Justia Contracts Opinion Summaries

The Oklahoma Supreme Court accepted a certified question of state law from the Tenth Circuit federal appellate court. Two excess insurers for the Grand River Dame Authority (GRDA) had a dispute concerning the application of equitable subrogation. The question centered on whether a second-level excess insurer could invoke equitable subrogation to recover money it became liable to pay because of an agreement GRDA had with its first-level insurer. GRDA and the first-level insurer agreed to include losses under a policy that was outside that policy's year and that triggered the second-level insurer's coverage for that year. Upon review, the Oklahoma Court held that the second-level insurer could invoke equitable subrogation notwithstanding GRDA's release of the first level insurer. View "Steadfast Insurance Co. v. Agricultural Ins. Co" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, injured on an oil and gas rig, filed suit against various third parties - including TESCO and TESCO employee Jeffrey Anderson - after recovering workers' compensation benefits from his employer, DeSoto. SWE was the owner/operator of the oil and gas well. The court concluded that the SWE contract did not establish that the common law duty of care Anderson owed plaintiff extended to preventing unforeseen injuries caused by DeSoto's failure to follow SWE's safety rules; Anderson and TESCO had no duty to foresee that injury to a DeSoto employee would occur because other DeSoto employees not under defendants' control had failed to exercise their duty of care; ordinary care did not require Anderson to foresee that his encouraging word would cause a DeSoto driller to do something he had not already decided, indeed, been ordered to do; and the amount of encouragement Anderson gave the DeSoto driller was insubstantial. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in striking an expert report submitted by plaintiff and in denying the motion to amend. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Williams v. Chartis Casualty Co. et al." on Justia Law

Triple A, a Michigan corporation, has offices in Dearborn, Michigan, the Congo (previously known as Zaire), and Sierra Leone. In 1993, Zaire ordered military equipment worth $14,070,000 from Triple A. A South Korean manufacturer shipped the equipment to Zaire at Triple A’s request. For 17 years, Triple A sought payment from Zaire and then the Congo without success. In 2010, Triple A sued the Congo for breach of contract. The district court dismissed the case, citing lack of jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1602. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, citing the language of the Act, under which federal courts have jurisdiction “in any case in which the action is based upon” the following: [1] a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state; or [2] upon an act performed in the United States in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere; or [3] upon an act outside the territory of the United States in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere and that act causes a direct effect in the United States. View "Triple A Int'l, Inc. v. Democratic Republic of the Congo" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Hawaii non-profit corporation, entered into a lease agreement with Defendant, the trustee of a trust. Plaintiff subsequently began renting cabins on the property to the public. After a dispute arose between the parties regarding the terms of the lease, Plaintiff filed a complaint in the circuit court seeking a declaratory judgment that its commercial uses of the property and rental of cabins to the public was permitted under the lease, among other things. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendant on Plaintiff's claim regarding cabin rentals but granted summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff on Defendant's counterclaims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. The intermediate court of appeals (ICA) vacated summary judgment as to the issue of cabin rentals. The Supreme Court (1) affirmed the ICA regarding cabin rentals, holding that the portion of the lease delineating permissible uses of the property was ambiguous; and (2) reversed the ICA's judgment regarding Defendant's counterclaims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment because the issue of whether Plaintiff was prohibited by the lease from renting cabins to the general public had yet to be resolved on remand. Remanded. View "Hawaiian Ass'n of Seventh-Day Adventists v. Wong" on Justia Law

