Law Reports

By Jeff Bater Witnesses testifying at a congressional hearing held on May 15 to explore the effectiveness of financial regulatory overhaul pointed out flaws in a key part of the landmark law designed to protect taxpayers from bailing out Wall Street behemoths. One witness testified about a proposal for a new Chapter 14– amendments to the [...]

By Sean Forbes More than two-thirds of employers with a health care plan indicated in a March survey that they will continue to offer coverage for all full-time employees in 2014, a big jump from last year, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans said May 16. The percentage of single employers that currently have plans that said [...]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) May 16 announced her strong opposition to a raft of derivative bills approved by the House Financial Services Committee May 8. The bills included H.R. 742, a bill that would remove the requirement that foreign regulators indemnify swap data repositories when accessing their data; H.R. 992, which would expand the types [...]

By Stephanie M. Acree A creditor who failed to immediately return a repossessed vehicle after learning of a debtor’s bankruptcy willfully violated the automatic stay of Bankruptcy Code Section 362, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held May 8 (Weber v. SEFCU (In re Weber), 2d Cir., No. 12-1632-bk, 5/8/13). Judge Susan L. Carney [...]

By Laura D. Francis The new, merit-based visa program proposed in the comprehensive immigration bill introduced by the Senate’s “gang of eight” has the potential to create uncertainty for employers because of the operation of the points-based system, Stephen Yale-Loehr, an attorney with Miller Mayer in Ithaca, N.Y., and professor at Cornell University Law School, said [...]

By Anandashankar Mazumdar A finding by another court that a stock photo agency did not have standing to bring copyright infringement claims based on faulty assignment contracts estopped infringement claims against an educational publisher, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled May 13 (Minden Pictures Inc. v. John Wiley & Sons Inc., N.D. [...]

Three men were arrested May 14 and charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey with defrauding an investor of approximately $6.7 million by falsely claiming to have special access to shares in Facebook Inc. (FB) prior to the entity’s initial public offering (United States v. Weinstein, D. N.J., Mag. No. 13-8148, [...]

Google Inc.’s status as a third party in Apple Inc.’s patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co. did not exempt it from the obligation to provide Apple with the search terms it used, and the custodians it checked with, to enable Apple to evaluate the sufficiency of Google’s response to a subpoena, the U.S. District Court for [...]

By Laura Mahoney SACRAMENTO, Calif.–Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said May 14 he wants to restructure and cap tax incentives available under the state Enterprise Zone program to target small businesses that hire disadvantaged workers more effectively, but said he does not support other specific tax increase proposals pending in the Legislature. At a news conference to [...]

By Stephanie M. Acree A “property dissolution agreement” entered into by two ex-spouses was found to be dischargeable because it was not a domestic support obligation May 6 by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Gatto v. Gatto (In re Gatto), M.D. Fla., No. 2:12-cv-00483-UA, 5/6/13). Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. affirmed the [...]

By Michael O. Loatman A company failed to adequately plead fraud against a former executive who allegedly took months to update his LinkedIn profile after being fired, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled May 9 (Jefferson Audio Video Sys. Inc. v. Light , W.D. Ky., No. 3:12-cv-00019, 5/9/13). Jefferson Audio Visual Systems Inc. fired [...]

By Lorraine McCarthy PHILADELPHIA–Philadelphia became the first U.S. city to offer tax credits to businesses that make health benefits available to the partners of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees, under a bill signed by Mayor Michael Nutter (D) May 9. The measure (Bill No. 130224), which was approved by a 14-3 vote of the Philadelphia [...]

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled May 8 that investors may proceed with class securities claims that virtual data room provider IntraLinks Holdings Inc.(IL) touted company strength and customer satisfaction without disclosing the impending loss of its largest customer, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (Wallace v. IntraLinks Holdings Inc., S.D.N.Y., No. 11 [...]

By Tiffany Friesen Milone A senior citizen who challenged a debt collector’s practices under state and federal debt collection law won summary judgment of his claims, as well as triple damages under a state statute penalizing defendants that target the elderly, according to an April 28 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District [...]

By Patrick Dorrian Wet Seal Inc. and a group of black store managers May 8 agreed to settle for $7.5 million claims that the company discriminates against African Americans regarding pay, promotions, and other terms of employment (Cogdell v. Wet Seal Inc., C.D. Cal., No. 8:12-cv-01138, settlement 5/8/13). The agreement would end a proposed nationwide class action under Title VII of [...]

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California May 6 allowed American International Group Inc. (AIG)to proceed with New York claims that it was fraudulently induced to purchase residential mortgage backed securities by Bank of America Corp. (BAC)division Countrywide, allegedly suffering $10 billion in losses as a result (American International Group Inc. v. Bank of [...]

By Paul Shukovsky SEATTLE–Inconsistent handling of the issue of functionality has penetrated a series of design patent cases, and courts must take action to dispel the resulting state of confusion, according to a participant in a May 2 session at the spring meeting of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. “Functionality is rearing its head,” according [...]

By Marc Heller and Aaron E. Lorenzo As the focus of a Senate-passed online sales tax bill shifted to the House, key lawmakers signaled that the Senate’s fast-track approach will not be repeated on the other side of the Capitol–if the measure survives at all. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) May 7 said he does not support the [...]

BRUSSELS–The European Commission has preliminarily reached the conclusion that Motorola Mobility broke European Union antitrust law by using mobile phone patents to block products from Apple in Germany, the commission said May 6. Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Google, enforced a court injunction against Apple despite earlier promises to let other companies have access to [...]

By Paul Stinson AUSTIN, Texas–Chapter 11 debtor American Airlines filed a reorganization plan April 15 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, outlining how the company would repay creditors with stock from the new -and renamed- American Airlines Group formed once the proposed $11 billion merger is complete (In re AMR Corp., Bankr. S.D.N.Y., [...]