In Senno v. Elmsford Union Free School District, a former Deputy Superintendent sued the school district and several officials under Title VII, alleging gender discrimination and retaliation for filing an EEOC complaint related to disciplinary actions stemming from a consensual affair with another administrator. The district court considered the defendants' motion for summary judgment, reviewing undisputed facts about the affair, subsequent harassment allegations, EEOC filings by both parties, and the plaintiff's eventual termination following a Section 3020-a hearing. The court granted summary judgment to the individual defendants entirely and to the district in part, while denying it in part as to the district, primarily on grounds that certain claims failed to show discriminatory or retaliatory intent while others raised triable issues of fact.
This case involves major record companies suing LimeWire LLC, its affiliates, and executives for secondary copyright infringement, claiming the LimeWire file-sharing program enabled users to distribute unauthorized copies of plaintiffs' sound recordings. Plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on inducement, contributory infringement, and related state claims, while defendants sought summary judgment on all claims including vicarious infringement and certain state law issues. The court granted plaintiffs summary judgment on inducement of infringement and common law copyright infringement/unfair competition against LimeWire, Gorton, and Lime Group, based on evidence of defendants' intent to promote infringing uses, but denied summary judgment on contributory and vicarious claims due to unresolved factual disputes over control and knowledge. It also denied summary judgment on fraudulent conveyance and unjust enrichment claims against other defendants.
The case involves plaintiffs Arista Records and other record companies suing Lime Group LLC, LimeWire LLC, and Mark Gorton for secondary copyright infringement, after the court previously granted summary judgment finding that defendants induced users of the LimeWire file-sharing program to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights on thousands of sound recordings. Now in the damages phase, plaintiffs moved to preclude defendants from offering expert testimony or arguments that other illegal file-sharing services would have induced the same infringements if LimeWire had not existed. The court granted the motion, holding that defendants cannot reduce their liability on the theory that others would have caused similar losses, based on a deterrence principle drawn from older patent law cases where infringers were not permitted to escape accountability by pointing to other infringers in the market. The ruling acknowledges a departure from full factual reality but prioritizes holding defendants responsible for infringement traceable to their own conduct, while allowing limited use of evidence about other services for assessing actual losses or deterrence effects.
In this case, plaintiff The Marks Organization, Inc. purchased a carpet business operating under the unregistered trade name "Gordon Carpet" and later rebranded it as "Leader Carpet," while defendant Robert Joles, the former general manager, opened a nearby competing store in New Jersey using the same name along with advertisements implying continuity of the original business. Plaintiff sued under the Lanham Act for trademark infringement and moved for a preliminary injunction. The court granted the injunction, finding that plaintiff demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits because defendant's use of the name was likely to cause consumer confusion as to affiliation or origin, that plaintiff would suffer irreparable harm not remediable by damages, that the balance of hardships favored plaintiff, and that the public interest would not be disserved. The decision applied the four-factor test from Salinger v. Colting for preliminary injunctions in the trademark context.
This case involved record label plaintiffs who had obtained a summary judgment finding that the LimeWire file-sharing service and its operators were secondarily liable for inducing numerous users to infringe the plaintiffs' copyrights in sound recordings. The court addressed whether the plaintiffs could recover a separate statutory damages award under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1) for each direct infringer with whom the defendants were jointly and severally liable, or only one award per infringed work. The court held that plaintiffs are limited to a single statutory damages award per work, regardless of the number of direct infringers. It reached this conclusion by interpreting the statutory language providing for "an award" of statutory damages for all infringements of a work where multiple infringers are jointly and severally liable, and by distinguishing precedents allowing multiple awards only against separately and individually liable infringers.
The case involved Ancile Investment Co. suing Archer Daniels Midland Co. for failing to endorse and deliver bills of lading related to financed shipments of fertilizer materials to Brazil, asserting claims under New York law for breach of bailment duty, breach of contract, and conversion, in addition to a Brazilian law claim. The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the three New York claims for failure to state a claim. The reasoning centered on the lack of a direct contractual relationship or assumption of bailment duties by the defendant, the negotiable nature of the bills of lading under the UCC, and the plaintiff's failure to establish the elements of conversion or third-party beneficiary status.
business & regulatorypropertyproceduretorts & liability
