The case involves plaintiffs William and Joan Baldwin who sued defendant accountants Kulch Associates, Inc. and Charles Kulch for losses from two investments totaling $20,000 in National Wood Products, Inc., which later went bankrupt. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants, acting as the company's accountants, solicited the investments with false assurances about the company's finances and their own CPA status, and later advised against liquidation based on misleading financial statements. The complaint asserted seven claims, including violations of federal securities laws (Rule 10b-5 and sections 12(1) and 12(2)), the New Hampshire Uniform Securities Act, fraudulent and negligent performance of accounting services, unauthorized practice of accountancy, and breach of fiduciary duty. Before the court was the defendants' motion to dismiss counts II (in part), III, VI, and VII for failure to state a claim, with the opinion outlining the standards for dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) and the heightened pleading requirements of Rule 9(b) for fraud-based claims.
This case involved a dispute in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding over whether a retired employee's $56,000 claim against the estate for past and future health insurance benefits constituted wages subject to FICA, FUTA, and income tax withholding by the trustee. The bankruptcy court ruled that it had jurisdiction under 11 U.S.C. § 505(a) to decide the tax issue and that the claim was not wages, so no taxes applied. On appeal, the district court affirmed jurisdiction but reversed on the merits, holding that payments in lieu of health benefits qualify as wages under the Internal Revenue Code based on prior case law, revenue rulings, and congressional intent to treat such amounts as subject to employment taxes.
In this bankruptcy appeal, A & J Auto Sales, a corporation, challenged the IRS's post-petition removal of its vehicles after the company filed for bankruptcy on September 13, 1995, claiming a willful violation of the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362. The bankruptcy court found that the IRS had willfully violated the stay by continuing collection actions after the petition was filed but ruled that corporate debtors cannot recover damages under § 362(h), which applies only to individuals, and declined to award damages under the court's contempt authority in § 105. The district court affirmed, holding that the IRS's actions to obtain possession of estate property after the filing constituted a stay violation, that § 105 permits discretionary contempt sanctions for such violations even for corporations, and that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in denying damages due to the IRS's good-faith belief in the legality of its prepetition notices and the lack of evidence of actual damages.
This case involved plaintiff Eckel Industries suing defendants including Superior Door for converting its proprietary information and assets such as engineering drawings and customer lists, along with claims of unfair trade practices and false advertising under the Lanham Act by using photos of Eckel's doors in Superior's sales materials. The court granted Superior's motion for summary judgment in part, ruling that Eckel could not recover actual monetary damages on the Lanham Act claim due to a lack of evidence showing actual consumer confusion, lost profits, or comparative product quality. It denied summary judgment on the conversion claim, holding that under New Hampshire law the tort requires only proof of dominion or control over the property without needing specific damages. The court also adjusted discovery deadlines, closing them 30 days from the order date.
business & regulatorypropertyproceduretorts & liability
Nancy Cooper sued her former employer, Thomson Newspapers, after being fired from her position as an account executive, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act based on her back surgery and medical leave, as well as a common-law claim for wrongful discharge. Thomson moved for summary judgment. The court granted summary judgment to Thomson on the wrongful discharge claim, reasoning that New Hampshire law requires the employee to have performed a protected act encouraged by public policy and that no statutory remedy exists for the claim, but Cooper had identified no such act and the statutory claims precluded a common-law action; the court denied summary judgment in part on the remaining claims due to disputed issues of material fact regarding customer complaints and Cooper's condition.
In Rossi v. Town of Pelham, plaintiff Cheryl Rossi, the outgoing town clerk and tax collector for 23 years, brought a civil rights action claiming that Pelham officials violated her Fourth Amendment rights by having a police officer enter and remain in her private office to prevent removal of town records ahead of a required succession audit, along with related state-law claims. The court considered defendants' motion for summary judgment and the parties' later motions for reconsideration of that ruling. It held that the officer's presence constituted an unreasonable search by infringing a reasonable expectation of privacy, that the town's policy specifically directing the conduct created municipal liability, and that the seizure of the plaintiff's person was not unreasonable under governing precedent; the court denied reconsideration on all grounds. The core reasoning rested on modern Fourth Amendment standards focusing on privacy expectations rather than investigative intent, combined with municipal-liability doctrine treating a facially unlawful single decision as sufficient to establish fault and causation.
