Richard L. Young

This case involved a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Alcon Research, Ltd., Alcon Laboratories, Inc., and Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd. against Apotex, Inc. and Apotex Corp. over Apotex's filing of an Abbreviated New Drug Application seeking FDA approval for a generic version of the plaintiffs' Patanol ophthalmic solution before expiration of U.S. Patent No. 5,641,805, which covers topical formulations for treating allergic eye diseases. After a bench trial, the court held that the plaintiffs proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Apotex's generic product infringed claims 1-8 of the '805 patent. The court further ruled that Apotex failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the patent claims were invalid as anticipated, obvious, or lacking written description, or that the patent was unenforceable due to inequitable conduct. The decision rested on the trial evidence regarding the patent's validity, the accused product's composition, and the absence of inequitable conduct during prosecution.

business & regulatoryhealthcare

The case involved a creditor who missed the deadline to file an adversary complaint objecting to the dischargeability of a debt in the debtor's bankruptcy proceeding and sought leave to file it late, attributing the delay to her attorney's calendaring error. The bankruptcy court denied the motion, finding no excusable neglect under the applicable rules, and the district court affirmed the denial on appeal. The court reviewed the facts for clear error and legal conclusions de novo, concluding that the sixty-day deadline functions like a strict statute of limitations that cannot be extended after expiration due to such an error. The ruling emphasized that the creditor is responsible for counsel's mistake and that high caseload volume does not excuse missing the firm deadline.

procedurefederal power

The case concerned plaintiff Victor Woods's lawsuit against Wells Fargo Financial Bank alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act, along with common law claims for breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith, and negligence, arising from a cosigned loan, an unauthorized additional loan, collection efforts including garnishment attempts, and negative credit reporting that led to a loan denial. Wells Fargo moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing res judicata barred the common law claims due to a prior state court judgment and that the federal claims failed to state a claim. The court granted the motion, dismissing the common law and FDCPA claims with prejudice on res judicata and pleading grounds while dismissing the FCRA claim without prejudice because the complaint did not allege inaccurate reporting and the relevant FCRA provision provides no private right of action. The plaintiff was allowed 30 days to amend the FCRA claim if desired.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

The case involved a former case manager at a privatized correctional facility who sued her employer GEO Group and the Indiana Department of Corrections under Title VII, claiming she faced sexual harassment from supervisors and coworkers, suffered retaliation after reporting it, and was constructively discharged. The court granted summary judgment to defendants on the claim of hostile work environment harassment by supervisors but denied summary judgment on the claims of coworker harassment, retaliation, and constructive discharge. It found genuine issues of material fact as to whether the coworker conduct created a hostile environment that was not adequately addressed, whether certain post-complaint actions like loss of clerks or reassignment qualified as adverse employment actions causally linked to protected activity, and whether working conditions became so intolerable as to compel resignation.

labor & employmentcivil rights

In Bernstein v. Bankert, trustees sought to recover environmental cleanup costs under CERCLA from Enviro-Chem and its principals, along with a declaratory judgment on insurance coverage from Auto-Owners and other insurers. Auto-Owners moved for summary judgment, contending that Indiana's two-year dissolution statute barred claims against the dissolved Enviro-Chem corporation (eliminating any duty to indemnify) and that a prior 1984 declaratory judgment action precluded the claims under res judicata. The court denied the motion, holding that the claims were not time-barred and that factual disputes remained over the scope of the earlier judgments, preventing application of res judicata as a matter of law.

environmentbusiness & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved plaintiff Kayla Irwin, whose apartment was damaged when police officers attempting to apprehend an armed suspect pursuant to a search warrant deployed multiple canisters of CS gas and wooden ferret rounds into the unit, which was later found empty. Irwin sued the city and officers under Section 1983 alleging damages to her personal property from excessive force during execution of the warrant, along with a state-law emotional distress claim. The court granted summary judgment to most defendants and on the state claim but denied it to three officers on the federal claim, finding a material factual dispute whether the officers should have known the apartment was likely empty and that the gas deployment would cause significant unnecessary damage, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

civil rightscriminal lawproperty

This case involves forty-seven Indiana National Guard members suing KBR, Inc. and affiliated companies for failing to warn them about toxic chemical exposure at a water treatment plant in Iraq, where they provided security during the companies' restoration work. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court granted the motion, concluding that the plaintiffs failed to establish that any defendant had sufficient contacts with Indiana to support either general or specific personal jurisdiction. The reasoning centered on the lack of continuous and systematic contacts by the subsidiaries and the inability to impute those contacts to the parent company due to insufficient evidence of control or agency.

