The case involved plaintiff Ryan Hart, a former college football player, suing defendant Electronic Arts, Inc. for using his likeness and identity in several NCAA Football video games without permission, asserting a right of publicity claim under New Jersey law on behalf of himself and similarly situated athletes. EA moved to dismiss the complaint or alternatively for summary judgment, arguing that the claims were barred by the First Amendment. The court converted the motion to one for summary judgment and granted it in favor of EA. The court reasoned that, on the facts presented, EA's First Amendment right to free expression in creating the interactive video games outweighed Hart's right of publicity.
The case concerned a putative class action by consumers Mark Maniscalco and Walter Huryk against Brother International Corporation alleging that BIC concealed two design defects in its MFC 3220C multi-function machines—print-head failures producing a “Machine Error 41” message and excessive ink purging—thereby violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. BIC moved for summary judgment. After a choice-of-law analysis, the court held that the NJCFA did not apply because the alleged omissions occurred outside New Jersey and the conduct was most closely connected to the plaintiffs’ home states; it therefore granted the motion and dismissed the sole remaining claim.
This case involves a dispute between Jersey Asparagus Farms, Inc. (JAFI) and Rutgers University arising from a terminated exclusive license agreement authorizing JAFI to sell Rutgers' patented asparagus varieties. JAFI alleged that Rutgers fraudulently obtained patents, engaged in monopolization through the license, and pursued improper royalty and plant return demands, bringing federal and state RICO, antitrust, and Declaratory Judgment Act claims. The court granted Rutgers' motion to dismiss the RICO claims with prejudice for lack of statutory standing and failure to state a claim under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), while dismissing the antitrust and DJA claims without prejudice; it denied JAFI's motion to file the proposed Second Amended Complaint but granted leave to file a Third Amended Complaint with additional factual support. The core reasoning centered on accepting the complaint's allegations as true but finding them insufficient to plead the required elements, particularly for RICO predicates tied to patent fraud and for antitrust claims involving the scope of the license agreement after patents expired.
In this case, brand-name drug manufacturers sued generic drug applicants for infringing one patent listed for Asacol® after the generics filed ANDAs under the Hatch-Waxman Act, but did not assert a second related patent. The generics responded with counterclaims seeking declaratory judgments of invalidity or non-infringement for both patents. After the brand-name plaintiffs provided a covenant not to sue on the second patent, they moved to dismiss the corresponding counterclaim. The court granted the motion under Rule 12(b)(1), holding that the defendants lacked Article III standing because the covenant eliminated any actual controversy redressable by a declaratory judgment on that patent.
In Chulsky v. Hudson Law Offices, PC, plaintiff Marjorie Chulsky brought a putative class action against a law firm and its attorney after they purchased her consumer credit card debt and filed a state court collection suit, alleging that the purchase violated New Jersey's Professional Services Corporation Act as an ultra vires act. The claims were asserted under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (NJCFA), and the New Jersey Truth in Consumer Contract, Warrant and Notice Act (TCCWNA), with an additional assertion of individual liability against the attorney. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the NJCFA and TCCWNA claims but denied dismissal of the FDCPA claim, finding that the federal claim was adequately pled under the Twombly standard while the state claims did not meet the required elements or were otherwise barred. The decision turned on the sufficiency of the allegations regarding the debt purchase and collection practices, without resolving the merits of whether the purchase was permissible.
This case involves third-party health plan payors suing pharmaceutical companies Janssen and Johnson & Johnson for allegedly engaging in a fraudulent scheme to promote the off-label use of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, seeking damages under federal and New Jersey RICO statutes as well as various state laws for the costs of unnecessary prescriptions. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. The court granted the motion, holding that the plaintiffs failed to adequately allege a cognizable injury under RICO, did not sufficiently plead the elements of mail and wire fraud with particularity, and could not establish causation or reliance for the state law claims.