Recent News

Case Summaries

Class Actions

[05/13] Estate of Pew v. Cardarelli
In an appeal primarily addressing whether a claim fell within the exception to the Class Action Fairness Act's ("CAFA") grant of original and appellate jurisdiction for class actions which solely involve claims concerning certain rights and duties related to any security, the circuit court: 1) rules that the suit at hand does not fall within such exception to CAFA jurisdiction, and thus it has authority to accept an appeal from a remand order; 2) grants defendant's petition for leave to appeal; and 3) reverses the district court's remand order on the merits.

[05/02] Savedoff v. Access Group, Inc.
In a class action raising breach of contract claims, partial summary judgment for plaintiff on the issue of liability on such claims is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and remanded where: 1) the language of the contract did not limit defendant's collection of additional interest to a borrower's final monthly payment at the end of the loan term; 2) the language of the contract did not prohibit defendant from collecting additional interest from borrower's regular monthly payments; and 3) the contract was silent as to the application of borrower's monthly payments to the additional interest before applying them to reduce the principal balance.

[04/29] Negrete v. Allianz Life Ins. Co. of N. Am.
In a class action lawsuit against an insurance corporation challenging the sale of its fixed deferred annuities, an order, which effectively prevents defendant from proceeding with any settlement negotiations on similar class action claims raised in any other courts without permission from plaintiff's lead counsel, is reversed where: 1) in the context of the All Writs Act, there was no proper support for the district court's enjoining of proceedings in other courts; and 2) even if there were, the Anti-Injunction Act barred such injunction.

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Government Contracts

[04/23] Phillips/May Corp. v. U.S.
In a case involving claims related to plaintiff's work under a construction contract with the government, summary judgment for the government is affirmed where: 1) a claim cannot be split between an agency board and the Court of Federal Claims under the Contract Disputes Act; and 2) claims brought by plaintiff before two separate agencies were based on "the same set of transactional facts" for purposes of res judicata.

[04/18] Morales v. Sociedad Espanola de Auxilio Mutuo y Beneficencia
Under Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), an individual can come to the emergency department for EMTALA purposes without physically arriving on the hospital's grounds as long as the individual is en route to the hospital and the emergency department has been notified of her imminent arrival.

[04/18] Int'l Tech. Co. v. Sec'y of Navy
In a case involving a claim for breach of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for treatment of contaminated soil at a Navy facility wherein the contractor seeks to recover additional soil treatment expenses incurred by a subcontractor, judgment that contractor was not entitled to award of costs and damages for breach of contract is affirmed where the contractor: 1) did not establish any representation in the contract documents as to the clay content of contaminated soil; and 2) failed to establish that it would have been reasonable for subcontractor to rely on any such representation under the circumstances.

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