Justia Contracts Opinion Summaries

Petitioner Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) announced plans to list futures contracts based on the Cboe Volatility Index, more commonly known as the “VIX Index.” The following year, the SEC and the CFTC issued a joint order “excluding certain indexes comprised of options on broad-based security indexes”—including the VIX—“from the definition of the term narrow-based security index.” The petition, in this case, challenged the SEC’s 2020 order treating SPIKES futures as futures.   The DC Circuit granted the petition. The court explained that the SEC did not adequately explain why SPIKES futures must be regulated as futures to promote competition with VIX futures. However, the court wrote that while it vacates the Commission’s order, it will withhold issuance of our mandate for three calendar months to allow market participants sufficient time to wind down existing SPIKES futures transactions with offsetting transactions. The court explained that the Exemptive Order never mentions the futures disclosures. And at any rate, those disclosures only partially fill the void left by the absence of the Disclosure Statement. As with the Exemptive Order’s exceptions and conditions, the futures disclosures do not address any number of matters covered by the Disclosure Statement. And even when the two sets of disclosures overlap, the Disclosure Statement tends to provide much greater detail than the futures disclosures. View "Cboe Futures Exchange, LLC v. SEC" on Justia Law

PayPal users can transfer money to businesses and people; they can donate to charities through the Giving Fund, its 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Kass created a PayPal account and accepted PayPal’s 2004 User Agreement, including a non-mandatory arbitration clause and allowing PayPal to amend the Agreement at any time by posting the amended terms on its website. In 2012 PayPal amended the Agreement, adding a mandatory arbitration provision. Users could opt out until December 2012. In 2016, PayPal sent emails to Kass encouraging her to make year-end donations. Kass donated $3,250 to 13 charities through the Giving Fund website. Kass alleges she later learned that only three of those charities actually received her gifts; none knew that Kass had made the donations. Kass claims that, although Giving Fund created profile pages for these charities, it would transfer donated funds only to charities that created a PayPal “business” account; otherwise PayPal would “redistribute” the funds to similar charities.Kass and a charity to which she had donated filed a purported class action. The district court granted a motion to compel arbitration, then affirmed the arbitrator’s decision in favor of the defendants. The Seventh Circuit vacated. In concluding that Kass had consented to the amended Agreement, the district court erred by deciding a disputed issue of fact that must be decided by a trier of fact: whether Kass received notice of the amended Agreement and implicitly agreed to the new arbitration clause. View "Kass v. PayPal Inc." on Justia Law

A healthcare provider contended it was underpaid for substance abuse treatment that it rendered to 29 patients. Seeking to recover the difference directly from the insurance company, the provider filed suit alleging the insurer entered into binding payment agreements during verification of benefits and authorization calls with the provider and otherwise misrepresented or concealed the amounts it would pay for treatment. The trial court entered summary judgment against the provider. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the court did not err in determining one or more elements of the provider’s causes of action could not be established. View "Aton Center v. United Healthcare Ins. Co." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court held that Arizona law does not permit an insurer to challenge the validity of a life insurance policy based on a lack of insurable interest after the expiration of the two-year contestability period required by Ariz. Rev. Stat. 20-1204.Columbus Life Insurance Policy, which issued a life insurance policy on the lives of Howard and Eunice Peterson, filed a lawsuit following the Petersons' death seeking a declaratory judgment that the policy was unenforceable and seeking to retain the premiums. Wilmington Trust N.A., which was designated as the owner of the policy, filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that Columbus could not challenge the policy's validity in light of the incontestability provision in the provision and section 20-1204. The federal district court certified to the Supreme Court the question of whether Columbus could challenge the policy's validity. The Supreme Court answered the question in the negative, holding that section 20-1204 allows challenges to the validity of the policy after the incontestability period only for nonpayment of premiums. View "Columbus Life Insurance Co. v. Wilmington Trust, N.A." on Justia Law

Petitioners Rick Hendrick Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram (Rick Hendrick Dodge) and Isiah White argued an arbitrator had to decide whether they could enforce an arbitration provision in a contract even after that contract had been assigned to a third party. The court of appeals rejected this argument and affirmed the circuit court's determinations that: (1) the circuit court was the proper forum for deciding the gateway question of whether the dispute is arbitrable; and (2) Petitioners could not compel arbitration because Rick Hendrick Dodge assigned the contract to a third party. The South Carolina Supreme Court held that the doctrine announced in Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 395 (1967) required the arbitrator to decide whether the assignment extinguished Petitioners' right to compel arbitration. Therefore, the Court reversed the court of appeals' decision and vacated the circuit court's discovery order. View "Sanders v. Savannah Highway Automotive Company" on Justia Law