The Waikoloa Beach Villas condominium project was developed by Respondent, Sunstone Waikoloa, LLC. Petitioner, the Association of Apartment Owners of the Waikoloa Beach Villas, contacted Respondent to resolve issues resolving purported construction defects. Petitioner then filed a motion to compel mediation and arbitration. Respondent argued that it could not request arbitration because it had failed to comply with the requirements of the Declaration of Condominium Property Regime for the Villas. The Declaration imposed numerous requirements that Petitioner must meet before initiating arbitration or litigation proceedings against Respondent. The lower court granted Petitioner's motion. The intermediate court of appeals (ICA) reversed. The Supreme Court vacated in part and affirmed in part the judgment of the ICA, holding that section R.4(c) of the Declaration violated Haw. Rev. Stat. 514B-105(a) because it imposed limitations on Petitioner in arbitration or litigation more restrictive than those imposed on other persons. Remanded. View "Ass'n of Apartment Owners of Waikoloa Beach Villas v. Sunstone Waikoloa, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff entered into a plea agreement under which he pled nolo contendere to one count of lewd and lascivious acts upon a child. Plaintiff filed a plea form stating that Plaintiff must register as a sex offender under Cal. Penal Code 290. Plaintiff registered as required by section 290. The Legislature later amended the law and provided a means by which the public can obtain personal information of the State's registered sex offenders. The legislature made the public notification provisions retroactive and thus applicable to Plaintiff's conviction. Plaintiff filed a civil complaint, contending that requiring him to comply with the amended law's public notification provisions would violate his plea agreement. The district court concluded that publicly disclosing any of Plaintiff's previously confidential sex offender registration information would violate the terms of Plaintiff's plea agreement. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asked a question of the California Supreme Court, which responded by answering that under California law of contract interpretation as applicable to the interpretation of plea agreements, the fact that parties enter into a plea agreement does not have the effect of insulating them from changes in the law that the legislature intended to apply to them. View "Doe v. Harris" on Justia Law

In 2000, Gregory T. Ludlow, S. Reid Ludlow, and Jean E. Cowles entered into an exclusive listing agreement with real estate brokerage firm Gibbons-White, Inc. for the sale of approximately 131 acres of vacant land in Boulder County. Over the next seven years, the Sellers received offers from at least three different buyers to purchase portions of the land; none of the offers resulted in a completed sale. In 2007, Actis, LLC made an offer to purchase half of the land. The issue before the Supreme Court in this matter stemmed from that offer. The Court concluded that to sustain a professional malpractice claim against a transactional real estate broker, a plaintiff must show that but for the alleged negligent acts of the broker he either:(1) would have been able to obtain a better deal in the underlying transaction; or (2) would have been better off by walking away from the underlying transaction. The Court concluded that the Sellers here failed to present evidence of damages because they did not establish beyond mere speculation they suffered a financial loss because of the transactional brokers' professional negligence. View "Gibbons v. Ludlow" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the appellate court erred including that where reasonable attorney fees were provided for in a contract, and the judgment based on that contract was reduced by a counterclaim arising out of the transaction, the trial court must apportion the fees according to the amount recovered on the contract less the amount received in the counterclaim. The Court concluded that under the circumstances of this case, determining whether and how to apportion fees between the parties is within the trial court's discretion, and can only be overturned by an abuse of that discretion. View "Planning Partners Int'l, LLC v. QED, Inc." on Justia Law

This case involved disputes over licensing agreements for, inter alia, the RS 3400 blood irradiation device. At issue was whether the Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction to hear an appeal of a breach of contract claim that would require the resolution of a claim of patent infringement for the complainant to succeed. The court concluded that it did not have appellate jurisdiction and resolved dispositive issues in favor of Rad Source, leaving a single dispositive issue for certification: When a licensee enters into a contract to transfer all of its interests in a license agreement for an entire term of a license agreement, save one day, but remains liable to the licensor under the license agreement, is the contract an assignment of the license agreement, or is the contract a sublicense? View "MDS (Canada) Inc., et al. v. Rad Source Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

The Canal Authority appealed the district court's decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Interior, Bureau, San Luis, and Wetlands, in a suit to establish priority water rights under Central Valley Project (CVP) water service contracts. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, holding that all claims arising before February 11, 2004 were time-barred and that Canal Authority was not entitled to priority water allocation under the CVP contracts. The court affirmed the district court's decision on the alternative basis that California Water Code 11460 did not require the Bureau to provide CVP contractors priority water rights, because contracts between the Canal Authority and Bureau contained provisions that specifically address allocation of water during shortage periods. View "Tehama-Colusa Canal Auth. v. U.S. Dept. of Interior" on Justia Law