Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff Jeffrey Sarver filed suit against defendants, contending that Will James, the main character in the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," is based on his life and experiences and that he did not consent to such use and that several scenes in the film falsely portray him in a way that has harmed his reputation. The district court dismissed all of Sarver’s claims. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that it had little basis to conclude that New Jersey is Sarver's legal domicile at the time the film was released. Even assuming arguendo that New Jersey was Sarver’s domicile, the court concluded that California contacts predominate, and the Restatement (Second) of Conflicts section 145 factors weigh in favor of the application of California's anti-SLAPP law, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16. Under section 6 Second Restatement principles, California had the most significant relationship to this litigation, which was sufficient to overcome any presumption of Sarver's domicile. The court also concluded that defendants' anti-SLAPP motions were timely filed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56. On the merits, the court concluded that the film and the narrative of its central character Will James speak directly to issues of a public nature, and Sarver has failed to state and substantiate a legally sufficient claim. The film is speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment, which safeguards the storytellers and artists who take the raw materials of life - including the stories of real individuals, ordinary or extraordinary - and transform them into art. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting defendants’ anti-SLAPP motions. Finally, the court concluded that Sarver’s false light invasion of privacy, defamation, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, and constructive fraud/negligent misrepresentation claims were properly dismissed. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Sarver v. Chartier" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, front woman of the former band Missing Persons, filed suit as a third-party beneficiary claiming that recording companies improperly treated certain sales of Missing Persons's recordings as record sales rather than revenue from licensing. Plaintiff claimed that this resulted in paying the artists a lower royalty rate than the one provided for in their recording contracts. The district court dismissed the complaint. The court concluded that the district court erred by granting plaintiff’s motion to dismiss on the ground that Missing Persons, Inc. lacked capacity to sue. The court could not affirm the district court's judgment on the ground that plaintiff waived the benefits of the Missing Persons, Inc. contract. The court agreed with plaintiff that whether she forfeited the ability to sue as a third-party beneficiary is a fact-bound inquiry ill-suited to resolution at the motion to dismiss stage. On remand, a record can be developed that will allow consideration of plaintiff’s claim that she was an intended third-party beneficiary of the agreement. Further, because amendment may not have been futile, it was error to dismiss plaintiff's complaint with prejudice. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Bozzio v. EMI Grp. Ltd." on Justia Law

The FDA opened an investigation and sent warning letters to 1-800-GET-THIN and a few surgery centers in California, stating that the FDA believed 1-800-GET-THIN’s LapBand advertising violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), 21 U.S.C. 301 et seq., by not providing relevant risk information regarding the LapBand procedure. The district court subsequently granted the government’s ex parte motion to compel production of attorney-client documents. The court agreed with the Sixth Circuit and concluded that, while in camera review is not necessary to establish a prima facie case that the client was engaged in or planning a criminal or fraudulent scheme when it sought the advice of counsel to further the scheme, a district court must examine the individual documents themselves to determine that the specific attorney-client communications for which production is sought are sufficiently related to and were made in furtherance of the intended, or present, continuing illegality. Accordingly, the court vacated the order compelling production of all subpoenaed documents so the district court may examine the documents in camera to determine which specific documents contain communications in furtherance of the crime fraud exception to the attorney client privilege. View "United States v. Omidi" on Justia Law

CAS appealed the district court's denial of its motion to intervene and unseal documents filed in a putative class action between Chrysler and certain named plaintiffs. In this case, the district court found that the motion for preliminary injunction here was nondispositive, applied the good cause standard to the documents filed under seal, and concluded that good cause existed to keep them from the public’s view. The court held, however, that a party seeking to seal a judicial record bears the burden of overcoming a strong presumption by meeting the compelling reasons standards where a court may seal records only when it finds compelling reasons and articulates the factual basis for its ruling, without relying on hypothesis or conjecture. The court must then conscientiously balance the competing interests of the public and the party who seeks to keep certain judicial records secret. When deciding what test to apply, the court sometimes deployed the terms "dispositive" and "non-dispositive." Public access to filed motions and their attachments did not depend on whether the motion was technically “dispositive;” but rather, public access turned on whether the motion was more than tangentially related to the merits of the case. Because the preliminary injunction motion here was more than tangentially related to the merits of the case, the court vacated and remanded for the district court to consider the documents under the compelling reasons standard. View "The Center for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Group" on Justia Law

This appeal arose from a dispute over interests in mining claims originally owned by Guy Anderson and bequeathed to his six children upon his death. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing all defendants to be joined in a single partition action. In this case, the district court acted well within its discretion in concluding that a single partition action was the most expeditious way of resolving this dispute, and in allowing all defendants to be joined in that action. The court also concluded that the district court did not err when it granted summary judgment in favor of Cuprite and ordered partition by sale to Freeport; the district court properly concluded that partition by sale was more appropriate than partition in kind; and accepting the current offer or any better terms that could be had was a reasonable way for the district court to structure the partition sale, and does not violate any terms of the operative statute. Finally, the court concluded that, regardless of whether an Arizona state court would have been required to hold a trial, the district court correctly resolved the summary judgment motion according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Cuprite Mine Partners v. Anderson" on Justia Law

