Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff William Doherty appealed the grant of summary judgment to defendant Alphonse Sorrentino. On the morning of November 8, 2019, plaintiff walked a short distance from the Village Inn to the Woodstock Inn in Woodstock, Vermont. It was not precipitating at that time. He remained at the Woodstock Inn for about fifteen minutes. It began to snow as he left the Woodstock Inn to return to the Village Inn. Plaintiff slipped and fell on a sidewalk abutting 81 Central Street. Snow had lightly accumulated on the sidewalk. Defendant arrived after plaintiff fell but before an ambulance transported plaintiff to a local hospital. Defendant was also the sole owner of ACS Design Build and Construction Services, LLC, both of which had main offices at 81 Central Street. The sidewalk was owned by the Town of Woodstock. The Town had an ordinance that required owners of property abutting a [Woodstock] Village sidewalk clear accumulated snow or ice for pedestrian traffic to a minimum width of three feet, and within twenty-four hours of such accumulation. No accumulated snow had been cleared at the time plaintiff fell. Plaintiff sued, alleging that defendant, in his personal capacity, breached a duty to plaintiff to clear the sidewalk of snow, which was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. In moving for summary judgment, defendant argued that he owed no duty to plaintiff because: neither defendant nor the owner of the building, Tanglewood, owned or controlled the sidewalk on which plaintiff fell; landowners abutting public sidewalks owed no duty to the public to keep the sidewalk in a safe condition; and the municipal ordinance did not otherwise create a duty to plaintiff. The civil division awarded summary judgment to defendant concluding plaintiff did not bear his burden to show that defendant knew or should have known of a dangerous condition on the sidewalk. The court determined that plaintiff failed to offer any basis to reach defendant’s personal assets as sole shareholder of Tanglewood, and that plaintiff did not allege defendant owned or controlled the sidewalk where plaintiff fell. The court found that the municipal ordinance did not create a duty of care to plaintiff. Finding no reversible error in the trial court judgment, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Doherty v. Sorrentino, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a high-level high-school basketball player who wanted to play in the NBA. After graduating high school, Plaintiff committed to the University of Louisville. However, subsequently, Plaintiff's father accepted a bribe in relation to Plaintiff's decision to play for Louisville. As a result, Plaintiff lost his NCAA eligibility. Plaintiff filed RICO claims against the parties who were central to the bribery scheme. The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants, finding that Plaintiff did not demonstrate an injury to his business or property, as required for a private civil RICO claim.The Fourth Circuit affirmed. Congress made the civil RICO cause of action for treble damages available only to plaintiffs “injured in [their] business or property” by a defendant’s RICO violation. Without such an injury, even a plaintiff who can prove he suffered some injury as a result of a RICO violation lacks a cause of action under the statute. The Fourth Circuit rejected Plaintiff's claims that the loss of benefits secured by his scholarship agreement with Louisville; the loss of his NCAA eligibility; and the loss of money spent on attorney’s fees attempting to regain his eligibility constituted a cognizable business or property injury. View "Brian Bowen, II v. Adidas America Inc." on Justia Law

In January 2018, Bianca Bouie was returning from her lunch break to her workplace, Prodigies Child Care Management, LLC, also known as University Childcare Center (“University Childcare”), when she looked away from the road to scroll through the contacts in her cell phone so that she could call her manager to report that she was running late. While Bouie was distracted, her car crossed the median and caused an accident with a truck that was driven by Andrea Cotton. Cotton filed a personal injury lawsuit against Bouie and later added University Childcare as a defendant, alleging, among other things, that Bouie was acting in furtherance of University Childcare’s business and within the scope of her employment at the time of the accident and that University Childcare was therefore liable under the legal theory of respondeat superior. University Childcare moved for summary judgment, and the trial court granted the motion, concluding, in pertinent part, that Bouie was not acting in furtherance of University Childcare’s business and within the scope of her employment when the accident occurred. Cotton appealed, and a divided Court of Appeals panel reversed, holding that under the “special circumstances exception” to the general rule that employees do not act in furtherance of an employer’s business and within the scope of employment when they are commuting to and from work or when they are on a lunch break, and under two of its cases applying that “exception,” there was sufficient evidence to raise a jury question as to the issue of liability under respondeat superior. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected the Court of Appeals’ “special circumstances exception,” as well as the multi-factor test the court developed for applying that “exception.” The Supreme Court also concluded that the two cases on which the Court of Appeals relied in applying the “special circumstances exception” used imprecise language regarding the respondeat-superior test, and the Supreme Court disapproved such language. In light of these conclusions, the Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals’s opinion and remanded the case to that court so that it could apply the proper respondeat-superior test in the first instance. View "Prodigies Child Care Management, LLC v. Cotton" on Justia Law

