce laws against reckless driving. The court granted the United States' motion for summary judgment, ruling that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the claims. The court applied the two-step analysis for the discretionary function exception to the FTCA, first finding that the BLM's actions involved judgment or choice rather than mandatory directives, and second concluding that the decisions were grounded in public policy considerations such as resource allocation and regulatory priorities, which the exception is designed to shield.
Premier Technical Sales sued Digital Equipment Corp. for breach of contract, fraud, and six other claims stemming from a manufacturer's representative agreement under which Premier solicited orders for DEC's semiconductor products in exchange for commissions. DEC terminated the agreement after two years and paid all commissions owed for sales during the term and the following six months, but Premier alleged it was owed more, including for design-wins, and that DEC's conduct was wrongful. The court granted DEC's motion for summary judgment on all claims, finding no genuine issues of material fact because the contract terms were followed, no compensation was due for design-wins, and Premier could not establish the required elements for fraud, breach, or statutory violations.
In Chavez v. Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space, a pro se plaintiff who had filed multiple prior lawsuits against his former employer alleged discrimination, retaliation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after the employer terminated his workers' compensation and vocational rehabilitation benefits. The district court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6). The court held that the plaintiff's claims were barred by collateral estoppel and res judicata because a prior Workers' Compensation Appeals Board decision had already determined after a full hearing that the plaintiff had no compensable injury and was not entitled to the benefits at issue, and that the emotional distress claim was independently time-barred by the one-year statute of limitations.