In 2007, Defendant PHL Variable Insurance Company issued two life-insurance policies to Plaintiff Catholic Charities of Southwest Kansas, Inc. on the lives of Elwyn Liebl and John Killeen. Both policies guaranteed Plaintiff, as their named beneficiary, $400,000 upon the insureds’ death. Between 2013 and 2014, Defendant sent Plaintiff grace notices for both policies and demanded premium payments. Plaintiff believed the demanded premium payments were too high and that the grace notices were defective and untimely under the policies. So Plaintiff did not pay the requested premiums. Because Plaintiff did not pay the requested premiums, Defendant sent cancellation notices, informing Plaintiff that both policies had lapsed. In 2016, the insureds died. Plaintiff sought payment of benefits under both policies. Defendant declined, believing that it terminated Plaintiff’s policies for nonpayment of premiums two to three years earlier. In 2020, Plaintiff sued Defendant in the District of Kansas for failure to pay the death benefits under both policies. Defendant moved to dismiss both claims, arguing that Kansas’s five-year statute of limitations for breach of contract actions bars them. According to Defendant, the statute of limitations began to run in 2013 and 2014 when it informed Plaintiff that it was terminating the policies. In response, Plaintiff asserted that Defendant first breached both insurance contracts when it failed to pay the benefits upon the insureds’ death in 2016 because Defendant never successfully terminated the policies. The district court agreed with Defendant and dismissed Plaintiff’s claims as untimely. The appeal this case presented for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on a question of when the statute of limitations for a breach of contract claim alleging the wrongful termination of a life insurance contract began to run under Kansas law: if the limitations period began when Defendant acted to terminate Plaintiff’s policies, the district court correctly dismissed Plaintiff’s complaint; if the limitations period began when Plaintiff’s death benefits became due, the district court erred. Finding the district court did not err in dismissing Plaintiff's claims, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Catholic Charities of Southwest Kansas v. PHL Variable Insurance Company" on Justia Law

In this appeal from the district court, Plaintiffs A.A. and Kirk Amos Delivery and Courier, LLC (“Kirk Delivery”) challenged an order of the district court compelling the arbitration of various claims that Plaintiffs seek to pursue against Amazon Logistics, Inc. (“Amazon”).  Conceding that each of their claims against Amazon falls within the scope of a binding commercial contract made between Kirk Delivery and Amazon in 2019 — and that an arbitration clause governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”) is set forth within that contract — Plaintiffs contend, in relevant part, that arbitration is not required due to the FAA’s exemption for “contracts of employment” with “transportation workers.”   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment. The court held that the binding commercial contract is a business services deal struck between two corporate entities, not a “contract of employment” — the FAA’s so-called “transportation worker” exemption is inapplicable in these circumstances. The FAA thus mandates arbitration of all Plaintiffs’ claims. View "Ahaji Amos v. Amazon Logistics, INC." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the appellate court affirming the judgment of the superior court dismissing for lack of jurisdiction High Watch Recovery Center, Inc.'s administrative appeal challenging the decision of the Department of Public Health approving a certificate of need application submitted by Birch Hill Recovery Center, LLC, holding that the appellate court erred.Birch Hill submitted a certificate of need application to the Office of Health Care Access requesting public approval to establish a substance abuse treatment facility in Kent. The Department and Birch Hill entered into an agreed settlement constituting a final order wherein the Department approved Birch Hill's application subject to certain conditions. High Watch, which operated a nonprofit substance abuse treatment facility, intervened and appealed the final order. The superior court dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the Department's decision was not a final decision in a contested case and that High Watch was not aggrieved by the decision. The appellate court affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the appellate court did not err in determining that High Watch's petition requesting intervenor status in the public hearing on Birch Hill's certificate of need application was not a legal sufficient request for a public hearing for the purposes of Conn. Gen. Stat. 19a-639a(e). View "High Watch Recovery Center, Inc. v. Dep't of Public Health" on Justia Law

Kendall Hunt Publishing Company (Kendall Hunt) filed suit against The Learning Tree Publishing Corporation (Learning Tree) in district court in Iowa, where Kendall Hunt is located. The complaint alleged, as relevant here, claims of copyright infringement, tortious interference with contract, and unfair competition. The district court1 granted Learning Tree’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, concluding that the California corporation lacked minimum contacts with Iowa.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that Learning Tree’s contacts with Iowa were as follows: it maintains a nationally available website through which an Iowa resident purchased the allegedly infringing work. This conduct was not “uniquely or expressly aimed at” Iowa, however, particularly in light of the fact that Learning Tree did not advertise in Iowa and its litigation-anticipated sale to a Kendall Hunt employee occurred in Iowa. Although Kendall Hunt argued in its brief that this online sale was sufficient to create jurisdiction in Iowa, our court subsequently decided on similar facts that a single online sale did not establish personal jurisdiction over Defendant. The remaining specific-jurisdiction analysis factors do not tip the balance in Kendall Hunt’s favor. The court concluded that because Learning Tree’s connections with Iowa were not such that it would reasonably have anticipated being haled into court there, the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over the corporation. View "Kendall Hunt Publishing Company v. The Learning Tree Publishing Corporation" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals in this case concerning whether Apache Corporation breached its purchase-and-sale agreements (PSAs) with Sellers, holding the court of appeals erred by failing to apply the default common-law rule of contractual construction to the parties' dispute and incorrectly construed other contractual provisions at issue.In the PSAs at issue, Sellers sold seventy-five percent of their working interests in 109 oil-and-gas leases to Apache. The trial court rendered final judgment for Apache on the grounds that Sellers had no evidence of damages and could not prevail on their claims. The court of appeals reversed in part. At issue was whether the default rule for treating contracts that use the words "from" or "after" a specified date to measure a length of time should be applied in this case. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals as to the issues that the parties presented for review, holding that the parties' agreement in this case implicated the default rule without displacing it. View "Apache Corp. v. Apollo Exploration, LLC" on Justia Law