Legrome D. Davis

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.

business & regulatoryprocedure

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.

propertyprocedure

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.

business & regulatory

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.

criminal lawpropertyprocedure

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.

torts & liabilityprocedure

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.

criminal lawpropertyprocedure

The case arose after plaintiff Anthony Ciolli, who helped administer the Auto-Admit law school discussion website, was named as a defendant in a Connecticut federal lawsuit brought by students Brittan Heller and Heide Iravani over anonymous sexually explicit posts about them; Ciolli was later dropped from that suit and responded by filing this Pennsylvania action alleging wrongful initiation of civil proceedings, abuse of process, libel, false light, and related torts against the students, their lawyers, and ReputationDefender. Defendants filed motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(2) and failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), plus a motion to strike portions of the complaint. The court granted the motion to strike in part, denied the personal-jurisdiction motions without prejudice, denied Rosen and Rosen & Associates' motion as to the wrongful-initiation count, and granted it as to the abuse-of-process count.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerns a workplace accident in which plaintiff Walter Van Doren lost both arms after becoming trapped in a straightener machine at his employer's facility. He and his wife sued successor manufacturers of the machine (Coe Press and related entities) and prior corporate owners of the companies that had owned and transferred the machine (Hubbell and related entities), alleging negligence in the machine's design, lack of warnings, and transfer without safety features. The defendants moved for summary judgment on all claims. The court applied the legal standard for summary judgment under Rule 56 and analyzed whether the prior owners could be liable under the dual persona doctrine despite corporate mergers. It concluded that the doctrine applies because the plaintiffs could have brought a separate negligence claim against the predecessor under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 388 for negligently supplying a dangerous product without warnings, independent of any employer immunity.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In this case, plaintiffs who purchased land in Virginia and obtained flood insurance through defendants WNC First (an insurance broker) and Standard Fire alleged that the defendants engaged in misconduct during policy procurement after their claim for flood damage was denied on grounds that the properties were ineligible under the Coastal Barrier Resources Act and no timely proof of loss was filed. Plaintiffs brought state-law claims including fraud, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, breach of implied warranty, violations of the Pennsylvania Unfair Insurance Practices Act, and bad faith. The court denied WNC First's motion to dismiss, rejecting its argument that the National Flood Insurance Act preempted all state claims. It granted Standard Fire's motion in part and denied it in part, dismissing the tort claims as time-barred, the Unfair Insurance Practices Act claims for lack of a private right of action, the bad faith claim for failure to allege improper claim handling, and the breach of contract claim under the gist of the action doctrine, while allowing the breach of implied warranty claim to proceed because no valid Standard Flood Insurance Policy existed to trigger preemption limits.

business & regulatoryfederal powerpropertytorts & liability

This case involved a motion for attorney's fees and costs filed by plaintiffs' counsel after preliminary approval of a class settlement in a lawsuit under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act against a debt collection firm and its principal. The court granted the motion, awarding the requested $125,000. The court determined that counsel's hourly rates were reasonable based on their experience, skill, and prevailing market rates supported by expert affidavit. It also found the hours billed reasonable, including those after defendants' offer of judgment, because the offer was insubstantial (amounting to 1% of a claimed negative net worth) and post-offer discovery led to a concrete settlement of $2,000 plus 1% of defendants' $2.5 million net worth.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

The case concerns a dispute over priority in security interests in assets called the Flomenhaft Interests under UCC Article 9, following an earlier ruling that defendant Stillwater held a superior perfected interest to the plaintiffs' unperfected interest. Plaintiffs brought tort claims, including conversion, against Stillwater and newly added broker defendants for acquiring or facilitating the transfer of those interests despite knowledge of plaintiffs' prior interest. On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court granted dismissal in part, dismissing the conversion claims against the broker defendants because they never exercised dominion or control over the assets, and against Stillwater because the prior UCC priority determination barred any finding that plaintiffs held a superior right. The core reasoning was that Article 9's statutory priority scheme, which favors the first perfected secured creditor, displaces common-law tort claims that would otherwise turn on subjective knowledge or equity considerations.

business & regulatorypropertytorts & liabilityprocedure

This case concerns claims by plaintiffs Gianna Diaz and Henry Peralta against a debt collection company and its agents for a single abusive phone call in which the caller threatened to repossess Diaz's belongings over an alleged debt connected to Peralta and used harassing language to demand payment. Plaintiffs asserted violations of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, related Pennsylvania consumer protection statutes, invasion of privacy by intrusion upon seclusion, and defamation. The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss, dismissing Peralta's claims under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g with prejudice and under § 1692e(a)(1) with leave to amend, while allowing Diaz's FDCPA claims and the privacy claim to proceed. The core reasoning was that Diaz qualified as a "consumer" under the Act because defendants allegedly demanded payment from her, and the described conduct could constitute a highly offensive intrusion even without repetition.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

This case involves a dispute between U.S. Claims, Inc., which purchased interests in attorneys' fees from pending personal injury cases via agreements with the Flomenhaft defendants, and Stillwater Asset-Backed Fund LP, which later received a lien on the same law firm's assets after filing a financing statement. U.S. Claims sought a declaratory judgment that its rights in the fee interests were superior to Stillwater's lien. The court granted Stillwater's motion to dismiss the declaratory judgment claim, holding that U.S. Claims had not perfected its security interest under UCC Article 9 because it failed to file financing statements and could not rely on the automatic perfection exception for assignments of payment intangibles, as the company regularly engaged in such transactions. The remaining motions were dismissed as moot after the claim was resolved on these grounds.

