In United States v. Stevens, two defendants who served as elected members of the Monroe City Council were charged in a two-count indictment with RICO and Hobbs Act violations based on nine alleged predicate acts of public bribery, in which they accepted cash and other consideration from a cooperating witness in exchange for assisting the witness with matters before city boards and officials. The defendants moved to sever their trials due to potential prejudice from joint evidence and recordings, to dismiss Count 1 for failure to adequately allege a RICO enterprise or pattern, and for a bill of particulars to clarify the charges. The court denied all motions, finding that the defendants were properly joined, that jurors could compartmentalize the evidence against each defendant (who dealt separately with the witness) with appropriate limiting instructions and without Bruton issues, that the indictment sufficiently pled the required elements and predicate acts, and that the government had provided adequate notice of the charges through discovery.
The case involved a copyright infringement claim by Frances Parker against John Dufresne, alleging that Dufresne copied elements from her copyrighted manuscript about two murders into a short story. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Dufresne and denied Parker's cross-motion, finding no substantial similarity between the protectable elements of the manuscript and the short story. The reasoning was that facts are not copyrightable, and the fictional additions and arrangement did not meet the threshold for actionable copying.
In Hicks v. Wilkinson, pro se petitioner Duncan E. Hicks sought federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 from his 1998 Louisiana armed robbery conviction and the ten-year hard labor sentence imposed in 2008. After pleading guilty in state court, Hicks escaped custody, committed a federal bank robbery, served his federal sentence, and was returned to Louisiana for delayed state sentencing; he argued that the multi-year delay violated his rights to speedy sentencing under state law and the U.S. Constitution. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation and dismissed the petition with prejudice, holding that the state appellate court's rejection of the claim was not unreasonable because Hicks failed to demonstrate prejudice from the delay. The court noted that even assuming a federal constitutional right to speedy sentencing exists, the petitioner did not show that any delay caused actual harm or that state findings were contrary to clearly established law.
This case involved a dispute over coverage under a Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) issued pursuant to the National Flood Insurance Program for a property consisting of three buildings in Louisiana. The plaintiff claimed coverage for flood damage to all three buildings caused by Hurricane Gustav, but the defendant insurer, a Write Your Own company, paid only for the motel building and denied coverage for the restaurant and office buildings. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the case, reasoning that the policy unambiguously insured only one building, that estoppel claims are unavailable when federal funds are involved, and that the insured had a duty to understand the policy terms.
This case involves a patent dispute between Shield Pack, LLC and CDF Corp. over U.S. Patent No. 5,788,121, which covers bag-in-box liners with specific four-side-seal designs, oblique seal portions, and triangular fin portions used for transporting liquids and powders. Shield Pack sought a declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity, arguing that its Quad bags with curved corner seals did not infringe and that the patent was anticipated by prior art from Kirin Beer Kabushiki Kaisha. CDF cross-moved for a finding of no invalidity. The court denied Shield Pack's motion for summary judgment on both non-infringement and invalidity and granted CDF's cross-motion, holding that the Kirin patents did not anticipate the '121 patent because they lacked disclosure of required elements such as side seal portions and a four-side-seal type bag body under the court's claim construction.
In Montgomery v. Sears Roebuck & Co., a black female employee who worked at Sears for over three decades sued the company and her white male store manager under Title VII, claiming race discrimination and hostile work environment after she received written disciplinary actions, performance improvement plans, and other negative treatment following her complaints about the manager. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, dismissing those claims, while granting the plaintiff leave to amend her complaint to add a retaliation claim that would proceed to trial. The court reasoned that the plaintiff suffered no adverse employment action because her position, pay rate, and duties remained unchanged, and the evidence did not show severe or pervasive harassment based on race.
_2013.jpg?width=900)