This case arose from consolidated antitrust complaints alleging that defendants conspired to allocate the aspartame market and fix prices in violation of the Sherman Act; the district court had granted summary judgment to certain defendants on statute-of-limitations grounds, a ruling affirmed on appeal. The present opinion addresses plaintiffs' motion to deny or reduce the prevailing defendants' bills of costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d). The court reviewed the requests de novo under 28 U.S.C. § 1920, which permits taxation of fees for necessary transcripts and copies, and exercised discretion over e-discovery expenses such as database creation, metadata extraction, and document processing. It awarded reduced totals—$120,364.17 to Ajinomoto, $195,398.82 to Holland Sweetener, and $194,375.19 to NutraSweet—granting costs for items deemed necessary while denying others as excessive or insufficiently justified.
The case involves a dispute between the Langbords and the U.S. Department of Treasury over ownership of rare Double Eagle coins, where the government brought a declaratory judgment claim to resolve title clouded by the claimants' assertions of inheritance from prior owner Israel Switt. The court denied the Langbords' motion for judgment on the pleadings or summary judgment, ruling that no jury trial right attaches to the government's declaratory judgment claim. It reasoned that CAFRA does not qualify as a special statutory proceeding precluding declaratory relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act, and that the claim aligns with an equitable quiet title action, which historically lacks a jury right.
The case concerned whether Cincinnati Insurance's errors-and-omissions policy covered a lawsuit brought by Engel Group against Stonebridge Bank for the bank's alleged failure to extend credit under loan commitments, after Stonebridge initially defended but later disputed coverage. Cincinnati sought a declaratory judgment of no coverage based on the policy's contractual liability exclusion, while Stonebridge counterclaimed for coverage under the policy's endorsement addressing wrongful lending acts related to extensions or refusals of credit. The court denied Cincinnati's summary judgment motion and granted Stonebridge's, holding that the endorsement provided coverage for the claims and that the exclusion for liability assumed under contract did not apply to bar defense or indemnity. The reasoning centered on the plain language of the endorsement adding coverage for such lending-related claims, distinctions between assumed contractual liability and ordinary breach claims, and the principle that ambiguities in the policy must be construed in favor of the insured.
The case involved ten 1933 Double Eagle coins that the Langbord family transferred to the U.S. Mint in 2004 for authentication, after which the government refused to return them or initiate forfeiture proceedings, asserting the coins had been stolen from the Mint decades earlier. Following a 2009 court order requiring forfeiture proceedings to address constitutional and APA violations, the government moved to add replevin and declaratory judgment claims against the Langbords and third-party John Does, while also filing its own claim of interest in the coins. The court denied leave to add the replevin and third-party claims as untimely or improper, granted leave for one declaratory judgment claim, and dismissed the government's claim of interest for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because no case or controversy existed when the government effectively sought to litigate against itself.
In Ciolli v. Iravani, plaintiff Anthony Ciolli, formerly involved with the Auto-Admit online discussion board, sued defendants including Yale Law students Heide Iravani and Brittan Heller, their attorney Mark Lemley, and ReputationDefender after the defendants initiated and then dismissed a Connecticut lawsuit against him for allegedly harassing online posts; Ciolli asserted claims including wrongful civil proceedings, abuse of process, libel, false light, and tortious interference. The district court addressed multiple motions to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction and 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, following jurisdictional discovery. The court granted the motions in part and denied them in part, analyzing specific personal jurisdiction based on defendants' contacts with Pennsylvania and evaluating whether the pleadings sufficiently alleged elements of the tort claims such as false statements or improper litigation purpose.
The case concerned a dispute over ownership of ten 1933 Double Eagle gold coins that the Langbord family discovered in a safe deposit box and transferred to the U.S. Mint for authentication in 2004, after which the government refused to return them or initiate forfeiture, asserting they had always been government property. Plaintiffs brought claims alleging illegal seizure and violation of due process under the Fifth Amendment, seeking either return of the coins or judicial forfeiture proceedings under CAFRA. The court examined the circumstances of the voluntary transfer, the parties' communications, and internal government deliberations, concluding that the government had abandoned arguments based on an implied agreement and that due process analysis was required despite the government's ownership claim. Core reasoning focused on the distinction between undisputed government property and disputed ownership situations, the exhaustion of administrative remedies by plaintiffs, and the inapplicability of precedents where ownership was clear by statute or regulation.