John Schlueter sued Edward Latek and Latek Capital for restitution of a $758,675 fee paid for brokerage services in selling his company, claiming the defendants lacked required real estate broker licenses under Wisconsin Chapter 452. The defendants moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The court assumed for the motion that the defendants acted as unlicensed brokers but held that Chapter 452 bars unlicensed brokers from suing for fees yet provides no private right to recover fees already paid voluntarily. It further reasoned that Wisconsin common law does not allow restitution here because Schlueter benefited from the services, was satisfied, and sought a windfall, and that the complaint failed to plead any plausible breach-of-duty claims showing harm. The court therefore granted the motion and dismissed the case.
In this case, Wisconsin state prisoner Terrance Edwards sued prison medical staff under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming inadequate treatment for his vitiligo skin condition violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Edwards failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) because his inmate complaint was rejected as untimely under Wisconsin Department of Corrections rules. The court denied the motion, holding that Edwards had properly exhausted his remedies: he had attempted informal resolution with health services staff, his complaint described an ongoing issue, and on appeal he corrected the incident date to reflect a recent denial of treatment on August 2 or 3, 2010, which the reviewing authority improperly ignored without any rule barring such clarification. The core reasoning was that prison grievance procedures do not require strict adherence to the date box alone when other complaint materials and appeals show timely, ongoing events, and no rule prevented correcting the filing on review.
This case concerns a dispute over insurance coverage for losses sustained by Right Management, a Manpower subsidiary, after an office building collapse in Paris. Manpower sought additional recovery under a U.S. difference-in-conditions policy issued by ISOP after the local French insurer AIG-Europe limited its payout under a primary policy. The court considered whether Manpower must first litigate against AIG-Europe in France to exhaust the local policy before pursuing the DIC policy. It ruled that Manpower need not sue AIG-Europe or obtain a French judgment, as it can establish a difference in conditions by comparing the two policies in this proceeding. The decision rests on the DIC policy language requiring only a showing that its terms are broader, which presents a legal question for this court without needing the local insurer as a party.
This case involves employees of C & D Technologies seeking unpaid wages for short breaks under Wisconsin wage and hour law, even though their collective bargaining agreement with the United Steelworkers permitted those breaks to be unpaid. Plaintiffs originally sued in federal court under a state wage statute but argued for jurisdiction under §301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act, claiming their claims required interpreting or were preempted by the CBA. The court had dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and now denies plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration, explaining that the employer did not breach the CBA and that the state-law claims are independent and not preempted under federal labor law precedents like Textron and Lingle.
In this § 1983 case, plaintiff Richard Betker sued Milwaukee police officers, the police chief, and the city, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated when officers obtained and executed a no-knock search warrant at his home based on an informant's tip about possible illegal firearm possession by his wife, a convicted felon. The court granted summary judgment to defendants on all claims except one against officer Gomez, including claims against the police chief and those involving the right to bear arms or unlawful arrest. The core reasoning was that most claims lacked personal involvement or merit, but the affidavit for the no-knock warrant contained arguably false or misleading statements about recent observations of guns and ongoing criminal activity that were essential to justify dispensing with the knock-and-announce requirement; excising those statements left no basis for the warrant. The court also rejected qualified immunity for Gomez on that claim because it was based on information he knew or should have known was false.
This case is a proposed class action alleging securities fraud under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5, plus control-person liability under § 20(a), stemming from an officer's embezzlement of over $30 million from Koss Corporation and her use of false accounting entries to conceal it, which rendered the company's SEC filings materially false and caused a stock-price drop upon disclosure. The plaintiff sued the company (on vicarious liability), the CEO (for recklessly certifying the statements), and the former auditor Grant Thornton (for recklessly certifying the statements), without claiming any of them knew of the fraud. The court granted the motions to dismiss the claims against these three defendants, holding that the complaint did not plead facts giving rise to a strong inference of scienter or recklessness under the PSLRA because the embezzler had concealed her scheme from management and the auditors, unlike cases where accounting fraud was intended to benefit the company.
