Plaintiff-petitioner Charissa Schultz was injured in a 2015 car accident in which the other driver failed to stop at a stop sign. The other driver’s insurance company settled for its $25,000 policy limit, and Schultz made a demand on her own uninsured/underinsured motorist benefits under her GEICO policy, which also had a $25,000 limit. In April 2017, after months of correspondence and apparent review of an MRI performed on Schultz in April 2015, GEICO offered Schultz its full policy limit, and it did so without requesting that she undergo an independent medical examination (“IME”). Indeed, GEICO’s claim logs reveal that at the time GEICO decided to offer Schultz its policy limits, it “concede[d] peer review wouldn’t be necessary,” indicating an affirmative decision not to request an IME. A few months later, Schultz filed the present lawsuit asserting claims for bad faith breach of an insurance contract and unreasonable delay in the payment of covered benefits. GEICO denied liability, disputing the extent and cause of Schultz’s claimed injuries and asserting that causation surrounding the knee replacement surgeries was “fairly debatable” because Schultz had preexisting arthritis, which GEICO claimed may independently have necessitated her surgeries. To establish its defense, GEICO ordered the IME and the district court granted that request. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded GEICO’s conduct had to be evaluated based on the evidence before it when it made its coverage decision and that, therefore, GEICO was not entitled to create new evidence in order to try to support its earlier coverage decision. The Court also concluded the district court abused its discretion when it ordered Schultz to undergo an IME over three years after the original accident that precipitated this case and a year and a half after GEICO had made the coverage decision at issue. View "Schultz v. GEICO Casualty Company" on Justia Law

K-Con and the Army entered into two contracts for pre-engineered metal buildings. K-Con claims that the Army subsequently delayed issuance of a notice to proceed for two years, resulting in $116,336.56 in increases in costs and labor. According to K-Con, this delay was due solely to the government’s decision to add to each contract the performance and payment bonds set forth in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.228-15. The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals held that bonding requirements were included in the contracts by operation of law when they were awarded, pursuant to the Christian doctrine. The Federal Circuit affirmed. The two contracts are construction contracts and, under the Christian doctrine, the standard bond requirements in construction contracts were incorporated into K-Con’s contracts by operation of law. If the contracts had been issued using the standard construction contract form, there would have been no issue, but these contracts issued using the standard commercial items contract form. There were, however, many indications that the contracts were for construction, not commercial items. The statement of work included many construction-related tasks, including developing and submitting construction plans, obtaining construction permits, and cleaning up construction areas. The statement of work also required compliance with FAR regulations relevant only to construction contracts. View "K-Con, Inc. v. Secretary of the Army" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Donald and Preston Sweet, who are father and son, sued defendants Roy and Catherine St. Pierre in June 2014 alleging that defendants failed to pay them wages for their work improving a stand of maple trees on defendants’ land for maple sugaring. Plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiffs’ claim for unpaid wages under the Prompt Pay Act (PPA). Plaintiffs argued the trial court erred in concluding that no contract existed between the parties as required to support a PPA claim. Defendants cross-appealed, arguing the court should have awarded them attorney’s fees because they were the substantially prevailing party and erroneously excluded evidence relevant to their assault claim. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision on the merits, but reversed and remanded for it to award reasonable attorney’s fees to defendants. View "Sweet v. St. Pierre" on Justia Law

Where a roofing shingle manufacturer displays on the exterior wrapping of every package of shingles the entirety of its product-purchase agreement—including, as particularly relevant here, a mandatory-arbitration provision— homeowners whose roofers ordered, opened, and installed the shingles are bound by the agreement's terms. The Eleventh Circuit held that the manufacturer's packaging in this case sufficed to convey a valid offer of contract terms, that unwrapping and retaining the shingles was an objectively reasonable means of accepting that offer, and that the homeowners' grant of express authority to their roofers to buy and install shingles necessarily included the act of accepting purchase terms on the homeowners' behalf. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's decision to grant the manufacturer's motion to compel arbitration and to dismiss the homeowners' complaint. View "Dye v. Tamko Building Products, Inc." on Justia Law

Killian Construction Company ("Killian") and Christian Mills petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to direct the Circuit Court to vacate its order denying their motion to dismiss the underlying action and to enter an order dismissing the action, based on improper venue. The City of Foley, Alabama, contracted with Killian to construct the Foley Sports Tourism Complex ("the sports complex"). Killian was a Missouri corporation whose principal place of business was located in Springfield, Missouri. Killian entered into a subcontract for part of the work on the sports complex with Edward Woerner, owner of Southern Turf Nurseries, Inc. Woerner was a resident of Baldwin County, Alabama. Woerner claimed Killian failed to pay him the full amount due for the work performed under the subcontract and sued Killian at the Baldwin County Circuit Court. The Alabama Supreme Court determined a forum-selection clause in the subcontract obligated the parties to litigate in a federal or state court in Missouri. Woerner did not establish that venue in Missouri would have been seriously inconvenient for the trial of the underlying action. Mills could enforce an outbound forum-selection clause because he was an employee of Killian directly involved in the sports complex project and the claims against him were related to the contract claims against Killian. Therefore, the Supreme Court found Killian and Mills were entitled to the writ of mandamus and granted relief. View "Ex parte Killian Construction Company and Christian Mills." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court dismissing Plaintiff’s unjust enrichment, quantum meruit, and promissory estoppel claims, holding that the district court erred in granting Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the promissory estoppel claim.Plaintiff, a farmer, sued Defendants, his neighbor’s heirs, claiming that he and the decedent entered into an option contract to purchase farmland that Plaintiff leased from he decedent and upon which Plaintiff had made substantial improvements. After the farm was sold, Plaintiff brought this action claiming that Defendants breached an option contract to sell him the property. Alternatively, Plaintiff alleged various equitable theories of promissory estoppel, quantum meruit, and unjust enrichment. A jury found in favor of Plaintiff on his contract claim, but the district court granted Defendants’ motion for directed verdict and refused to order a new trial on Plaintiff’s alternative equitable theories. The court of appeals remanded the case for further proceedings on the equitable claims. On remand, the district court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the remaining equitable claims. The Supreme Court reversed in part, holding that Plaintiff’s promissory estoppel claim survived summary judgment. View "Kunde v. Estate of Arthur D. Bowman" on Justia Law