proceduretorts & liability

The case arose from a traffic stop for speeding that escalated into the plaintiff's arrest for marijuana possession, paraphernalia possession, and operating while intoxicated, prompting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Fourth Amendment violations including unlawful arrest, search and seizure, and excessive force, plus state-law claims against the sheriff for false arrest, false imprisonment, and battery. The court denied defendants' summary judgment motion on the Fourth Amendment claims and the battery claim due to genuine disputes of material fact regarding consent to a catheterization procedure and the reasonableness of force used, while granting it on the Monell claims and the false arrest and false imprisonment claims based on Indiana Tort Claims Act immunity. The court denied the plaintiff's cross-motion for partial summary judgment in full, after first ruling that the plaintiff's expert testimony was admissible and properly disclosed.

criminal lawcivil rightsproceduretorts & liability

The case involved Eco-Built, Inc., an Alabama contractor, suing The National Bank of Indianapolis after the bank returned three joint-payee checks issued by REI Real Estate Services for missing supplier endorsements under Indiana Code § 26-1-4-302, resulting in an overdraft in Eco-Built's account. Eco-Built alleged the bank's actions violated the UCC provision on payor bank accountability and constituted conversion of funds. The court granted summary judgment to the bank, finding no genuine issue of material fact because the bank timely returned the items with the notation 'Endorsement Not as Drawn' and thus was not accountable under the statute, and because the funds belonged to REI's account rather than Eco-Built. The court also rejected the conversion claim on the grounds that the bank acted at REI's direction and did not exercise unauthorized control over Eco-Built's property.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a former hospital housekeeper who sued her employer for gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation under Title VII after being terminated. The court granted summary judgment to the defendant on the gender discrimination and hostile work environment claims but denied it on the retaliation claim. The court found no genuine issues of material fact supporting the discrimination and harassment claims, but determined there were factual disputes regarding whether the plaintiff engaged in protected activity by reporting coworker comments and whether her termination was causally linked to those reports, given evidence of increased scrutiny after complaints.

civil rightslabor & employment

This patent infringement case involved Monsanto suing farmer Vernon Bowman for purchasing commodity soybeans from a grain elevator—most of which contained Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready genetic trait—and then planting and harvesting them as a second crop, including by saving seeds for future plantings. The court granted Monsanto’s motion for summary judgment, finding that Bowman infringed the patent by making and using the patented technology without authorization. The court rejected Bowman’s patent exhaustion defense, reasoning that the trait is carried forward in each generation of soybeans and that the original licensed sales did not authorize replanting or further use of the commodity beans as seed. It also dismissed Bowman’s undeveloped constitutional challenge to the patent. The court awarded Monsanto a reasonable royalty of $30,873.80 plus costs and entered a permanent injunction against Bowman’s further unauthorized use of the technology.

propertybusiness & regulatory

In this case, the parents of Phillip Haas, killed in a single-vehicle accident, sued Auto-Owners Insurance after it advanced policy limits to preserve subrogation rights in their state-court wrongful death action against the other driver's family and also sought underinsured motorist benefits under policies issued to Anthony Haas. The court granted Auto-Owners summary judgment on the claim that its refusal to waive subrogation violated the duty of good faith, ruling that Indiana's subrogation statute imposed no requirement to consider the tortfeasors' solvency and that the insurer had complied with statutory notice procedures. The court denied both parties' motions on the underinsured motorist coverage issue, however, because a material factual dispute remained over who was driving the vehicle. The rulings rested on Indiana rules of insurance-policy construction and the absence of any ambiguity in the relevant policy language.

torts & liabilityprocedurebusiness & regulatory

This case involves plaintiff Larry Kennedy's claims against Saxon Mortgage Services, his mortgage servicer, for allegedly reporting inaccurate information to credit agencies—that his account was past due and in bankruptcy—under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The court considered Saxon's motion for summary judgment based on affidavits detailing the mistaken association with another individual's bankruptcy filing and Saxon's responses. The court granted summary judgment on the claim under 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(a) because that provision does not create a private right of action, but denied it on the claim under § 1681s-2(b) after finding a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Saxon's investigation into the dispute was reasonable and whether it promptly corrected the information. The decision rested on the requirement that furnishers of credit information must conduct reasonable investigations upon receiving notice of disputes from credit reporting agencies, with reasonableness typically reserved for a jury unless beyond question.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a dispute over whether insurance policies assigned during a bankruptcy proceeding provided coverage for environmental cleanup costs at an Indiana Superfund site. The plaintiff, ACS Site Group, filed a declaratory judgment action in Indiana state court against the insurers, which the defendants removed to federal court asserting jurisdiction under bankruptcy statutes. The court granted the plaintiff's motion to remand the case to state court, reasoning that because the debtor had assigned its rights under the policies to a third party, the action was not "related to" the bankruptcy estate and thus fell outside federal bankruptcy jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1334. The court denied the request for attorney fees, finding the removal had an objectively reasonable basis, and deemed the motions to transfer and stay as moot.

