Justia Antitrust & Trade Regulation Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff hired Defendant to repair foundation problems on her home. The foundation repair contract specified that Defendant would perform the foundation repair in a good and workmanlike manner and adjust the foundation for the life of the home due to settling. In 2006, Plaintiff sued Defendant for, inter alia, breach of an express warranty, breach of the common-law warranty of good and workmanlike repairs, and Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) claims. The trial court entered judgment for Plaintiff on her breach of implied warranty of good and workmanlike repairs and DTPA claims. The court of appeals reversed, ruling that Plaintiff take nothing. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) parties cannot disclaim but can supersede the implied warranty for good and workmanlike repair of tangible goods or property if the parties' agreement specifically describes the manner, performance, or quality of the services; (2) the express warranty in this case sufficiently described the manner, performance, or quality of the services so as to supersede the implied warranty; and (3) Plaintiff's remaining DTPA claims were time barred. View "Gonzales v. Sw. Olshan Found. Repair Co., LLC" on Justia Law

Holline and William Parsons (Plaintiffs) were enrolled in Today's Option, a Medicare Advantage Plan sponsored by the Pyramid Life Insurance Company (Pyramid). After Plaintiffs were each disenrolled from their respective plans, they brought suit against Pyramid, asserting numerous state law claims. The circuit court granted Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment in part declaring that the Medicare Act did not provide the exclusive remedy for Plaintiffs' claims in this case. Pyramid then moved for Ark. R. Civ. P. 54(b) certification and a stay pending appeal, requesting permission to file an interlocutory appeal on the issues of whether Plaintiffs' state-law claims arose under the Medicare Act and whether their claims, to the extent they did not arise under the Act, were expressly preempted by the Act. The circuit court certified this appeal pursuant to Rule 54(b). The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal without prejudice, holding that the finding supporting Rule 54(b) certification was in error. View "Pyramid Life Ins. Co. v. Parsons" on Justia Law

This action arose from a technology-sharing relationship between companies engaged in the manufacture of industrial "sand-core" pipe for water and sewer applications. In 2002, the parties entered into an agreement whereby Plaintiffs agreed to provide Defendant with their technology for more efficient manufacturing sand-core pipe in exchange for data, reports, software, and other information developed by Defendant through use of Plaintiffs' process. Over time, the relationship between the parties disintegrated. As a result, in 2009, Plaintiffs brought this action asserting breach of contract and other causes of action related to Defendant's alleged nonperformance under their agreement. The Chancery Court dismissed Plaintiffs' claims for breach of contract, as well as claims under California Uniform Trade Secrets Act and for common law misappropriation, finding the claims were barred by laches.View "Petroplast Petrofisa Plasticos S.A. v. Ameron Int'l Corp." on Justia Law

NuVasive alleges that Lanx improperly persuaded NuVasive employees and a NuVasive consultant to leave NuVasive and work for Lanx instead, in breach of agreements that the employees had with NuVasive, to misappropriate NuVasive’s trade secrets and other proprietary information. Both are medical corporations. NuVasive claimed unfair competition, tortious interference with contractual relations, tortious interference with prospective contractual relations, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, civil conspiracy, and misappropriation of trade secrets. Lanx argued that the former NuVasive employees were necessary and indispensable parties to the action because NuVasive’s claims are predicated upon their acts. The chancellor declined to dismiss. While the former employees’ interests are not adequately protected by Lanx, the chancellor reasoned that a remedy could be crafted to avoid prejudice to their interests. The former employees were not indispensable to the misappropriation claim.View "Nuvasive, Inc. v. Lanx, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a Deceptive Trade Practices Act suit against Company and its co-operators for violating the terms of a contract. Through a process server, Plaintiff served all three Defendants with citations, but one citation contained an error in a co-operator's name. Defendants failed to file a timely answer, and Plaintiff obtained a default judgment. Defendants filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that service on the co-operator was improper and that Defendants established the necessary Craddock elements to set aside the default judgment. The trial court denied the motion, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Defendants asserted facts that, if true, established the first Craddock element, i.e., that the failure to appear was not intentional or the result of conscious indifference but was the result of a mistake or an accident. Remanded for consideration of the second and third elements of the Craddock test.View "Sutherland v. Spencer" on Justia Law

