In this case, plaintiff Rochelle Converse, a longtime employee of the Oklahoma City School District, alleged that her lateral transfer from Executive Director of Student Performance to Executive Director of School and Community Services was retaliation for her complaints about an officer's use of force on an African-American student and related speech, along with claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, the Equal Pay Act, and state-law intentional infliction of emotional distress against the District and individual defendants. The court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment on all claims. It reasoned that the plaintiff's speech occurred pursuant to her official duties and thus was not protected by the First Amendment, that she failed to show causation or a materially adverse action for her § 1981 claim, that the Equal Pay Act claims lacked evidentiary support, and that she could not establish the elements of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
This case involves the family of Kenneth Trentadue, an inmate who died in federal custody in 1995, suing the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act for intentional infliction of emotional distress based on the government's failure to disclose the extent of his injuries or the performance of an autopsy. The district court had previously ruled for the plaintiffs and awarded damages, a decision affirmed in part on appeal, and this order addresses a second remand from the Tenth Circuit limited to making individualized findings on whether each plaintiff's emotional distress was severe under Oklahoma law. The court outlines the four elements of the tort, notes that the first three were already established, and emphasizes that severity must be assessed separately for each family member given their different vantage points, such as directly viewing the body versus receiving oral reports, while considering factors like the intensity and duration of distress and the outrageousness of the conduct. The opinion sets forth the legal standard that distress must be so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.
This case involves a patent infringement dispute in which Little Giant Pump Company, assignee of U.S. Patent No. 6,322,326 for a modular condensate pump assembly, sued Diversitech Corporation after the latter began selling its own competing pump assembly. The patent claims require a support plate and pump assembly that are 'removably supported' by the collection tank and each other. Diversitech moved for summary judgment of non-infringement, arguing that its device uses permanent rivets rather than removable fasteners. The court construed 'removably supported' according to its ordinary meaning and the patent specification, which emphasizes modularity, field serviceability, and the use of non-permanent attachments such as screws, and held that riveted components fall outside both literal infringement and the doctrine of equivalents. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment of non-infringement.
This case involved a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Dr. Jan K. Voda against Cordis Corporation regarding three patents for angioplasty guide catheters and methods of using them. A jury found that Cordis infringed all three patents, that the relevant claims were not invalid due to anticipation or obviousness, and that the infringement was willful, awarding Voda a 7.5% reasonable royalty on gross sales. The court had previously granted prejudgment interest, enhanced damages, and attorney fees but denied injunctive relief. In this order, the court sets forth the legal standards under Rules 50 and 59 for reviewing the defendant's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on issues including infringement, validity, willfulness, laches, and marking, as well as the motion for a new trial and other post-trial requests by both parties.
The case involves plaintiff Patricia Stafford suing Wyeth for injuries from the diet drug Pondimin (fenfluramine), asserting claims of negligence, design defect, failure to warn, and misrepresentation after the drug was withdrawn from the market in 1997 amid litigation over valvular heart disease. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted Wyeth's motion for summary judgment. Under Oklahoma's learned intermediary doctrine for prescription drugs, all claims depended on showing that inadequate warnings proximately caused the injury, but the prescribing physician testified he would not have altered his decision to prescribe the drug even with full knowledge of the risks. The court found this rebutted the presumption that an adequate warning would have changed the outcome, so plaintiff could not establish proximate cause.
The case involved the United States seeking to reduce IRS tax assessments against Tommy D. and Linda Jean Davenport for tax years 1990, 1992, and 1993 to judgment and to foreclose federal tax liens on real property transferred by the Davenports to various trusts. Following a bench trial on the remaining disputed issues, the court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law addressing the characterization of cancellation-of-indebtedness income as ordinary or capital, the availability of a worthless stock deduction, the Davenports' proper filing status for 1992 and 1993, and the validity of the property transfers. The reasoning relied on the Davenports' refusal to supply supporting documents or cooperate with the audit, their revocation of prior returns and powers of attorney, standard IRS procedures for substitute returns when no election is made, and the trusts' own provisions disclaiming tax liability and IRS jurisdiction.