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Case Summaries

Injury & Tort Law

[11/19] McDonald v. Sun Oil Co.
In a suit arising out of the sale of a property containing a disused mercury mine, alleging negligence, contribution, breach of contract and fraud as a result of an alleged oral warranty that certain rock at the mine was free of mercury, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the state statute of repose did not render the negligence claim time-barred, because provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act amending state statute of limitations rules also applied to statutes of repose; 2) the contribution claim could not be brought without remedial action having been initiated by a state environmental agency; 3) the parol evidence rule was properly applied to find that the parties had reduced their entire agreement to writing and that no binding oral warranty existed; and 4) plaintiffs did not produce evidence of the alleged falsity of statements made by defendant.

[11/19] Bregin v. Liquidebt Sys., Inc
In a suit alleging retaliatory discharge and tortious interference with employment, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff did not identify any illegal acts which he was asked to commit, for which a retaliation claim could be brought; 2) state law did not provide a whistleblower exception to the employment-at-will doctrine; and 3) plaintiff did not make out a claim for tortious interference.

[11/17] Goldstein v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles
In a claim alleging that defendants wrongfully obtained plaintiff's conviction for murder based on their pattern and practice of misusing the testimony of jailhouse informants, grant of plaintiff's Penal Code section 924.2 petition seeking access to grand jury materials is reversed where California courts do not have a broad inherent power to order disclosure of grand jury materials to private litigants.

[11/17] The Ohio Casualty Ins. Co. v. Holcim (US), Inc.
In a claim for contractual indemnification related to settlement of a tort claim, the court certified the following questions: 1) whether, under Alabama law, an indemnitee may enforce an indemnification provision and recover damages from an indemnitor resulting from the combined or concurrent fault or negligence of the indemnitee and indemnitor; and 2) whether, under Alabama law, a court may look behind (or beyond) the pleadings (in particular, the complaint) of an underlying tort action in determining the application of an indemnification provision between an indemnitor and indemnitee.

[11/17] US v. Shefton
Dismissal of petition for an ancillary hearing regarding interest in certain property that was subject to a criminal forfeiture order is reversed where a construct trust can serve as a superior legal interest under section 853(n)(6)(A) and thus can serve as grounds for invalidating a criminal forfeiture act.

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Health Law

[11/19] Mission Hosp. Reg'l Med. Ctr. v. Shewry
In an action brought by over 100 state hospitals alleging section 32 of Senate Bill No. 1103, which froze reimbursement rates paid to noncontract hospitals for inpatient services during the state's 2004-2005 fiscal year, violated the Medicaid Act and that the Department of Health Care Services violated federal Medicaid regulation and state and federal protections, judgment rejecting most of plaintiffs' claims is reversed and remanded where: 1) the federal statute requiring notice and comment procedures applied to the state's action; 2) the state's process did not satisfy the federal statute; and 3) the trial court erred in its ruling under section (13)(A).

[11/19] Assoc. of Irritated Residents v. San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control Dist.
Denial of writ of mandate is reversed and defendant is ordered to complete an assessment on the public health impacts of the rule 4570, which requires large confined animal facilities to choose from a variety of mitigation measures with the goal of reducing VOC emissions, where: 1) rule 4570 was adopted without conducting an adequate assessment of its impact on public health, as mandated by Health and Safety Code section 40724.6; 2) section 40724.6 was intended to address the district's failure to meet federal and state ambient air quality standards for ozone and does not regulate ammonia emissions produced by large confined animal facilities; and 3) the district's findings were not arbitrary and capricious.

[11/18] Phillips v. Mathews
In a suit alleging interference and retaliation by a state-government employer in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff had given proper notice to her employer that she required FMLA leave, but this disputed fact was not material since plaintiff did not produce sufficient evidence to demonstrate that her termination was related to her FMLA leave; and 2) plaintiff had exercised rights under FMLA sufficient to subsequently bring a retaliation claim when she was terminated, but defendant demonstrated that she had been terminated for non-FMLA reasons.

[11/18] IMS Health Inc. and Verispan, LLC v. Ayotte, New Hampshire Attorney Gen.
A district court's finding that a state law, which prohibits certain transfers of physicians' prescribing histories for use in detailing, unconstitutionally abridged free speech, is reversed and the injunction against enforcement of the Prescription Information Law is vacated where: 1) regulated data transfers did not embody restrictions on protected speech under the First Amendment; 2) the state law regulated conduct, not speech; and 3) even if the Prescription Information Law amounted to a regulation of protected speech, it passed constitutional muster.

[11/17] Rhode Island Hosp. v. Leavitt
Grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiff-hospital regarding calculation of full time equivalent (FTE) residents for purposes of determining the indirect medical education (IME) adjustment owed to the defendant-hospital, is reversed and remanded where the the Secretary of Health and Human Services' finding that the IME payment was only intended to reimburse teaching hospitals for increased patient care costs and that residents performing educational research were not assigned to an eligible area of the hospital under the governing FTE regulation was not "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law."

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