The case involved homeowners who refinanced their property with Washington Mutual Bank in 2007 and later faced foreclosure proceedings after the bank was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2008. The plaintiffs sued Chase and Northwest Trustee Services, asserting claims including wrongful foreclosure, fraud, conspiracy, and violations of TILA and RESPA, primarily arguing that Chase lacked authority to foreclose due to the absence of a recorded assignment from WaMu, improper timing of the successor trustee appointment, and nondisclosure of loan terms. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss all claims with prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), reasoning that the plaintiffs' failure to respond constituted an admission that the motions had merit and that their theories were legally invalid under Washington law with insufficient factual support to state plausible claims.
The case involves the Gifford Pinchot Task Force challenging the U.S. Forest Service's approval of the Wildcat Thin Project, a forest-thinning initiative in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and denied the plaintiff's, dismissing the case with prejudice. It reasoned that the Environmental Assessment (EA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) sufficiently analyzed the project's impacts on late-successional reserves, soils, aquatic resources, and other areas, complied with the Northwest Forest Plan and Aquatic Conservation Strategy, and justified a site-specific amendment to allow certain harvesting equipment on steeper slopes, without requiring a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
In this case, Northwest Home Designing Inc. sued Sound Built Homes for copyright infringement involving unauthorized use of home designs, leading Sound Built to bring third-party claims against Gerry Slick and his design group for indemnification; Slick then counterclaimed against NHD for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair business practices under Washington law, alleging NHD exceeded licensed use of a design and failed to pay royalties. NHD moved to dismiss the unjust enrichment and unfair business practices counterclaims, arguing they were preempted by the federal Copyright Act. The court denied the motion, holding that the state-law claims were not preempted because they included extra elements, such as implied contractual obligations, that made them qualitatively different from pure copyright claims.
The case involved Patricia Allfrey, a Lead Inventory Management Specialist at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, who alleged sex discrimination and retaliation under Title VII after a male colleague, Robert McDonald, was temporarily detailed and later promoted to a supervisory position she sought, following her filing of informal EEO complaints; she also claimed harassment through reassignment of duties and loss of consortium. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed the entire case. It reasoned that the defendants had legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the temporary detail due to a promotion freeze during a pay system transition, with no evidence that gender bias motivated the decision or that the stated reasons were pretextual, the duty reassignment resulted from her extended absence rather than retaliation, no hostile work environment claim was pled in the complaint, and loss of consortium is not cognizable under Title VII.
In this case, Washington state prison inmate Dennis Florer sued DOC officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and RLUIPA, alleging that the kosher and mainline diets provided from 2004 to 2008 violated his First and Eighth Amendment rights as well as RLUIPA by being religiously and nutritionally inadequate and retaliatory. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing failure to state a claim, bar on damages under RLUIPA, and qualified immunity. The magistrate judge recommended granting the motion after finding the diets met kosher standards under Orthodox Jewish law, were nutritionally sufficient, and were not retaliatory, with no constitutional violations shown. The district court adopted the report and recommendation in full, granted summary judgment to the defendants, and dismissed the case with prejudice.
In Woodsum v. Astrue, plaintiff Heidi Woodsum sought judicial review of the Social Security Administration's denial of her applications for disability insurance and supplemental security income benefits, claiming disability from July 2002 due to major depressive disorder and PTSD. The ALJ had found her not disabled at step five of the sequential evaluation process after determining she could perform other work despite her impairments. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, concluding that the ALJ had erred in several respects, including the evaluation of medical evidence, the plaintiff's credibility, lay witness testimony, and residual functional capacity. The court therefore reversed the ALJ's decision and remanded the matter to the Commissioner for further administrative proceedings under the applicable standards for substantial evidence and legal error.
