Justia Contracts Opinion Summaries

A Reinsurance Participation Agreement (RPA) executed by AUCRA and Minnieland was an insurance contract under Virginia law. The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not violate the court's prior mandate by looking at the EquityComp program as a whole; the RPA and insurance policies constituted an integrated transaction and must be read as one contract; and the integrated contract was a contract of insurance under Virginia Code 38.2–312. Finally, the court noted that it was not the first to determine that the program marketed by Applied Underwriters was insurance. View "Minnieland Private Day School v. Applied Underwriters Captive Risk Assurance Co." on Justia Law

AirFacts appealed the district court's judgment for defendant on AirFacts' breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets claims. Determining that it had jurisdiction, the court held that AirFacts did not abandon its claim under Paragraph 4.2 of the Employment Agreement and vacated as to this issue. In regard to the breach of contract claim, the court held that there was no legal error in the district court's conclusion that defendant did not misappropriate the Proration Documents in emailing them to himself for continued AirFacts business. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "AirFacts, Inc. v. De Amezaga" on Justia Law

Optometrists across the country noticed that Chase Amazon Visa credit card accounts had been fraudulently opened in their names, using correct social security numbers and birthdates. The victims discussed the thefts in Facebook groups dedicated to optometrists and determined that the only common source to which they had given their personal information was NBEO, where every graduating optometry student submits personal information to sit for board-certifying exams. NBEO released a Facebook statement that its “information systems [had] NOT been compromised.” Two days later, NBEO stated that it had decided to further investigate. Three weeks later, NBEO posted “a cryptic message stating its internal review was still ongoing.” NBEO advised the victims to “remain vigilant in checking their credit.” Victims filed suit under the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(2). The district court dismissed for lack of standing. The Fourth Circuit vacated. These plaintiffs allege that they have already suffered actual harm in the form of identity theft and credit card fraud; they have been concretely injured by the use or attempted use of their personal information to open credit card accounts without their knowledge or approval. There is no need to speculate on whether substantial harm will occur. The complaints contain allegations demonstrating that it is both plausible and likely that a breach of NBEO’s database resulted in the fraudulent use of the plaintiffs’ personal information. View "Hutton v. National Board of Examiners in Optometry, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Cadrillion, Legacy North Carolina, and James Yuhas, alleging claims for breach of contract, conversion, abuse of process, and unfair and deceptive trade practices. The Fourth Circuit held that, by failing to pay the Call Price owed under the Agreement, Cadrillion breached a duty it assumed only as a result of that contract. Therefore, the economic loss rule applied and Cadrillion and Yuhas were entitled to judgment as a matter of law on plaintiffs' conversion claim. Because the court reversed as to the conversion claim, leaving plaintiffs with only a breach of contract claim, the court must also reverse the punitive damages award. Because the court reversed on the conversion claim and remanded for a new trial on contract damages, the results obtained and extent to which plaintiffs prevailed may substantially change. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's grant of attorneys' fees and remanded for the district court to reassess the proper amount of fees. The court also held that the district court did not err in granting judgment as a matter of law in favor of Cadrillion and Yuhas on the abuse of process claim. Finally, the court affirmed the district court's judgment on the abuse of process and unfair and deceptive trade practices claim. View "Legacy Data Access, Inc. v. Cadrillion, LLC" on Justia Law

Rather than broadcasting in real time over satellite or cable, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) stores programming on servers and delivers content digitally over a high-speed network. Sky received third-party content at its satellite substation, transcoded it, and transmitted it to NeuLion’s servers via a private line. NeuLion sent the encoded signals over the public internet to subscribers’ set-top boxes, relying on third-party internet connections. Sky wanted Discovery programming. Sky stated it would not transmit Discovery content over the public internet. Discovery’s engineer advised that while it was possible to use a closed fiber-optic network, he had “concerns that it may be going over the Internet” which could present “rights issues.” The final agreement described "a multichannel video distribution system which utilizes Internet Protocol (IP) technology to deliver video programming services over a closed and encrypted transmission path over a national fiber-optic network to a central location for subsequent distribution of such video programming services with proprietary encoding over a high-speed data connection to set-top-boxes that are secured by industry-standard encryption and conditional access technologies and are connected to Subscribers’ television sets." Discovery terminated the contract after learning Sky used the “public internet.” The court held the agreement was susceptible to competing reasonable interpretations concerning the scope of Sky’s distribution rights, examined extrinsic evidence, and found no support for Sky’s claim that the contract permitted public internet distribution. The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The contract allowed Discovery to terminate at any time it became dissatisfied with Sky ’s method of distribution; Discovery did not act in bad faith. View "Sky Angel U.S., LLC v. Discovery Communications, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against Saber, alleging that defendants failed to deliver contractually promised care and failed to comply with certain state law requirements. After removal to federal court, the district court granted plaintiffs' motion to remand to state court based on the forum selection clause in plaintiffs' contracts. The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded for further proceedings and factual development on the question of whether all of the defendants were bound by the forum selection clause contained in the contracts executed by plaintiffs. In this case, although the plain language of the forum selection clause precluded removal, a question remains as to whether all of the defendants were alter egos or otherwise bound by the clause. View "Bartels v. Saber Healthcare Group, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Simply Wireless, Inc. appealed a district court order dismissing its complaint against Defendants T-Mobile US, Inc. and T-Mobile USA, Inc. (collectively, “T-Mobile”). Upon determining that the parties’ business relationship was governed by a written agreement containing a mandatory arbitration clause, the district court went on to determine that the scope of that arbitration clause included all of Simply Wireless’s claims against T-Mobile. After review, the Fourth Circuit concluded the district court erred in determining the scope of the parties’ arbitration clause, as the parties "clearly and unmistakably" intended for an arbitrator to resolve all arbitrability disputes. Nonetheless, because the parties intended for an arbitrator to resolve all arbitrability disputes, the district court’s ultimate dismissal of Simply Wireless’s complaint in favor of arbitration was proper. Accordingly, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal, but on alternate grounds. View "Simply Wireless, Inc. v. T-Mobile US, Inc." on Justia Law

This case arose out of competition in the market for software used to manage and analyze large and complex datasets. SAS filed suit against WPL, alleging that WPL breached a license agreement for SAS software and violated copyrights on that software. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment finding WPL liable for beach of the license agreement, holding that the contractual terms at issue were unambiguous and that SAS has shown that WPL violated those terms. The court vacated the portion of the district court's ruling on the copyright claim and remanded with instructions to dismiss it as moot. View "SAS Institute, Inc. v. World Programming Ltd." on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion that SNAP breached its contract with plaintiff by refusing to repurchase stock options the contract granted to him, and affirmed the award of damages. The court held that the prevention doctrine was applicable in this case where SNAP materially breached the contract by failing to issue the stock options, well before plaintiff could have plausibly breached his obligation to provide the promotion and marketing assistance he had promised. The court also found no error in the district court's award of $637,867.42 in damages, agreeing with the district court's far more natural reading that "sales in calendar year 2005" referred to SNAP's actual sales in 2005. View "Cox v. Snap, Inc." on Justia Law