Justia Contracts Opinion Summaries

This was an interlocutory appeal from the district court's grant of class certification in a case involving allegations that the defendant title insurance company charged premiums for title policies that exceeded the refinance rates set by the Texas Department of Insurance in Tex. Ins. Code Rate Rule R-8. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's grant of class certification and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the district court abused its discretion in finding that the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2) were satisfied, as none of the four questions identified by the district court was actually common to the class and common questions would not predominate at trial. View "Ahmad v. Old Republic Nat'l Title Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sought to recover on behalf of themselves and similarly-situated employees and retirees of the City of Cincinnati the current value of the 870,021 shares of Anthem stock that the City received from Anthem’s demutualization. Plaintiffs asserted eight claims for breach of contract and four tort claims against Anthem and three breach of contract claims and four tort claims against the City. The district court certified the class: 2,536 people named as insureds, or former members of a group of insured persons, covered under a health care group policy from June 18 through November 2, 2001. The class included “Class A” members, who had an insurance policy with Anthem prior to its merger with Community in 1995 and “Class B” members who received a health insurance group policy after the merger. The court later dismissed. The Sixth Circuit, exercising jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), affirmed. Plaintiffs cannot recover any demutualization compensation; the City was the policyholder before the merger and maintained its policyholder rights post-merger through a grandfather clause, including any rights to demutualization proceeds. The 2001 demutualization process did not disrupt the City’s membership interests or confer any equity rights to Plaintiffs.

Petitioner Leandre Layton, on behalf of himself and the similarly-situated members of his conditionally-certified class (collectively, "Drivers"), appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of DHL Express, Inc. ("DHL") on his claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). DHL contracted with Sky Land Express, Inc. to manage local parcel deliveries. Petitioner worked on DHL routes for Sky Land. Petitioner filed his collective action for unpaid overtime, naming DHL, Sky Land and Gary Littlefield (owner and president of Sky Land) as his joint employers and defendants to the suit. DHL moved for summary judgment on the ground that it was not the drivers' employer. The district court granted DHL's motion: "DHL did everything it could possibly do to relate to Sky Land only as an "independent contractor[."] The contract with Sky Land allowed DHL to exercise only the minimal supervision necessary to monitor compliance with the contract. The undisputed facts lead to the conclusion that if plaintiffs were employed by anybody, they were employed by Sky Land, the entity that they ostentatiously dismissed as a defendant, for reasons this court can only guess at. DHL was not an employer, much less a joint employer." After a thorough examination of the realities of the economic relationship between Drivers and DHL, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed on the grounds that DHL was not a joint employer of the Drivers.

Respondents brought this action on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated against Philip Morris, alleging that Philip Morris's marketing of its cigarettes violated Minnesota's consumer protection statutes. Respondents asserted claims under Minn. Stat. 8.31(3a) and for common law fraud and unjust enrichment. The district court granted Respondents' motion to certify the class. Subsequently, the court granted summary judgment to Philip Morris on the consumer protection claims asserted under section 8.31(3a) and then dismissed the case. The court of appeals affirmed the class certification but reversed the grant of summary judgment and reinstated Respondents' section 8.31(3a) consumer protection claims. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) Respondents' consumer protection claims asserted under section 8.31(3a) were previously released; and (2) because all of Respondents' claims had been dismissed, the issue of whether the plaintiff class was properly certified was moot.

This was a class action brought on behalf of the common unit holders of a publicly-traded Delaware limited partnership. In March 2011, the partnership agreed to be acquired by an unaffiliated third party at a premium to its common units' trading price. The merger agreement, which governed the transaction, also provided for a separate payment to the general partner to acquire certain partnership interests it held exclusively. The court concluded that defendants' approval of the merger agreement could not constitute a breach of any contractual or fiduciary duty, regardless of whether the conflict committee's approval was effective. The court also found that the disclosures authorized by defendants were not materially misleading. Therefore, plaintiffs could not succeed on their claims under any reasonable conceivable set of circumstances and defendants' motion to dismiss was granted.

Plaintiffs sought to establish a nationwide class of thousands of borrowers who allegedly paid inflated appraisal fees in connection with real estate transactions financed by Wells Fargo. Plaintiffs subsequently appealed the district court's dismissal of their claims contending that the appraisal practice of Wells Fargo and Rels unjustly enriched Rels and violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961 et seq.; the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 (RESPA), 12 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.; California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17200 et seq.; and Arizona's anti-racketeering statute (AZRAC), Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-2314.04. Because plaintiffs did not plausibly allege a concrete financial loss caused by a RICO violation, the district court did not err in concluding that they lacked standing under RICO and AZRAC. In regards to the UCL claims, the court agreed with the district court that the complaint did not allege "lost money or property" where plaintiffs admitted that Wells Fargo charged them market rates for appraisal services as disclosed on the settlement. The court also rejected plaintiffs' claims under RESPA Section 8(a) and (b), as well as plaintiffs' assertion that the district court erred in dismissing their claims with prejudice rather than sua sponte allowing them leave to amend the complaint for the third time.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's judgment granting Chase's motion to dismiss her putative class action claim brought pursuant to the Maryland Credit Grantor Closed End Credit Provisions (CLEC), Md. Code Ann., Com. Law 12-1001 et seq. The district court concluded that federal regulations preempted relevant portions of the CLEC and that the retail sales installment contract signed by plaintiff and Chase's predecessor in interest did not mandate that Chase comply with the CLEC. The court held that the district court erred in concluding that the CLEC was preempted by the National Bank Act (NBA), 12 U.S.C. 1 et seq., or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) regulations. The court also held that the district court erred in dismissing plaintiff's breach of contract claim and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff commenced a putative class action against Bloomberg alleging a violation of General Obligations Law 5-901 and 5-903; breach of contract; unjust enrichment; negligent misrepresentation; violation of General Business Law 349; and sought declaratory and injunctive relief. The Appellate Division subsequently granted Bloomberg's motion to dismiss plaintiff's complaint in its entirety. The court affirmed, holding that, even affording plaintiff every favorable inference, when reviewing the pleadings and factual allegations of his complaint, plaintiff's failure to identify a cognizable injury proved fatal to his action against Bloomberg.

Plaintiff filed a putative class action against M&T Bank, alleging that it improperly charged its checking account customers overdraft fees. The district court denied M&T Bank's renewed motion to compel arbitration, finding that plaintiff's claims were not within the scope of the parties' arbitration agreement. The court held that, under the delegation provision, the decision of whether plaintiff's claims were within the scope of the arbitration agreement was a decision for an arbitrator, and the district court erred in making the decision itself. Further, the court believed that it was prudent for the district court to reconsider its unconscionability determination in light of AT&T Mobility LLC v. Conception, so the court did not reach whether the arbitration agreement was unconscionable. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded.

Plaintiffs, current and former customers of AT&T, filed a class action against AT&T, alleging unjust enrichment and and breach of contract. AT&T responded by seeking to enforce an arbitration agreement contained in its contracts with plaintiffs. The district court refused to enforce the arbitration agreement on state-law unconscionability grounds, relying primarily on the agreement's class-action waiver provision. The court reversed the district court's substantive unconscionability ruling where the FAA preempted the Washington state law invalidating the class-action waiver. The court remanded for further proceedings related to plaintiffs' procedural unconscionability claims for the district court to apply Washington choice-of-law rules.