The case concerned a federal criminal defendant who repeatedly refused to stand when the court was called to order or recessed, in violation of the court's rules of decorum and a prior order, citing her religious beliefs as the reason. The court held the defendant in criminal contempt under 18 U.S.C. § 401 for misbehavior in the court's presence that obstructed the administration of justice and revoked her pretrial release. The decision was based on the long-standing tradition and functional purpose of the rising requirement in maintaining courtroom order and respect, along with precedents such as In re Chase that upheld similar requirements even against religious objections. The court noted the defendant's inconsistent conduct, as she stood when introduced to prospective jurors, undermining her claim that religious beliefs prevented compliance.
This case involved former Seagate employees over age 40 who brought a collective action under the ADEA alleging that the company's 2004 Special Incentive Retirement Plan and reduction in force had a disparate impact on older workers, resulting in higher termination rates for them. After conditional certification and discovery, the court addressed Seagate's motion for decertification, to strike expert testimony, and for summary judgment on the disparate impact claim. The court granted decertification in part, allowing only those terminated through the RIF to proceed as a collective action, and granted summary judgment to Seagate on the disparate impact claim. The core reasoning was that the plaintiffs' statistical analysis, showing a drop from 66.64% to 65.23% in the proportion of employees over 40 after the measures, was not substantial enough under Eighth Circuit precedent to support an inference of age-based discrimination, and improperly included SIRP participants.
The case involved recording companies suing Jammie Thomas-Rasset for willfully infringing their copyrights in 24 sound recordings by downloading and distributing them via the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network. After three trials resulting in escalating jury verdicts up to $1.5 million in statutory damages, the court granted the defendant's motion to reduce the award to $2,250 per song (totaling $54,000), holding that the higher amount violated due process because it was severe, oppressive, and wholly disproportionate to the offense committed by a first-time consumer infringer for personal use. The court also granted the plaintiffs' request to amend the judgment to include a permanent injunction barring the defendant from directly or indirectly infringing the copyrights through reproduction or distribution and requiring destruction of unauthorized copies, but declined to enjoin making the works available to the public because the Copyright Act does not recognize a making-available right.
This case concerned whether a mortgage executed solely by James Larson on property he owned in Ortonville, Minnesota, could be voided by his wife Angelia Larson under state law. Angelia Larson, who had been separated from her husband for about twenty years but remained legally married, sued Wells Fargo after learning of the 2004 mortgage, which she had not signed. The court granted Angelia Larson’s motion for summary judgment and denied Wells Fargo’s, holding that the mortgage was void. The decision rested on Minn. Stat. § 507.02, which requires both spouses’ signatures for any conveyance of homestead property, with no applicable exceptions or equitable estoppel defense because Angelia Larson had no knowledge of the mortgage, received no benefit from it, and had not lived on the property.
This case involved claims by systems, business, and technical consultants employed by Lawson Software that they were misclassified as exempt from overtime under the FLSA and Minnesota state law, seeking unpaid wages for work performed. The court granted the defendants' motion to decertify the conditionally certified FLSA collective action and dismissed the opt-in plaintiffs without prejudice. It also granted summary judgment to Lawson on the FLSA, MFLSA, and unjust enrichment claims of the named plaintiffs, dismissing those claims with prejudice. The decertification was based on material differences in the consultants' job duties, minimal supervision, and the likelihood that individualized defenses would require fact-specific inquiries making collective treatment inefficient. Summary judgment rested on the conclusion that each named plaintiff's primary duties involved the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance, qualifying them for the administrative exemption.
This case involved a proposed class action by current and former employees of Augsburg Fortress Publishers against the publisher, its parent Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and individual officers, challenging the 2010 termination of a defined-benefit pension plan that had been underfunded for years. The plaintiffs asserted claims under ERISA for breach of fiduciary duties and related violations, along with state-law claims including breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and violation of the Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act. The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss in part, ruling that the plan qualified as a church plan exempt from ERISA because it was established and maintained by a church-affiliated organization, thereby requiring dismissal of the federal claims. It also dismissed the consumer-fraud claim on the ground that the plan was not a sale of merchandise offered to the general public. The court allowed certain state-law claims against ELCA to proceed.