The case involved a mother suing a private high school on behalf of her learning-disabled son to obtain a court order compelling release of his academic transcript, which the school had withheld based on an alleged contract clause requiring repayment of scholarships if a student transferred before completing four years. Plaintiffs claimed federal jurisdiction under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, arguing that the school's policy discriminated against students with disabilities by preventing them from accessing education elsewhere. The court denied the request for a preliminary injunction, holding that the contract terms applied equally to all students who transferred without consent and did not constitute discrimination on the basis of disability, so plaintiffs could not show a likelihood of success on the merits of their federal claim. The court noted that any contractual disputes could be pursued in state court.
In this case, plaintiff Cheryl Follman brought a putative class action against World Financial Network National Bank alleging violations of the Truth in Lending Act related to her Victoria's Secret credit card account. The defendant moved to stay the proceedings in favor of arbitration, relying on a new arbitration provision added to the cardholder agreement through a change-of-terms notice mailed to the plaintiff, which waived rights to court, jury trials, and class actions. The court denied the motion, holding that the original agreement's change-of-terms provision did not authorize adding the arbitration clause because it addressed substantive rights (such as dispute resolution) outside the scope of terms like fees and rates contemplated in the initial contract, and there was no meeting of the minds on arbitration at inception. The decision turned on contract interpretation under Ohio law and the Federal Arbitration Act, finding the arbitration amendment unenforceable against the plaintiff.
The case involved a products liability action brought by Vito Saladino and his wife against manufacturer Stewart & Stevenson Services, Inc. (S&S) for injuries Saladino sustained in 1999 when the unsecured hood of a baggage tractor sprung open and struck him, leaving him a quadriplegic; S&S impleaded Saladino's employer American Airlines (AA) as a third-party defendant alleging contributory negligence. Plaintiffs' failure-to-warn claims proceeded to a jury trial in 2008, which found Saladino not at fault, assigned 30% fault to S&S, and 70% fault to AA. The court denied S&S's motion for directed verdict or judgment notwithstanding the verdict and AA's motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court affirmed the verdict, concluding that trial evidence of the tractor's hood design, uninstalled safety modifications requested by AA, prior similar incidents known to the parties, absence of warnings or training, and the role of jet wash in the accident provided a sufficient basis for the jury's findings on negligence, causation, and allocation of fault.
This case is a products liability action in which plaintiff Michael Rupolo, a cement truck driver, alleges he was injured when his boot slipped from the top step of a ladder mounted on the front of a 1998 cement mixer truck manufactured by defendant Oshkosh Truck Corporation; his wife joins with derivative claims. After removal to federal court, the parties filed cross-motions to exclude each other's experts, the defendant moved for summary judgment on design-defect and causation grounds, and the plaintiffs sought leave to file a late jury demand under Fed. R. Civ. P. 39(b). The court granted the late jury demand, finding the magistrate judge lacked an express referral and that the plaintiffs' counsel's excusable neglect justified relief; it accepted the magistrate's recommendation to deny both Daubert motions because the experts' opinions were sufficiently reliable and relevant; and it denied summary judgment, holding that genuine issues of material fact existed on whether the ladder's design was defective and a proximate cause of the fall.
In Bower v. Walsh, petitioner Ronald Bower sought federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 from his state convictions for two sexual assaults, arguing that the prosecution violated Brady v. Maryland by failing to disclose that another individual, police officer Michael Perez, had been arrested and prosecuted for similar attacks while Bower was incarcerated. The respondent moved to dismiss the petitions as barred by AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations. The court granted the motions and dismissed the petitions with prejudice, finding them untimely and rejecting Bower's actual innocence claim as a gateway to excuse the delay because he presented no new reliable evidence that would make it more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him, and some evidence even exculpated Perez.
This case involves a petition for habeas corpus by Ronald Alston challenging his 2000 conviction for two counts of first-degree robbery and two counts of second-degree robbery stemming from three incidents at a Rite-Aid pharmacy. The petitioner claimed that the trial court improperly granted the prosecutor's reverse Batson motion and denied his Batson motion, violating his constitutional rights, and that both trial and appellate counsel were ineffective. The court denied the petition, finding that the Batson claims lacked merit under applicable standards and that counsel's performance, including the choice of issues on appeal, did not fall below constitutional requirements for effective assistance.