In this ERISA case arising from a 1992 car accident, plaintiff Morgan sued the Wal-Mart Associates' Health & Welfare Plan for declaratory relief after the plan sought full reimbursement of medical benefits it had paid him from his third-party settlement proceeds. The court dismissed the plan's counterclaim with prejudice, granted Morgan summary judgment on his declaratory relief claim, and entered judgment in his favor. On Morgan's subsequent motion for fees under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1), the court applied the five Hummell factors, considered ERISA's remedial purposes favoring fee awards to successful participants, and awarded $43,596 in attorneys' fees after deducting time for unrelated matters, errors, and non-compliant entries, while denying non-taxable costs for failure to itemize under local rules.
This case was a product liability and negligence action by Laura Cloud against Pfizer Inc., claiming that Zoloft caused her husband's 1997 suicide due to inadequate warnings about suicide risks as a side effect. The court denied a motion to strike one declaration but granted the motion to exclude the plaintiff's expert testimony on general causation, finding the opinions unreliable under applicable standards because pre-1997 scientific literature and FDA reviews showed no statistically significant link between the drug and suicidality. It then granted summary judgment to Pfizer on causation grounds, rendering the punitive damages motion moot, and entered judgment for the defendant.
This case involved the EEOC and intervenors alleging that Wal-Mart failed to fully comply with a 2000 consent decree resolving Americans with Disabilities Act claims by hearing-impaired job applicants who were not hired. The court found that while Wal-Mart had provided some remedies like back pay and hiring, it had not adequately provided ongoing accommodations such as interpreters for meetings, failed to complete required ADA training for staff in a timely manner, and did not develop ASL-formatted training modules as required. Based on these failures to meet deadlines and specific obligations in the decree, the court ordered Wal-Mart to take immediate corrective actions including expert consultations, implementing accommodations, completing training, and submitting compliance reports, with daily penalties for continued noncompliance.
In this habeas corpus case, death row inmate Jose Jacobo Amaya-Ruiz challenged his mental competency for execution under Ford v. Wainwright after Arizona state courts initially found him incompetent due to schizophrenia but later allowed the state hospital to certify his restoration to competency without a full evidentiary hearing or appointment of counsel. The federal district court held that when a state seeks to restore competency for execution, the prisoner is entitled to at least the same procedural protections required by Ford for initial competency determinations. Arizona's statutory process was found deficient because it permitted the state's chief medical officer to unilaterally certify competency, provided no meaningful opportunity for the prisoner to litigate the issue in state court, and imposed procedural barriers that violated due process. The court therefore stayed the scheduled execution and ordered a federal evidentiary hearing to determine Amaya-Ruiz's current mental fitness for execution.
In Forbes v. Woods, plaintiffs including patients with Parkinson's disease, physicians, and Planned Parenthood challenged Arizona statutes (A.R.S. §§ 36-2302, 32-1401(25)(x), and 32-1854(45)) that criminalized and classified as unprofessional conduct any medical experimentation or investigation involving human fetuses or embryos from induced abortions. The U.S. District Court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and denied the defendants' motion, declaring the statutes unconstitutional and permanently enjoining their enforcement. The court held that the statutes were void for vagueness under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because key terms such as 'experimentation,' 'investigation,' and 'routine pathological examination' lacked definitions or medical standards, creating uncertainty that could not be cured by the statute's scienter requirement and exposing physicians to arbitrary enforcement and criminal penalties. The court resolved the case on these narrow grounds without addressing the plaintiffs' additional claims regarding privacy, liberty, equal protection, or interference with medical practice and anatomical gifts.
This case involved members of the Arizona Green Party and a Democratic voter challenging A.R.S. § 16-341(C), which barred voters registered with qualified parties (Democratic, Republican, or Libertarian) from signing nomination petitions for presidential elector candidates of non-qualified parties like the Green Party. The plaintiffs argued the restriction violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by limiting ballot access and voter choice in the 1996 election. The court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and denied the defendant's, holding that the provision imposed a severe burden on voting and associational rights without being narrowly tailored to advance a compelling state interest. It enjoined enforcement of the signature restriction while noting that other requirements, such as the 3% signature threshold or filing deadlines, were not challenged as unconstitutional on their own. The decision emphasized that the law prevented major-party voters from supporting independent or minor-party candidates rather than protecting party integrity.
