In this bankruptcy appeal, unsecured creditors of debtor QuVIS, Inc. sought equitable subordination of defendant Seacoast Capital's secured claim, alleging inequitable conduct because Seacoast's managing director served on the debtor's board and Seacoast filed a new UCC-1 financing statement after the original 2002 statement lapsed, thereby gaining priority over the plaintiffs. The U.S. District Court affirmed the bankruptcy court's grant of summary judgment to Seacoast, finding no genuine issue of material fact that Seacoast had engaged in inequitable conduct. The court explained that Seacoast was an insider due to its board seat but that its actions were consistent with the parties' agreements on equal priority among lenders and did not involve misconduct or breach of any duty, as the debtor was responsible for perfecting liens and the lapse occurred without Seacoast's knowledge or involvement. The decision turned on the legal standards for equitable subordination under the Bankruptcy Code, which require inequitable conduct causing injury to other creditors.
This case involves a negligence suit brought by plaintiff C. Frances Thomas against trucking company Johnson Agri-Trucking and driver Tony Joe Cantrell for spinal injuries sustained in a 2008 tractor-trailer accident on a highway in Oklahoma. The defendant company moved for summary judgment, arguing that Cantrell was an independent contractor for whom it had no vicarious liability, or alternatively that any liability was precluded because he was driving home at the time. The court denied the motion, holding that material facts remained in dispute regarding the employment relationship. Under the lease agreement's Kansas choice-of-law provision and relevant precedents, a jury could find that the carrier-lessee retained sufficient control over the equipment and driver to create an employment relationship for liability purposes, notwithstanding the independent contractor label and the driver's ownership of the truck.
This case involved four African-American female former employees of Spirit Aerosystems who were terminated after an investigation revealed they had arranged for coworkers to clock them in to conceal instances of tardiness, in violation of company policy. The plaintiffs filed separate actions alleging that their terminations (and, in one case, other employment conditions) constituted race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VII, and sex discrimination under Title VII, with one plaintiff also raising claims under Kansas law. The court granted the employer's motions for summary judgment in all three cases. The core reasoning was that the plaintiffs could not establish that the company's stated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for termination—dishonesty and time-clock fraud—was a pretext for unlawful discrimination, as the evidence showed consistent application of the policy and no direct proof of discriminatory animus or disparate treatment.
This case involves a dispute between Ryan Development Company (Agriboard) and Indiana Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Company over whether the insurer breached its business insurance policy by failing to pay proceeds after a fire at the plaintiff's facility. The plaintiff sued for breach of contract, claiming entitlement to policy benefits for loss of income and extra expenses. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff failed to provide sufficient documentation to support its claim and thus did not perform under the contract. The court denied the motion, finding that a genuine issue of material fact exists because the plaintiff did provide documentation that the defendant's own experts relied upon in assessing the loss, making summary judgment inappropriate under Kansas law.
The case involves pro se plaintiff Juanita Blackmon suing U.S.D. 259 School District and several employees for alleged race, gender, age, and disability discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, and related state tort claims arising from employment incidents spanning 1998 to 2009. The district court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss, granted their motion to strike the return of service, and denied the plaintiff's motions for injunctive relief. It dismissed claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction over criminal statutes, failure to exhaust administrative remedies under Title VII and the ADA, improper service of process, and failure to provide statutory notice for state tort claims, while permitting certain Title VII claims against the school district to proceed. The core reasoning applied Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on pleading, service, and jurisdiction, along with statutory exhaustion and notice requirements.
In Heublein v. WEFALD, a tenured mathematics professor at Kansas State University sued the university and several administrators under section 1983, claiming violations of his procedural and substantive due process rights, free speech rights, and academic freedom rights, along with state-law claims for defamation and breach of contract, after the university responded to student complaints about his classroom behavior by investigating, requiring a corrective action plan, and limiting his teaching assignments. The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, finding that the plaintiff failed to state any federal claim. The court reasoned that the speech-related claims were barred under Garcetti v. Ceballos because the professor spoke as an employee rather than a citizen on a matter of public concern, that no protected property or liberty interest supported the due process claims, and that academic freedom is an institutional rather than individual right; the court allowed limited leave to amend only the procedural due process claim. The state claims were dismissed without prejudice after the federal claims were rejected.