Case Summaries

Contracts

[06/25] Rathborne Land Co. v. Ascent Engy., Inc.
In an action for breach of defendant's obligations to reasonably develop and explore a leased parcel of oil, gas, and mineral land, judgment for plaintiff is affirmed in part where: 1) plaintiff's letter to defendant met the La. Rev. Stat. Ann. section 31:136 demand requirement; and 2) district court did not clearly err in concluding that plaintiff would have been able to lease the disputed acreage more than once if it had been able to seismically survey the parcel prior to 2006. However, the judgment is vacated in part where neither the district court nor plaintiff could show an adequate ground -- indeed, any relevant precedent -- for awarding consequential damages for lost leasing and seismic revenues on the entire parcel.

[06/25] Bagby Elevator Co. v. Schindler Elevator Corp.
In an action for tortious interference with contract, judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) under the court's highly deferential standard of review, there was no reversible error in the district court's decision to use the pattern jury instruction; 2) there was sufficient evidence of both malice and gross negligence to support an award of exemplary damages; and 3) there was ample evidence of causation to support the verdict.

[06/25] Greenspan v. LADT, LLC
In a trust's suit for breach of contract and other claims against two affiliated companies and individuals, trial court's confirmation of an arbitrator's award against defendants in the amount of $6.34 million is affirmed where: 1) per the JAMS rules, the arbitrator, not a court, determines what issues are arbitrable, and here, the arbitrator determined that the issue of joint and several liability was arbitrable; 2) arbitrator's finding of joint and several liability was rationally related to the parties' contract; 3) as to the timeliness of the final award under JAMS rules, the arbitrator's interpretation and application of the rules cannot be judicially reviewed on the merits; and 4) the suit against the arbitrator was barred by arbitral immunity and would not have caused a reasonable person to doubt the arbitrator's impartiality.

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Injury & Tort Law

[06/25] Lal v. State of Cal.
In an action against the California Highway Patrol and certain officers for the shooting death of plaintiff's husband, dismissal of the action with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute when her attorney failed to meet deadlines and attend hearings is reversed where an attorney's gross negligence constituted an extraordinary circumstance warranting relief from a judgment dismissing the case for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b).

[06/24] DDJ Mgmt., LLC v. Rhone Group L.L.C.
In an action claiming that defendants presented plaintiffs with corporate financial statements that were false and misleading, the appellate division's modification of the trial court's order dismissing plaintiffs' fraud claim is reversed where: 1) when a plaintiff has taken reasonable steps to protect itself against deception, it should not be denied recovery merely because hindsight suggested that it might have been possible to detect the fraud when it occurred; and 2) plaintiffs in this action for fraud have alleged facts from which a jury could find that they were justified in relying on the representations defendants made to them.

[06/18] Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Merrell
In plaintiffs' wrongful death and survival claims against Wal-Mart for the death of their son from smoke inhalation, claiming that a halogen lamp purchased from Wal-Mart caused the fire, the court of appeals' reversal of the trial court's grant of defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground that plaintiffs produced evidence on each challenged element of their cause of action is reversed as, plaintiff's expert's testimony was legally insufficient to support causation.

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Landlord Tenant

[06/23] Rectrix Aerodrome Ctrs., Inc. v. Barnstable Mun. Airport Comm'n
In plaintiff's suit against an airport commission and individual defendants, claiming that it was prevented from competing with defendant in the sale of jet fuel, district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff's fraud claim fails as plaintiff was a commercial tenant of the airport and, given the self-service standards and lease terms, had no right and no reasonable expectation of being able to sell jet fuel at the airport; 2) the antitrust claim is barred by the state action doctrine given the Massachusetts statute; and 3) plaintiff's equal protection claim under section 1983 fails as no private entity at the airport has the privilege sought by plaintiff.

[06/21] Thrifty Payless, Inc. v. Mariners Mile Gateway, LLC
In a tenant's suit against the landlord over a lease for new commercial property, trial court's grant of defendant's motion for nonsuit and expert witness fees is affirmed where: 1) trial court's decision granting the nonsuit was proper as a matter of law; and 2) trial court did not err by allowing defendant to recover its expert witness fees pursuant to the lease.

[06/15] Embassy LLC v. City of Santa Monica
In a petition for writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief, seeking an order compelling the City of Santa Monica to permit the removal of petitioners' units from the rental housing market and a declaration that the Ellis Act waiver in the parties' agreement was unenforceable, the denial of the petition is reversed where Government Code section 7060.1 prohibited public entities from enforcing contractual Ellis Act waivers in all circumstances except those specified in the statute. A contract between appellants and respondents-City of Santa Monica and its Rent Control Board (collectively, the City) included appellants' waiver of their Ellis Act rights as to 19 tenant units in their apartment hotel.

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Trade Secrets

[05/19] R.C. Olmstead, Inc. v. CU Interface, LLC
In a copyright and trade secret infringement suit brought by a provider of credit union software against the developer of a competing credit union software, district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant is affirmed where: 1) district court did not abuse its broad discretion in refusing to compel additional discovery and plaintiff can point to no errors of fact or law in the court's denial of its employees access to defendant's software; 2) district court did not abuse its discretion in barring the use of an expert's report because the report failed to comply with the requirements of Fed. Rule of Civ. Proc. 26(a)(2)(B); 3) plaintiff was not entitled to take the deposition of defendant's expert witness because defendant designated him as a non-testifying expert; 4) district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to impose a sanction on defendant because plaintiff was not left without a remedy for any harm caused by the third party's spoliation; 5) defendant was entitled to summary judgment on the merits on the copyright infringement claims because plaintiff has not produced any direct evidence of copying and indirect evidence of copying was not sufficient to create a fact question as to whether copying occurred; and 6) district court correctly held that plaintiff's end user product was not a trade secret because plaintiff did not take reasonable steps to maintain its secrecy.

[05/11] Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Mortensen
In an action arising out of the retention of policyholder information by former insurance agents for plaintiff, summary judgment dismissing both plaintiff's claims and defendants' counterclaims is affirmed where: 1) the policyholder information was readily available from another source, and thus did not qualify as a trade secret as a matter of law; 2) plaintiff effectively abandoned its breach of fiduciary duty claim on appeal because it failed to challenge the district court's determination that it could not prove damages on that claim; 3) the agents did not qualify as employees covered by ERISA as a matter of law; and 4) the agents pointed to no evidence showing that plaintiff's allegedly unfair trade practices resulted in an ascertainable loss.

[04/29] Silvaco Data Sys. v. Intel Corp.
In plaintiff's suit against Intel Corporation alleging that it misappropriated certain trade secrets used by plaintiff in its software products, judgment of the trial court in favor of the defendant is affirmed where: 1) Intel cannot be liable if it never possessed or had access to the source code but only had executable, machine-readable code compiled by its supplier from source code; and 2) plaintiff failed to plead a viable claim not based upon a misappropriation of trade secrets.

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