environmentbusiness & regulatoryprocedure

The case involves KnowledgeAZ, Inc., a software company, suing former employees, their new businesses, a former customer Jim Walters Resources (JWR), and others over claims including copyright infringement, breach of contract, and related torts arising from a 2001 software licensing agreement for eWarehouseA-Z. The agreement granted JWR a perpetual non-exclusive license with restrictions on copying or modifying the software, and the dispute centered on whether JWR's actions violated those terms or involved improper use of the source code. The court granted Hensley's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, granted summary judgment to Seipel, Action Authority, and others on most claims due to the expiration of the two-year contractual statute of limitations, and denied KAZ's partial summary judgment motion. It denied summary judgment to JWR in part, allowing the fraud claim and copyright infringement claims for activity within two years of filing to proceed, based on the agreement's terms, Indiana law, and procedural rules.

business & regulatoryprocedureproperty

This case concerned an insurance coverage dispute in which Westfield Insurance sought a declaratory judgment that its commercial general liability policy issued to Sheehan Construction did not require it to defend or indemnify Sheehan for a settlement with homeowners whose properties suffered water damage from subcontractors' defective construction work. Sheehan counterclaimed for breach of contract, bad faith denial of coverage, and indemnification after settling the underlying class action for over $2.7 million. The court granted Westfield's motion for summary judgment and denied the defendants' cross-motion, holding that the policy's exclusions for damage to the insured's work or product applied, the claims did not involve a covered occurrence, and certain other exclusions such as for fungi or mold and known loss also barred coverage. The court further found no evidence supporting Sheehan's bad faith or breach claims. The decision turned on the plain language of the policy exclusions and the nature of the construction defect damages.

business & regulatorypropertyproceduretorts & liability

The case involves the National Labor Relations Board seeking a preliminary injunction under section 10(j) of the NLRA against Frye Electric, Inc., while an unfair labor practices charge is pending regarding the termination of two employees who discussed union membership and benefits. The court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, granting the petition to enjoin the company from interrogating employees about union activities or discharging them for such activity, and ordering interim reinstatement of the employees, expungement of termination references from their files, and posting of notices. The core reasoning was that the evidence showed a better than negligible chance of success on the merits due to the timing and circumstances of the terminations following protected concerted activity, that delay in Board proceedings would cause irreparable harm by chilling remaining employees' union support, and that legal remedies like backpay would be inadequate.

labor & employmentfederal power

The case involved Tonya Coffman, a firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department, who sued the department and several officers alleging gender discrimination and harassment under Title VII, disability discrimination under the ADA, violations of privacy and due process rights under Section 1983, and state-law retaliation. The disputes centered on repeated evaluations of her driving abilities due to her height, fitness-for-duty assessments after sick leave, and related workplace actions. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all federal claims, dismissed the state retaliation claim without prejudice, and denied her request for a preliminary injunction. It reasoned that the department's actions were based on legitimate safety concerns documented through multiple evaluations, that Coffman failed to establish viable claims of discrimination or constitutional violations, and that she showed no likelihood of irreparable harm warranting injunctive relief.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

This ERISA case involved plaintiff Peter Pisek, a participant in Kindred Healthcare's long-term disability plan administered by MetLife, who sued for statutory penalties under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(c) due to the defendants' alleged failure to timely provide requested plan documents and information, for a cost-of-living adjustment to his monthly benefits based on the summary plan description's provisions for indexed pre-disability earnings, and for attorney's fees. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted in part and denied in part both motions, awarding Pisek $9,800 in penalties against Kindred (but not MetLife) for document disclosure violations, ordering retroactive cost-of-living increases to his benefits starting July 2005 under the plan terms, and denying fees because the defendants' positions were not shown to be unjustified. The reasoning centered on interpreting the plan documents and ERISA disclosure requirements, finding that the summary plan description controlled the benefit calculation and that Kindred, as plan administrator, bore responsibility for the information requests while MetLife did not.

labor & employmenthealthcareprocedure

In this case, plaintiff Robert S. Kentner served non-party document requests on over 300 members of IPEP that implied defendant Timothy R. Downey Insurance Inc. had acted illegally in investing IPEP funds, prompting Downey to file counterclaims for defamation per se, defamation per quod, tortious interference with contract, abuse of process, and unjust enrichment. Kentner moved to dismiss the first four counterclaims and for partial summary judgment under Indiana's anti-SLAPP statute, claiming the discovery requests constituted protected speech or petitioning activity on a public issue. The court denied the motion, holding that the requests were not made in furtherance of free speech rights because they were private litigation tools intended to gather evidence for the plaintiff's case rather than public statements, and they were not public components of the civil action. The anti-SLAPP defense was therefore inapplicable, and the restitution claim in Count V was unaffected as it did not arise from the discovery requests.

free speechproceduretorts & liability