This case involved Plaintiff Corbo Properties, Ltd., owner of a commercial building in Cleveland, Ohio, suing its insurer, Defendant Seneca Insurance Company, after the insurer denied a claim for fire damage to the building on June 30, 2008. The plaintiff alleged lack of good faith in the denial, which occurred after investigations by the Cleveland Fire Investigation Unit and a private firm hired by the defendant reached differing conclusions on whether the fire was caused by lightning or was incendiary. The court granted the defendant's motion for partial summary judgment and dismissed the bad faith claim, finding no genuine issue of material fact because the insurer had a reasonable basis to suspect the owners or their agents set the fire, based on financial motives, building access, security deactivation, burn patterns consistent with accelerants, and rejection of the lightning theory. The court further held that this precluded related claims for punitive damages and attorney fees.
business & regulatorypropertyproceduretorts & liability
This case concerns Parker-Hannifin Corp. and Parker Intangibles, LLC's lawsuit against Baldwin Filters, Inc. and Clarcor, Inc., alleging infringement of four patents related to fuel and oil filters and filter elements. The court held a Markman hearing to construe disputed claim terms as a matter of law. It construed "keys" to mean projections from the valve-actuating portion without requiring attachment to the annular base or cylindrical portion, adopted the parties' agreed meaning of "fixed to" as "securely fastened to or unitary with," and defined "sealingly bonded to" as "located tightly or securely against by bonding." The reasoning relied on intrinsic evidence from the claims, specifications, and prosecution history, while declining to import limitations from specific embodiments into the claim language.
In Reynolds v. Guerra, plaintiff Ronald Reynolds sued jail guards Carlos Guerra and Brian Taylor after an altercation in a holding cell following his arrest for disorderly conduct, claiming excessive force, denial of medical care, assault, battery, malicious prosecution, and negligence. The court denied summary judgment on the excessive force, denial of medical care, assault, and battery claims due to disputed facts about the incident and medical response, but granted it on malicious prosecution because the grand jury indictment established probable cause without evidence of irregularity, and on negligence. The case will proceed to trial on the remaining claims.
This case involved plaintiffs registering a 2004 default money judgment from the District of Massachusetts in the Northern District of Ohio and seeking to execute on it by seizing specified property of defendant Olympiakos, a Greek basketball club. Defendant moved to cancel the registration and quash execution, arguing the judgment was dormant under Ohio law, that plaintiffs failed to comply with Ohio affidavit and notice requirements for foreign judgments, and that much of the targeted property belonged to third parties rather than the defendant. The court denied the motion, holding that the judgment was not dormant because execution had occurred within the five-year period under Ohio Revised Code § 2329.07, that the procedural affidavit requirements of Ohio Revised Code § 2329.023 do not apply to judgments registered under the federal statute 28 U.S.C. § 1963, and that further discovery was needed to confirm ownership before any seizure. The court stayed execution pending a limited deposition of the defendant and an affidavit identifying only property belonging to the judgment debtor.
This case involved a dispute over film footage shot by plaintiff Craig Reed of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd in the 1970s. Reed licensed the footage to defendant Freebird Film Productions for use in a documentary under a contract that included an upfront payment and a 2.5% share of net profits, and later assigned his rights to co-plaintiff Survivor Films, which held the copyrights. Plaintiffs sued the Lynyrd Skynyrd defendants for breach of contract, alleging failure to pay the profit share, and for copyright infringement, claiming unauthorized use of the footage in concerts and other videos. The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion for summary judgment, finding genuine issues of material fact on whether an express or implied license existed for certain uses and whether fair use applied under 17 U.S.C. § 107, while resolving other aspects of the claims in defendants' favor based on the evidence presented.
The case involved Cleveland police officer John Timothy Franko suing the City of Cleveland for reverse race discrimination after he was assigned to gym detail and restricted duty for months following his 2005 fatal shooting of a suspect, which he claimed was harsher treatment than African-American officers received under the city's use-of-deadly-force policy. The court granted the city's summary judgment motion in part by dismissing the Title VII claim for failure to exhaust administrative remedies and dismissing the state breach-of-contract claim, while denying Franko's cross-motion for summary judgment and allowing his remaining claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Ohio Rev. Code § 4112.02, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to proceed to trial. The core reasoning was that administrative exhaustion is required only for Title VII, the contract claim was abandoned, and offensive collateral estoppel from a prior similar case did not apply due to differences in timing, decision-makers, facts, and circumstances.
