This case concerned a real estate sale where BRIC, after selling its primary asset (an office building) to the plaintiff for about $1.3 million and agreeing to a leaseback, transferred $400,000 to the defendants (former partial owners) to satisfy a prior redemption agreement, leaving BRIC insolvent and unable to pay rent or a resulting state-court judgment of $152,139. The plaintiff sued the defendants alleging the transfer was fraudulent under state law and sought to hold them liable for BRIC's debts. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part on the various claims, and later denied the plaintiff's motion for reconsideration of that ruling. The core reasoning was that the newly presented evidence did not clearly establish any violation of state law invalidating the underlying agreement or show manifest injustice warranting reconsideration, as the transfer appeared supported by reasonably equivalent value and fair terms.
The case involved a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Brownmark Films, the co-owner of the music video "What What (In the Butt)," against the producers of South Park for including a 58-second parody of the video in the 2008 episode "Canada on Strike," where a character mimics the original in an effort to go viral. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), dismissing the action with prejudice. The core reasoning was that the South Park segment qualified as fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107 because it was a transformative parody commenting on the viral video phenomenon rather than a market substitute for the original work, with the first, second, third, and fourth fair use factors all weighing in favor of the defendants; the court also noted procedural deficiencies and the plaintiff's failure to address fair use despite multiple opportunities to amend.
The case concerns a contract dispute in which plaintiff Servicios sought to hold defendant JCI liable for allegedly unpaid invoices issued to its subsidiary JCAM by asserting that JCI and JCAM operated as a joint venture or joint enterprise or that JCAM was JCI's apparent agent. Servicios moved for partial summary judgment to establish these relationships as a matter of law based on corporate ownership structures, shared branding, and communications. The court denied the motion, concluding that genuine issues of material fact remained regarding day-to-day control, the significance of corporate reorganizations, and any manifestations of authority that would support apparent agency. These disputes precluded judgment as a matter of law under the applicable standards for summary judgment and the elements of joint venture and apparent authority under Wisconsin law, leaving the issues for trial.
This case arose from a shareholder's challenge to a 2010 merger agreement under which Allegheny Technologies would acquire Ladish Co., with claims that the proxy statement omitted or misstated material information in violation of Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act, along with related Section 20(a) liability and Wisconsin-law breach of fiduciary duty claims against the company's directors. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the amended complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), holding that the Section 14(a) allegations failed to meet the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act's particularity requirements because they consisted of generalized assertions rather than specific statements identified as misleading with supporting facts. The Section 20(a) claim necessarily failed as derivative, and the fiduciary-duty claim was dismissed for lack of plausible allegations showing the directors acted in bad faith. The discovery coordination motion was denied as moot, and the case was dismissed with prejudice.
In Anderson v. City of West Bend Police Department, plaintiffs Heather Anderson and Dustin Wichmann sued the police department, its insurer, and two officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Wisconsin privacy law, alleging that officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights by entering their apartment without a warrant and arresting them after responding to a 911 call about a loud domestic argument. The defendants moved for summary judgment, and the plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint. The court granted the defendants' motion in full and granted the plaintiffs' motion in part and denied it in part. The court reasoned that the officers' warrantless entry was justified by exigent circumstances, as the 911 report of screams for help, banging sounds, and the woman's distraught appearance and failure to reappear created an objectively reasonable belief that someone inside needed immediate assistance; the arrests were supported by probable cause for disorderly conduct and the brief search was limited to the circumstances justifying entry.
This case involves a dispute where Dr. White alleged that several LLC defendants continued to display his copyrighted photographs on websites after a licensing agreement had expired. The court granted the plaintiffs' motion for default judgment and a permanent injunction because the defendants failed to respond or defend against the amended complaint, and the well-pleaded allegations established ownership of valid copyrights and unauthorized copying. As a result, the court ordered the defendants to cease using the images, surrender related materials, and pay $280,000 in statutory damages along with attorney's fees.