business & regulatoryproperty

In Watson v. NCO Group, Inc., the plaintiff alleged that he received more than 200 prerecorded debt collection calls to his residential telephone line over five months, even though he owed no debt to the caller, and that he spent over 53 hours attempting to stop the calls without success. He brought claims under the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the Communications Act claim, which the plaintiff conceded was a criminal statute, but denied the motion as to the TCPA claim. The court reasoned that FCC exemptions for calls involving an established business relationship or certain commercial calls without advertisements do not apply to erroneous debt collection calls to non-debtors, because such calls adversely affect the non-debtor's privacy rights, and it confirmed subject matter jurisdiction over the TCPA claim via supplemental or diversity jurisdiction.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In United States v. Shusterman, the defendant faced a 51-count indictment charging wire fraud, bankruptcy fraud, bank fraud, perjury, tax evasion, filing false tax returns, and related offenses based on alleged schemes to steal millions from his employer, mislead the IRS, and defraud a bank. Midway through trial, after the government presented extensive evidence, the defendant entered a guilty plea to all counts, which the court accepted following a colloquy; two months later, he moved to withdraw the plea before sentencing, asserting innocence and ineffective assistance of prior counsel. The court denied the motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(d)(2)(B), holding that the defendant had not supported any claim of innocence with record facts, his asserted grounds for withdrawal lacked strength, and the government would suffer prejudice from the resources already expended in trial preparation and proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned the government's motion to disqualify a law firm from representing seven witnesses subpoenaed in a grand jury investigation into fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy involving a public official and staff members. Two of the witnesses were potential targets of the investigation with directly opposing interests, while the others were fact witnesses, and the firm had been referred by the official's attorney with legal fees paid by a related legislative committee. The court granted the motion to disqualify, concluding that the multiple representation created an actual conflict that strained the firm's ability to fulfill its professional obligations to all clients. The core reasoning focused on the clients' antithetical legal positions, the firm's refusal to pursue immunity for targets, inadequate informed consent from the clients, and third-party payment arrangements that raised ethical concerns under applicable rules.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involves plaintiff Stephen Nesbitt, who suffered hand injuries in 2003 while operating a Craftsman radial arm saw at work and sued Sears and Emerson Electric under a strict products liability theory, claiming the saw was defective due to inadequate warnings about the safety functions of the riving knife and anti-kickback pawls during crosscutting. This memorandum opinion addresses a series of pretrial motions in limine filed by both parties to exclude various evidence and expert testimony. The court granted defendants' motions to preclude evidence of other similar accidents and certain exhibits, granted plaintiff's motion to bar references to his juvenile conviction and past substance use, and ruled on expert testimony by allowing some opinions on human factors and warnings only under specified conditions while excluding others related to insurance investigations or supplemental reports. Rulings were based on Federal Rules of Evidence 401-403, assessing relevance to the warnings claim and weighing probative value against risks of prejudice or jury confusion, with some denials conditioned on developments at trial.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case involves a group of companies that formed the Boarhead Farms Agreement Group seeking to recover response costs for cleaning up hazardous substances at a Superfund site under CERCLA and the Pennsylvania HSCA. The plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint to add individual member companies as named parties and to explicitly plead claims under CERCLA sections 106 and 107(a) in response to the Supreme Court's Cooper Industries decision affecting section 113(f) contribution claims. The court granted the motion in part, permitting amendments to add the individual plaintiffs and clarify the contribution claims based on prior government settlements, but denied other changes such as a direct section 107(a) claim under Third Circuit precedent. Defendants' cross-motions for summary judgment were denied as moot.

environmentprocedure

The case involves negligence and strict product liability claims brought on behalf of a minor injured by a riding lawn mower manufactured by Simplicity, with Simplicity asserting contribution claims against the grandparents who were operating the mower and supervising the child, including allegations of negligent supervision. The court granted Simplicity's motion for summary judgment on the negligent design and strict liability claims against it. It denied the grandparents' motion for summary judgment on the negligent supervision claim but granted it on the failure to instruct claim against one grandparent. The core reasoning for dismissing the product claims was that Simplicity owed no duty of care, as the CPSC had withdrawn proposed rules requiring a no-mow-in-reverse feature after concluding that costs were not justified by benefits, the mower included multiple safety systems and warnings, and plaintiffs' expert evidence was insufficient. The supervision claim presented factual issues precluding summary judgment.

torts & liabilityfamily law

In this bankruptcy appeal, creditor Frances Adler Schwartz sought to object to the discharge of debts allegedly arising from the debtor's embezzlement while serving as administratrix of an estate. After receiving one extension to file a complaint under Bankruptcy Rules 4004 and 4007, the creditor filed a second extension motion and the complaint after the extended deadline had passed. The bankruptcy court denied the request, holding that Rules 4004(b) and 4007(c) require any motion to extend the filing deadline to be made before the deadline expires and that Rule 9006(b)(3) limits further enlargements. The district court affirmed, reviewing the legal interpretation de novo and concluding that the rules' plain language barred post-deadline extensions based on excusable neglect or equitable tolling where insufficient facts were presented.

procedure