The case concerned an appeal by attorney Albert Kun from a bankruptcy court order denying his interim fee application and requiring him to disgorge a $5,000 retainer in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Woodcraft Studios, Inc. (later converted to Chapter 7). Kun had been approved to represent the debtor in possession but failed to disclose in his employment application and affidavit that he had performed $3,950 in pre-petition legal work for the company, making him a pre-petition creditor. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court's ruling, holding that Kun violated the disclosure requirements of 11 U.S.C. § 327 and Bankruptcy Rule 2014 by not revealing his connections to the debtor or his creditor status. The court found this nondisclosure, combined with a lack of candor, justified denying all fees and ordering disgorgement of the retainer, regardless of retainer type or other issues.
In Freeman v. ABC Legal Services, Inc., plaintiff Ruby Freeman sued process server ABC Legal Services and its employee Granville Smith III under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and related California statutes. She alleged that the defendants fabricated a Proof of Service of Summons stating she had been properly served in a debt-collection lawsuit, when in fact no service occurred (“sewer service”), enabling a default judgment against her.
The court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the FDCPA claim, granted Freeman’s request for discovery under Rule 56(d), and denied without prejudice their anti-SLAPP motion to strike the state-law claims. It found that Freeman had alleged facts sufficient to state a plausible FDCPA claim and to show that the process-server exemption did not apply because the defendants allegedly manufactured false proofs of service. The court further held that discovery was warranted because the case was at an early stage, Freeman had identified specific information needed to oppose summary judgment, and there was no showing of delay or lack of diligence on her part.
Barnes & Noble filed a declaratory judgment action in the Northern District of California seeking rulings of non-infringement and invalidity on eleven patents held by LSI and Agere, after LSI accused the Nook e-reader’s 3G, WiFi, and audio components of infringement and the parties’ licensing negotiations broke down; LSI and Agere later sued BN for infringement of the same patents plus one additional patent in Pennsylvania. Defendants moved to dismiss the original and amended complaints for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, failure to join necessary parties, and application of the first-to-file rule, and alternatively sought transfer to Pennsylvania. The court denied the motions in full. It found an actual controversy existed because of LSI’s pre-suit accusations and ongoing negotiations, the amended complaint properly added Agere as defendant for the patents it owned, and the California action was first-filed with no exceptional circumstances justifying dismissal or transfer under the first-to-file rule or § 1404(a) convenience factors.
The case involved Trans Video Electronics suing Sony for infringing claim 3 of Patent No. 5,991,801, which describes an information distribution system using multiple video clip storage units, a master communications unit that receives a synchronous digital signal tied to stored video data, distribution amplifiers that split the signal, and related network components for sending video news clips. Following an earlier claim construction order by Judge Patel, Sony moved for summary judgment on grounds that the patent was invalid for lack of written description. The court granted the motion, holding that the specification’s two embodiments (Figures 1B and 5) fail to disclose the full scope of the construed claim—particularly that the master communications unit receives a synchronous digital signal corresponding to video data from the storage units, rather than a non-video command signal, and that the distribution amplifiers then split that video signal. Trans Video’s expert declaration was rejected because it contradicted the claim construction by recharacterizing the signal and the role of the menu CSU/DSU units.
In Lang v. Morris, origami artists sued painter and filmmaker Sarah Morris in California federal court, alleging that 24 paintings in her Origami Series infringed their copyrights in two-dimensional crease patterns for origami designs. Only one plaintiff resided in California, and Morris, a non-resident, moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court granted the motion, holding that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction because Morris had not purposefully directed her activities at California. Her alleged use of one plaintiff's publicly available images, without knowledge of his California residence, plus her general website, worldwide exhibitions, and limited professional visits to the state, did not create the required minimum contacts under due process standards.
This Clean Water Act citizen suit was brought by San Francisco Baykeeper against the West Bay Sanitary District, alleging that dozens of sewage spills (SSOs) from the district's system discharged pollutants into surface waters such as San Francisquito Creek, West Point Slough, and other creeks and sloughs without an NPDES permit. The court ruled on cross-motions including requests for judicial notice, evidentiary objections to declarations, standing, and the plaintiff's partial motion for summary judgment on whether the spills reached waters of the United States. It granted standing to the plaintiff and its members, admitted some evidence while excluding or limiting other portions as unreliable or hearsay, and held that there was no genuine dispute that at least some SSOs directly or indirectly discharged to certain listed waters while finding factual disputes on others. The core reasoning centered on detailed review of spill reports, declarations, rain event data, and maps to trace spill pathways and confirm the waters qualified as protected under the Act.
