Justia Contracts Opinion Summaries

KCP, the plaintiff, had hoped to act as a middleman in a potential distribution deal for a novel cleaning product and targeted Henkel, a large consumer products company as a potential distributor. KCP and Henkel entered into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to aid in the negotiations of a distribution deal. KCP provided Henkel with confidential information about the product. Following a year of exchanging information and engaging in negotiations, the NDA lapsed, and no deal was consummated. KCP asserts that Henkel’s parent company, Henkel KGaA, used confidential information it acquired through the NDA to develop the product on its own and also interfered with the potential distribution deal. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of KGaA. As to a breach of contract claim, the court found that KGaA was not a party to the NDA and could not be liable for its breach. As to a tortious interference claim, the court found that KGaA is the parent company of Henkel, so the parent-subsidiary privilege immunizes it from a tortious interference claim involving its subsidiary; the court found that the narrow “improper motive” exception to that privilege did not apply. The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of KGaA, KCP has not presented sufficient evidence of any improper motive or means to pierce the parent-subsidiary privilege. View "Knight Capital Partners Corp. v. Henkel AG & Co." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit certified the following questions to the California Supreme Court: Does section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code void a contract by which a business is restrained from engaging in a lawful trade or business with another business? Is a plaintiff required to plead an independently wrongful act in order to state a claim for intentional interference with a contract that can be terminated by a party at any time, or does that requirement apply only to at-will employment contracts? View "Ixchel Pharma, LLC v. Biogen, Inc." on Justia Law

The absence of a judgment in the state court litigation does not mean that plaintiff lacks Article III standing to bring this suit. Enterprise filed suit against several defendants, alleging a claim under the Missouri Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act. The district court dismissed the complaint without prejudice based on the ground that there was no case or controversy because Enterprise lacked Article III standing.The Eighth Circuit reversed and held that Enterprise has alleged facts sufficient to demonstrate the elements of standing. In this case, Enterprise has sufficiently alleged a present injury in fact, fairly traceable to defendants, as the transferees of the funds. Therefore, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Enterprise Financial Group Inc. v. Podhorn" on Justia Law

The Court of Chancery granted in part and denied in part Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint brought in an effort to collect on an unpaid judgment, holding that one claim must be dismissed as untimely.JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. sued Data Treasury Corporation (DTC) and obtained a final judgment against DTC for $69 million. JPMorgan bought this action in an effort to collect on its judgment. DTC moved to dismiss all of JPMorgan's claims on a variety of grounds. JPMorgan claimed that DTC's directors should be liable for dividends DTC paid its stockholders after DTC licensed its patents to someone other than JPMorgan in violation of DTC's obligation to tell JPMorgan under a license agreement. JP Morgan also claimed it was entitled to recover the distributions because they were fraudulent transfers. The Court of Chancery held (1) JPMorgan had standing as a creditor of DTC to assert a claim under Section 174 to recover for itself and other creditors of DTC the dividends DTC paid; (2) the six-year limitations period in 8 Del. C. 174 is a statute of repose. The court thus finds that JPMorgan’s Section 174 claim must be dismissed as untimely; and (3) all of JPMorgan’s fraudulent transfer claims were timely filed. View "JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. v. Ballard" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's decision declining to reconsider its original decision granting the Town's motion to dismiss the amended complaint alleging claims of, inter alia, breach of contract, innocent misrepresentation, and fraud in connection with plaintiff's loan to a licensee of the Town that was allegedly secured by the Town.The court held that PHL's arguments with regard to dismissals of the unjust enrichment and negligent misrepresentation claims were not properly before the court. Even if they were properly before the court, the court would still reject PHL's arguments. The court also held that PHL's amended complaint failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted for breach of contract or equitable relief because it failed to plausibly allege a valid contract; PHL's claims for misrepresentation failed because PHL failed to allege that it reasonably or justifiably relied on the misrepresentation; and there was no merit to PHL's contention that it should have been allowed to file a second amended complaint. View "PHL Variable Insurance Co. v. Town of Oyster Bay" on Justia Law