Plaintiff AMN Healthcare, Inc. (AMN) appealed a judgment in favor of defendants Kylie Stein, Robin Wallace, Katherine Hernandez, Alexis Ogilvie and Aya Healthcare, Inc. (Aya) and an injunction preventing AMN from enforcing its nonsolicitation of employee provision against individual defendants and its other former employees. AMN and Aya are competitors in the business of providing on a temporary basis healthcare professionals, in particular "travel nurses," to medical care facilities throughout the country. Individual defendants were former "travel nurse recruiters" of AMN who, for different reasons and at different times, left AMN and joined Aya, where they also worked as travel nurse recruiters. AMN sued defendants, asserting various causes of action including breach of contract and misappropriation of confidential information, including trade secrets as set forth in the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Civil Code sections 3426 et seq. (UTSA). Defendants filed a cross-complaint for declaratory relief and unfair business competition. The trial court agreed with defendants, granted summary judgment against AMN, and granted summary adjudication of defendants' declaratory relief cause of action in their cross-complaint. After granting such relief, the court subsequently enjoined AMN from enforcing the nonsolicitation of employee provision in their Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure Agreement (CNDA) as to any former (California) AMN employee and awarded defendants attorney fees. Finding no reversible error in the trial court's judgment, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "AMN Healthcare, Inc. v. Aya Healthcare Services, Inc." on Justia Law

Gallo was a dermatologist at the Mayo Clinic. Less than a year into her employment, she resigned and entered into a separation agreement to prevent Mayo from saying anything negative about her to prospective employers. Years later, her former supervisor rated her performance as “fair” on two criteria in a credentialing form sent to Mayo after Gallo had been offered a contract to work in New York. That employment offer was rescinded. Gallo sued Mayo for breach of the separation agreement. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Mayo. The separation agreement does not apply to every potential employer but limits itself to a potential employer seeking a reference. Even if the separation agreement did apply to the request, Gallo cannot prove causation. The decision to not hire Gallo was [N]ot based, in any way, on any credentialing decision by any other party; rather, the decision was based upon the combination of Dr. Gallo’s continued efforts to re-negotiate her employment contract, her demand to make changes to the contract that were unacceptable … and the ability to fulfill [the employer’s] staffing needs with a dermatologist who was already providing dermatological services [for the employer]. View "Gallo v. Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Medical Center, Inc." on Justia Law

At issue was various statutory amendments to the Kentucky Affordable Prepaid Tuition Fund (KAPT) contracts previously purchased by Appellants.The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the trial court concluding that the 2014 statutory changes affecting the 2003 contracts for prepaid college tuition entered into by Maze and the Board did not alter Appellants’ contracts, concluding that Appellants had expressly agreed to be bound by amendments to the contracts imposed by future statutory and regulatory changes. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the KAPT contracts entered into by Appellants, and the underlying enabling statutes, did not authorize the contractual changes imposed by the retroactive application of the statutory amendments at issue in this case; and (2) the retroactive imposition of those amendments upon Appellants unlawfully impaired their contracts in violation of U.S. Const. art. I, 10 and Ky. Const. 19. View "Maze v. Board of Directors for the Commonwealth Postsecondary Education Prepaid Tuition Trust Fund" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was when Appellees’ claims for negligence, constructive fraud, and fraudulent concealment accrued and whether they were time-barred.Appellees were the Estate of Steven Schmitz and Yvette Smith, individually and as fiduciary of the Estate. Steven died before age sixty after being diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease, and dementia. Appellees alleged that Steven’s diagnoses were caused, aggravated, and/or magnified by repetitive head impacts Steven sustained while playing football for the University of Notre Dame du Lac. The trial court dismissed the claims pursuant to Ohio R. Civ. P. 12(B)(6). The Supreme Court affirmed the Eighth District’s judgment reversing the dismissal of Appellees’ claims for negligence, constructive fraud, and fraudulent concealment, holding (1) Rule 12(B)(6) did not warrant the dismissal of Appellees’ claims because the amended complaint did not show conclusively that the claims were time-barred; and (2) Appellees’ fraud-related claims were subject to the same two-year statute of limitations contained in Ohio Rev. Coe 2305.10(A) as Appellees’ negligence claim. View "Schmitz v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n" on Justia Law