As the primary beneficiary under an insurance policy issued by Appellee Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, Appellant Roger Goff brought a cause of action under the West Virginia Unfair Trade Practices Act, asserting that Penn Mutual had violated the statutory duty of good faith and fair dealing. After deciding that Goff did not meet the accepted definition of either a first- or a third-party bad faith claimant, the trial court dismissed Goff's complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that a primary life insurance beneficiary may assert a statutory bad faith action upon the death of the insured. Remanded.View "Goff v. Penn Mut. Life Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Perot Systems Government Services filed an amended complaint against Defendants, 21st Century Systems, Inc, and several individuals, alleging that Defendants, all of whom were former Perot employees, conspired for the purpose of willfully and maliciously attempting to destroy Perot and steal away Perot business by unfairly and improperly using Perot's confidential and proprietary information. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Perot on all claims. The Supreme Court reversed in part and affirmed in part, holding (1) the trial court abused its discretion when it denied defense motions to strike testimony regarding lost goodwill damages, and accordingly, the court erred when it refused to set aside the jury's award of lost goodwill damages based upon that testimony; (2) the court did not err when it refused to set aside the jury's award of both punitive and treble damages in favor of Perot; and (3) the court did not err when it refused to set aside the jury's award of computer forensics damages.View "21st Century Sys. v. Perot Sys. Gov't Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

After allowing discovery on the issue of whether Kansas courts could exercise personal jurisdiction over some of the defendants in this case, the district court granted defendant Tel-Instrument Electronics Corp.'s (TIC) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. At issue on interlocutory appeal was the correct standard for judging a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction when that motion is decided after discovery but without an evidentiary hearing. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) plaintiff Aeroflex Wichita, as the party with the ultimate burden of establishing jurisdiction and as the party responding to a motion to dismiss presented to the court without an evidentiary hearing, need only establish a prima facie basis for jurisdiction; (2) in determining if that prima facie burden has been met, a district court should view factual disputes in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and an appellate court applies the same standard de novo; and (3) in this case, the district court erred erred by weighing the evidence rather than granting all favorable inferences to Aeroflex, and Aeroflex presented a prima facie case of jurisdiction based on a conspiracy between TIC and its codefendants, over whom the court had jurisdiction.View "Aeroflex Wichita, Inc. v. Filardo" on Justia Law

This action arose from practices employed in connection with the handling of claims made under retrocessional reinsurance treaties providing what was known as "non-life" coverage. At issue was the sufficiency and extra-territorial reach of plaintiff's claim under New York State's antitrust statute (Donnelly Act), General Business Law 340 et seq. Plaintiff, a New York branch of a German reinsurance corporation, sued defendants, English based entities engaged in the business of providing retrocessionary reinsurance. The Appellate Division found that the complaint adequately pled a worldwide market. And, while acknowledging that the crucial allegations contained in paragraph 36 of the amended pleading did not separately allege market power, the allegations read together and liberally construed were adequate to that purpose. The Appellate Division granted plaintiff leave to appeal, certifying to the court the question of whether its order reversing the order of Supreme Court was properly made. The court answered in the negative and reversed. Even if the pleading deficiency at issue could be cured and the court perceived no reason to suppose that the formidable hurdle of alleging market power could be surmounted by plaintiff there would remain as an immovable obstacle to the action's maintenance, the circumstance that the Donnelly Act could not be understood to extend to the foreign conspiracy plaintiff purported to described.View "Global Reins. Corp.-U.S. Branch v Equitas Ltd." on Justia Law

At issue in this consumer protection case was which Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure applied to a motion that sought relief from a default judgment of liability on a counter-complaint, where the motion was filed within thirty days of entry of the default, the trial court did not expressly direct the entry of judgment on the counter-complaint pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 54.02, and neither liability on the original complaint nor damages on the counter-complaint were determined. The trial court entered default judgment in favor of the consumer on her counterclaims against Discover Bank and awarded the consumer damages. The court of appeals upheld the default judgment, vacated the award of damages, and remanded the case for a new hearing on damages. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Rule 54.02, rather than Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.02, applies in this situation, but the same test applies to motions seeking relief from default judgment, under either rule, on the basis of "excusable neglect"; and (2) actual damages are recoverable for loss of available credit under Tennessee Consumer Protection Act where the plaintiff suffers a demonstrable loss of credit, proximately caused by the defendant, resulting in actual harm.View "Discover Bank v. Morgan " on Justia Law