In Liriano v. ICE/DHS, pro se plaintiffs Jovanny Liriano, a deported Dominican Republic citizen who had illegally re-entered the U.S., and his daughter sued ICE, a deportation officer, and unknown agents under the Federal Tort Claims Act for physical and emotional trauma from a 2009 arrest and under Bivens for unspecified constitutional violations. The arrest followed a standoff at Liriano's apartment after officers used GPS and other tools to locate him pursuant to a warrant for illegal re-entry. The court granted defendants' motion in full, dismissing the FTCA claims under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) and granting summary judgment on the Bivens claims under Rule 56. The core reasoning was that plaintiffs failed to exhaust administrative remedies for the FTCA claims by not filing a proper claim specifying a sum certain, while the Bivens claims failed because the arrest was lawful and supported by court orders.
This case involves Federal Insurance Company seeking a declaratory judgment and rescission of excess directors and officers liability insurance policies issued to SafeNet, Inc., following the company's stock options backdating practices that led to SEC investigations, a securities class action, and criminal charges against executives including CFO Carole Argo. The court granted Federal's motion for summary judgment in part and denied the defendants' cross-motion, holding that the policies were void due to material misstatements and omissions in the insurance applications. The core reasoning was that Argo knowingly provided false information about the absence of wrongful acts or investigations in SafeNet's SEC filings and applications, that this knowledge was imputable to other insureds under the policy terms, and that the misrepresentations were material to the insurer's risk assessment under applicable Maryland and Delaware law.
This case involves London market reinsurance companies petitioning to vacate an arbitration award in favor of Century Indemnity Company under a 1965-1967 reinsurance treaty covering asbestos bodily-injury claims. The dispute centered on unilaterally imposed documentation requirements by the reinsurers, leading to arbitration where the Powers Panel issued an interim order establishing a prepayment protocol requiring payment of billed amounts within 106 days (with objections allowed afterward) to effectuate the contract's purpose. The court denied the petition to vacate and granted Century's cross-petition to confirm the award, holding that the arbitrators acted within their broad authority under the agreement's honorable engagement clause to interpret the contract reasonably rather than literally, without exceeding their powers or violating public policy.
The case involved Theodore Smith, a tenured New York City public school teacher, who sued the Department of Education and several officials under the ADA, ADEA, Section 1983, and related state and city human rights and civil service laws. Smith alleged discrimination and retaliation based on his disability, age, and union activity, along with defamation and due process violations stemming from an investigative report and two administrative disciplinary proceedings that led to findings of misconduct against him. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Smith was barred by collateral estoppel from relitigating issues decided by neutral hearing officers in the prior quasi-judicial proceedings and that he had failed to file a required notice of claim under state law. The court granted the motion in full, holding that the administrative findings precluded Smith's claims and that the notice-of-claim requirement had not been satisfied.
Gene Codes Forensics sued the City of New York in a diversity action asserting breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment over the City's post-contract use of the M-FISys software and database that Gene Codes had developed to help identify World Trade Center victims using DNA. The City moved for summary judgment, contending that Gene Codes could not show misuse of any proprietary information, while Gene Codes sought additional discovery under Rule 56(d). The court denied the discovery request and granted the City's motion for summary judgment on all claims. It reasoned that the contract granted the City a perpetual non-exclusive license to use the middleware and software for noncommercial purposes, that raw DNA data belonged to the City, and that Gene Codes failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact showing any misuse of its intellectual property.
This case involves plaintiff Astra Oil Trading seeking approximately $156 million in indemnification from defendant PRSI Trading for payments made as a guarantor on a credit facility, along with requests for pre-judgment attachment of the defendant's bank accounts under New York CPLR and FRCP rules. The defendant moved to dismiss both related actions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction due to insufficient diversity of citizenship and to vacate the existing attachment, while also seeking damages for wrongful attachment. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, determining that diversity jurisdiction existed under the Hertz test for corporate citizenship, allowing a second attachment action to proceed seamlessly after vacating the first to avoid any gap, and rejecting claims for attorneys' fees or increased bond amounts. Core reasoning centered on the parties' citizenship analysis, the ongoing arbitration's impact on the claims, and the procedural requirements for maintaining attachment without technical defects or prejudice.