Carmella DeSean sought a Sexual Assault Protection Order Act (SAPOA) order against Isaiah Sanger after an evening of drinking ended in unwanted sex. At the evidentiary hearing, Sanger argued DeSean consented and had capacity to do so. The trial court found DeSean lacked capacity due to intoxication, declined to consider Sanger’s defense, and granted the SAPO. Sanger appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that under the SAPOA and Nelson v. Duvall, 387 P.3d 1158 (2017), the trial court should have considered Sanger’s affirmative defense. The Washington Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, holding that the SAPOA did not permit respondents in nonconsensual sexual penetration cases to raise the affirmative defense that they reasonably believed the victim had capacity to consent. "The plain language of the statute is unambiguous and omits affirmative defenses. The SAPOA functions independently from the criminal code, and we decline to graft a criminal defense into a statute intended to provide sexual assault victims with civil remedies." View "DeSean v. Sanger" on Justia Law

While riding a bicycle, Plaintiff ran into an open car door being operated by a recruiter for the U.S. Marines. Plaintiff brought a claim for negligence against the United States, pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act. The district court found the United States liable but concluded Plaintiff was also negligent and, therefore, partially liable.On appeal, the Second Circuit found that the evidence of Plaintiff's negligence was "dubious," and, even if Plaintiff was negligent, the district court failed to make the findings necessary to any holding that the plaintiff’s negligent conduct sufficiently caused the collision so as to make Plaintiff 40% responsible for the damages. View "Dooley v. United States" on Justia Law

Appellant appealed from a post-judgment order awarding Respondent attorney fees pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.4.1 Appellant argued that the trial court erred by not reducing the fee award in accordance with the percentage of Respondent’s comparative fault, that the court abused its discretion by awarding fees that were not supported by sufficient documentation, that the hourly rate awarded for a first-year attorney was unreasonable, and that the court applied an excessive multiplier to the lodestar amount.   The Second Appellate District affirmed. The court held that the trial court was not required to reduce Respondent’s attorney fee award in accordance with his comparative fault. Further, the court held that Appellant failed to establish that the trial court abused its discretion. The court explained that the record indicates the trial court considered Respondent’s comparative fault. Further, the fee award was supported by substantial evidence. Additionally, the court wrote that the use of a blended $450 hourly rate for Respondent’s counsel was not an abuse of discretion. Finally, the court noted that the court did not abuse its discretion in awarding a 2.0 multiplier. View "Isom v. McCarthy" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Tina and David Glynn, parents of decedent Nicholas Glynn (Nicholas), appealed the grant of summary judgment against them and in favor of defendants Orange Circle Lounge Inc., Lounge Group, Inc., and Mario Marovic, owners and operators of the District Lounge, a bar. Plaintiffs argued the trial court erred in granting summary judgment based on the physical and temporal distance between defendants’ bar (at which a fight took place between Nicholas and some assailants) and the subsequent fight a block away and nearly an hour later that resulted in Nicholas’s death. "In the absence of ongoing or imminent criminal conduct, we cannot find defendants owed a duty to Nicholas to protect him from the assailants during the final altercation. Once Nicholas, J.D., and the assailants left defendants’ bar peaceably and in separate directions, the bar’s duty ended." The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment. View "Glynn v. Orange Circle Lounge Inc." on Justia Law

This appeal arose from a defense verdict in a case alleging law enforcement officers and the City of North Charleston violated the civil rights of Jane Doe, a vulnerable adult. During its deliberations, the jury submitted several questions, the last of which was ambiguous. The trial court answered the question without requesting clarification from the jury and denied Doe's request to charge the jury on nominal damages for a third time. The court of appeals affirmed. The South Carolina Supreme Court found the trial court erred in not requesting clarification, but ultimately concluded the error was harmless. The Court therefore affirmed the court of appeals in result. View "Estate of Jane Doe 202 v. City of North Charleston" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court dismissed this appeal of the circuit court's orders, the latter of which denied Appellants' motion for summary judgment, in this action alleging that Petitioners acted negligently in their handling of an incident where S.D. was inappropriately touched by a fellow student in the hallway of a high school, holding that the orders appealed from did not present an appealable ruling.In their notice of appeal, Petitioners asserted that the individual defendants were entitled to dismissal pursuant to W. Va. Code 29-12A-5(b)(2) because the order at issue found that the individual defendants did not act maliciously, in bad faith, or in a wanton or reckless manner. Petitioners further contend that the board of education was immune from liability pursuant to W. Va. Code 29-12A-5(a)(4). The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the orders presented in this appeal were interlocutory, did not fall within the collateral order doctrine, and did not otherwise present an appealable ruling. View "Kanawha County Board of Education v. S.D." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Steven Bird, an independent contractor hired to install a new checkout lane at Defendant Pruett's Food store, was injured after falling off a ladder Defendant had supplied to aid Plaintiff in completing the work. Plaintiff initiated a negligence action, seeking damages from his injuries and lost wages. Plaintiff presented his case at trial, after which Defendant demurred to Plaintiff's evidence. The trial court sustained the demurrer. Plaintiff appealed. The Oklahoma Supreme Court held that Plaintiff failed to establish that Defendant owed him a duty of care. View "Bird v. Pruett's Food, Inc." on Justia Law