This case arose from the bankruptcy of Four Star Financial Services, LLC, which had acquired rights to promissory notes from consumers who purchased multi-generational campground memberships from Thousand Adventures, Inc. A consumer class representative filed a claim in Four Star's bankruptcy seeking priority status under 11 U.S.C. § 507(a)(7) for a default judgment based on undelivered membership services. The bankruptcy court granted priority treatment, but the district court reversed on appeal, holding that the initiation fees did not qualify as deposits for undelivered services. The court reasoned that payment of the fee immediately conferred membership and access to the campground network, with future use dependent on annual dues rather than constituting prepayment for goods or services to be provided later.
In this copyright infringement case, Olander Enterprises sued Spencer Gifts and other defendants, alleging that they copied approximately twenty belt buckle designs protected by four of Olander's copyright registrations, each of which purported to cover collections of designs published in catalogs. The defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that the registrations were invalid because they did not qualify as "single work" registrations under Copyright Office regulations. The court granted the motions, holding that Olander's registrations were invalid because sales records showed many individual belt buckle designs had been sold or published separately well before the claimed publication dates of the collections, violating the requirement that all works in a single-work registration be first published together as a unit. Olander's cross-motion on standing was denied as moot because the invalidity of the registrations disposed of the infringement claims.
In this bankruptcy case, Crystal Cathedral Ministries filed for Chapter 11 protection and sought to maintain utility service by proposing a segregated account holding $80,460 as adequate assurance of payment to Southern California Edison under 11 U.S.C. § 366. The bankruptcy court approved the account as sufficient assurance, rejecting the utility's demand for a direct cash deposit of the same amount held by the provider. On appeal, the district court affirmed, ruling that the segregated account qualified as a cash deposit under the statute, that the court had authority to select the form and amount of assurance when parties disagreed, and that the provided security was adequate to prevent service interruption.
This antitrust case under Section 2 of the Sherman Act concerns Arminak's claims that Calmar monopolized or attempted to monopolize the market for trigger sprayers by entering into exclusive dealing contracts with purchasers that included full-line requirements and right-of-first-refusal clauses. Arminak sought to introduce evidence at trial of five other categories of Calmar's conduct—low pricing, creation of a new product division, patent litigation, intellectual property acquisitions, and certain business dealings—which Arminak conceded were lawful and pro-competitive on their own, to show Calmar's anticompetitive intent regarding the contracts. The court granted Calmar's motion for partial summary judgment, holding that such evidence is inadmissible for that purpose. The core reasoning is that antitrust law protects competition rather than competitors, and evidence of lawful conduct cannot be repurposed to prove willful acquisition or maintenance of monopoly power through the challenged contracts.
This case involves a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by several Muslim organizations and individuals seeking records of any FBI investigations or surveillance related to them. The court conducted an in camera review after initial summary judgment motions and discovered that the government had made false and misleading representations about the existence and scope of responsive documents, claiming fewer documents existed and that much information was outside the request's scope when in fact many documents were responsive. The court reasoned that the government cannot mislead the judiciary under any circumstances, including claims of national security, because the courts must be able to rely on truthful information to fulfill their constitutional role in overseeing compliance with the law.
This case was a putative class action brought by drivers who received traffic citations from automated cameras in Santa Ana, alleging that the City and its contractor Redflex violated California Vehicle Code Section 21455.5(b) by failing to issue 30-day warning notices before citations for each new camera installation. Plaintiffs asserted claims of unjust enrichment and violations of California's unfair competition law against Redflex, based on the company's role in operating the system and mailing citations. The court granted Redflex's motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), holding that the statute applies only to local jurisdictions and not to private contractors like Redflex. The court also granted Redflex's anti-SLAPP motion to strike the claims, finding the company's provision of violation data was protected activity and that plaintiffs had not shown a probability of prevailing.
