The case involved a dispute over whether the City of Memphis could impose a special assessment on property owned by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to fund downtown improvements under Tennessee's Central Business Improvement Act. The Federal Reserve Bank sought a declaratory judgment that the assessment violated its statutory immunity from taxation under 12 U.S.C. § 531, which exempts federal reserve banks from federal, state, and local taxes except those on real estate. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff, holding that special assessments are distinct from taxes on real estate and thus not covered by the statutory exception. The reasoning relied on precedents distinguishing special assessments from real estate taxes, requiring express congressional consent to waive immunity from the former, and applying similar holdings from other circuits construing comparable immunity waivers.
This case arose from an organizing drive by the Teamsters union at Federal Express's Memphis facility, where individual employees alleged that the company violated sections 2 (Third) and (Fourth) of the Railway Labor Act by discharging or transferring them due to union activities, threatening employees, and otherwise coercing them in their choice of bargaining representative. After an earlier order denying a preliminary injunction and dismissing the union as a plaintiff was affirmed on appeal, the district court addressed the remaining individual claims for reinstatement, back pay, seniority, and broad injunctive relief. The court found that the employer's actions, such as ordering an employee to remove a union button under the pretext of safety concerns and citing insubordination, were actually motivated by a desire to suppress union support, constituting unlawful interference. It therefore granted relief to the affected employees and issued an injunction prohibiting further coercive conduct, reasoning that such violations chilled employees' statutory rights even absent an ongoing organizing campaign.
The case was a diversity action by a bank against guarantors on a 1964 continuing guaranty agreement securing a $600,000 promissory note from a subcontractor that later ceased operations, leaving an unpaid balance of $98,274.71 that was renewed in a 1974 note. The court granted the bank's motion for summary judgment against defendant Ben Markowitz and denied his cross-motion, rejecting his defenses of statute of limitations, laches, negligent failure to perfect security interests or pursue other remedies, and material alterations to the debt. The core reasoning was that the guaranty was absolute and continuing until terminated in writing and all debts paid, each new note restarted the limitations period under Tennessee law, laches does not apply to legal claims, and the guaranty expressly waived any UCC duties regarding collateral while the cited cases did not require a different result.
In Smith v. Lewis Ford, Inc., the plaintiff sued three defendants including Union Planters National Bank for alleged violations of the Truth-in-Lending Act, claiming that certain charges in a truck installment sales agreement were not individually itemized and that disclosures were not clear and conspicuous. The bank moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b), arguing it was not a creditor under the Act or that disclosure responsibility fell only on the seller. The court denied the motion, holding that the bank was a creditor because it regularly extended credit in such financed sales, that Regulation Z did not exempt it from disclosure duties, and that the Act required individual itemization of the fees, though a Federal Reserve staff interpretation could provide an affirmative defense to be raised on summary judgment rather than dismissal.
This case is a patent infringement action brought by Alco Standard Corporation against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Westinghouse Electric Corporation, alleging unauthorized use of Alco's patent for ultrasonic bore inspection systems in TVA facilities, along with related unfair competition claims against Westinghouse. Alco sought reasonable compensation from TVA under Section 19 of the TVA Act and injunctive relief, treble damages, and other remedies from Westinghouse. The court dismissed all claims against Westinghouse, ruling that Section 19 provides the exclusive remedy against TVA (including for authorized contractors) for use of patented inventions, so Westinghouse's work for TVA could not constitute acts of infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) and thus failed to state a claim and lacked proper venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b). The court also dismissed the pendent state-law unfair competition claims as a matter of discretion after the federal claims against Westinghouse were eliminated.
This case challenged the adequacy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' revised Environmental Impact Statement for the West Tennessee Tributaries Project, a flood control effort authorized by Congress involving channel enlargement and realignment on the Obion and Forked Deer Rivers. The court held that the EIS failed to satisfy NEPA standards. The opinion focused solely on NEPA compliance after prior rulings had addressed other statutes and enjoined further work. The EIS adequately covered some land-use changes but omitted essential details on existing flood frequency, duration, extent, geographic variations, seasonal effects, and comparative projections of project impacts, preventing a full assessment of unavoidable adverse environmental effects.