Under a 2014 agreement, MCFI, a non-profit organization that provides medical care for individuals with brain injuries, would operate a brain-injury center in MHC’s nursing facility. MHC would handle billing and collections for MCFI's services and remit the funds collected to MCFI after taking its cut. MHC instead redirected MCFI’s funds to pay its employees and other creditors. MCFI sued MHC and MHC’s principal, Nicholson. The district court entered summary judgment against MHC for breach of contract and against Nicholson for conversion and civil theft and awarded MCFI over $2 million in damages, interest, and costs against MHC and Nicholson, jointly and severally. It also awarded MCFI over $200,000 in attorney’s fees and costs against Nicholson alone. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. MCFI had an ownership interest in the BIRC Collections. At most MCFI’s acknowledgment of the security interests of MHC’s creditors only estops MCFI from contesting the interests of those creditors; it does not prevent MCFI from asserting its ownership of the property against MHC. The duty to refrain from converting or stealing the BIRC Collections was entirely independent of the contract. It arose from the common law and Wisconsin statutes. Nicholson was personally involved in the wrongful redirection of those funds through the actions of his agent. View "Milwaukee Center for Independence, Inc. v. Milwaukee Health Care LLC" on Justia Law

The case arose from a landlord’s repeated refusal to consent to the proposed assignment of a ground lease for the anchor space in a shopping center. The plaintiffs were the entities that wished to assign the leasehold interest and the entities that agreed to take the assignment; the defendants were the landlord and its parent company. In their original and first amended complaints, plaintiffs alleged the landlord unreasonably withheld consent to the plaintiffs’ lease assignment request. While the litigation was pending, plaintiffs made an amended lease assignment request, which the landlord similarly rejected. In their second amended complaint, plaintiffs asserted the same five causes of action as before, but added allegations about the landlord’s refusal to consent to their amended assignment request. The landlord filed an anti-SLAPP motion to strike the second amended complaint, contending plaintiffs’ amended assignment request and the landlord’s response to that request were settlement communications and statements made in litigation, and therefore constituted protected activity. The trial court denied the motion, finding the landlord’s rejection of the amended assignment request was not a settlement communication or litigation-related conduct, but rather an ordinary business decision. The Court of Appeal agreed and affirmed the order denying the anti-SLAPP motion. View "ValueRock TN Prop. v. PK II Larwin Square" on Justia Law

The agreement gave Division the exclusive right to purchase aged and customer-returned merchandise from Finish and provided for an 18-month term “commencing on March 1, 2001” that could be extended by written agreement of the parties “prior to the expiration of the term or any extension thereof.” The agreement was twice amended. Despite the 2008 agreement’s express ending date of December 31, 2013, Finish continued to ship products to Division in 2014. Finish eventually stopped dealing with Division and began dealing with other parties. In 2015, Division wrote to Finish asserting its exclusive right under the agreement to purchase Finish’s surplus products. Finish asserted that the agreement was no longer in effect. The district court dismissed Division’s suit, concluding that the agreement did not provide for perpetual self-renewal and the 2008 Amendment did not provide for an automatic extension. Since the plain language was not ambiguous, the court refused to consider extrinsic evidence of the parties’ intent—the 2014 shipments. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The agreement is clear and unambiguous, Division’s extrinsic evidence cannot be considered. There was no automatic extension following the 2008 amendment extension; the agreement was no longer in force after December 2013 and Finish did not commit a breach when it began dealing with third parties in 2014. View "Division Six Sports, Inc. v. Finish Line, Inc." on Justia Law

In these consolidated cases involving alleged breaches of fiduciary duties the Supreme Court answered questions certified to it by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona by applying common law agency principles to questions involving fiduciary duties between members and managers of a limited liability company (LLC).The Court answered the three certified questions as follows: (1) a manager of an Arizona LLC owes common law fiduciary duties to the company; (2) a member of an Arizona LLC owes common law fiduciary duties to the company, provided that the member is an agent of the LLC; and (3) an Arizona LLC's operating agreement may lawfully limit or eliminate those fiduciary duties, but the agreement may not eliminate the implied contractual duty of good faith and fair dealing. View "Sky Harbor Hotel Properties, LLC v. Patel Properties, LLC" on Justia Law

JRC Construction, LLC, appealed a judgment entered after a jury awarded Larry Pavlicek $217,244.55 in damages against JRC. The jury found JRC breached a contract with Pavlicek relating to construction work performed by JRC. JRC argued the district court erred in denying its motion and renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law because Pavlicek failed to prove he had a contract with JRC. Finding no reversible error, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed. View "Pavlicek v. American Steel Systems, Inc., et al." on Justia Law