PRO filed suit against QMC, alleging that QMC's adoption of a closed-facility model was a pretext to prevent PRO physicians from competing with QMC. PRO sought injunctive relief against QMC, arguing that QMC's review and use of patient records violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), 42 U.S.C. 1320d, and the Hawaii Constitution. The district court denied the injunction. In light of Devose v. Herrington, the court held that there must be a relationship between the injury claimed in the motion for injunctive relief and the conduct asserted in the underlying complaint. This requires a sufficient nexus between the claims raised in a motion for injunctive relief and the claims set forth in the underlying complaint itself. In this case, PRO’s motion for injunctive relief does not have a relationship or nexus to the underlying complaint. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court properly refused to grant the relief requested. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Pacific Radiation Oncology v. Queen's Med. Ctr." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed statutory and constitutional challenges to government surveillance programs. The district court dismissed a Fourth Amendment claim regarding Internet surveillance, on the grounds that plaintiffs lacked standing and that their claim was barred by the state secrets privilege. The district court then certified the issue as final under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). The government filed a motion to dismiss. The court concluded that the Rule 54(b) certification was not warranted and dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because the Fourth Amendment question is intertwined with several other issues that remain pending in district court and because this interlocutory appeal would only prolong final resolution of the case. View "Jewell v. NSA" on Justia Law

Chevron and Transpay dispute a multi-million dollar purchase of a gasoline service station in San Francisco. Chevron argued that the station's $2.375 price constituted a bona fide offer under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act (PMPA), 15 U.S.C. 2802(b)(3)(D)(iii), but Transbay rejected this argument and urged the court to preserve the jury verdict awarding it almost half a million dollars as compensation for overpayment. At issue was whether the district court erred in excluding at trial a third-party appraisal of the property that valued it significantly higher than either of the appraisals commissioned by the parties. The court used the possession plus test and held that when a party acts in conformity with the contents of a document - e.g., by giving an independent appraisal to a lender in support of accomplishing its objective to secure a commercial loan - such an action constitutes an adoption of the statements contained under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(B) even if the party never reviewed the document’s contents; such an action constitutes an adoption even if the third-party never itself uses or relies on the document; and where, however, a party forwards a document while acting as a mere messenger, this does not constitute an adoption. In this case, the PSG Appraisal - the only third-party appraisal available - values the property higher than any other appraisal and remarkably higher than any other going concern appraisal. Because the court cannot say with any degree of confidence that had the jury been presented with the PSG Appraisal, it would have come to the same conclusion, the court concluded that the evidentiary error merits a new trial. Accordingly, the court reversed, vacated, and remanded. View "Transbay Auto Serv. v. Chevron" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s dismissal of his civil rights complaint and the subsequent denial of his motion to reconsider that dismissal. At issue was whether Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) required plaintiff, who filed his First Amended Complaint with consent of the opposing party, to seek leave of court before filing his Second Amended Complaint. The court found that Rule 15(a) does not impose any such timing mechanism and therefore held that plaintiff was permitted to file his Second Amended Complaint “as a matter of course,” without seeking leave of court. Because the timely filed Second Amended Complaint mooted the motion to dismiss, the court reversed the district court’s grant of defendants’ motion to dismiss the superseded First Amended Complaint and the resulting dismissal of plaintiff’s case. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Ramirez v. County of San Bernardino" on Justia Law

The Union seeks enforcement of a subpoena duces tecum it served on Fresh & Easy before a hearing before the Board. The Board issued the subpoena at the Union’s request in connection with charges that Fresh & Easy engaged in unfair labor practices by stifling union activity. Fresh & Easy contends that it missed the filing deadline because the Union did not serve Fresh & Easy’s counsel of record with a copy of the subpoena where only the party was served. The district court held that the subpoena was properly served and ordered Fresh & Easy to comply with the Union’s requests. The court concluded that, in neglecting to serve the subpoena on Fresh & Easy’s counsel of record, the Union failed to meet its procedural obligations. Although the Union was obliged to serve the subpoena on Fresh & Easy’s counsel of record, the court agreed with the Board’s conclusion that “failure to serve counsel does not constitute grounds for revoking a subpoena, absent a showing of prejudice.” In this case, Fresh & Easy cannot credibly claim prejudice where counsel never filed a petition to revoke the subpoena. The court's finding that Fresh & Easy was not prejudiced precludes consideration of the merits-based challenges to the subpoena’s validity, as the Board did not consider those claims. Accordingly, the court upheld the district court's enforcement order. View "NLRB v. Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Mkt." on Justia Law