Justia Business Law Opinion Summaries

In April 2012, Plaintiff-Appellee Brandon Barrick filed a qui tam action against his then-employer, Defendant-Appellant Parker-Migliorini International LLC (PMI). Barrick alleged violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) and amended his complaint to include a claim that PMI unlawfully retaliated against him under the FCA. PMI was a meat exporting company based in Utah. While working for PMI, Barrick noticed two practices he believed were illegal. The first was the “Japan Triangle”: PMI exported beef to Costa Rica to a company which repackaged it, then sent it to Japan (Japan had been concerned about mad cow disease from U.S. beef). The second was the “LSW Channel”: PMI informed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) it was shipping beef to Moldova on a shipping certificate, but sent it to Hong Kong. Then, according to Barrick, PMI smuggled the beef into China (China was not then accepting U.S. beef). Barrick brought his concerns to Steve Johnson, PMI’s CFO, at least three times, telling Johnson that he was not comfortable with the practices. By October, the FBI raided PMI's office. Barrick was terminated from PMI in November 2012, as part of a company-wide reduction in force (RIF). PMI claimed the RIF was needed because in addition to the FBI raid, problems with exports and bank lines of credit put a financial strain on the company. Nine employees were terminated as part of the RIF. PMI claims it did not learn about Barrick’s cooperation with the FBI until October 2014, when the DOJ notified PMI of this qui tam action. A jury found that PMI retaliated against Barrick for his engagement in protected activity under the FCA when it terminated his employment. On appeal, PMI argued the district court improperly denied its motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL). In the alternative, PMI argued the Tenth Circuit court should order a new trial based on either the district court’s erroneous admission of evidence or an erroneous jury instruction. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed on all issues. View "Barrick v. Parker-Migliorini International" on Justia Law

Ceska zbrojovka Defence SE (“CZ Czech”) was a firearms manufacturer based in the Czech Republic. To do business in the United States, it had several subsidiaries, including CZ USA, CZ Czech’s Kansas-based subsidiary. Vista Outdoor, Inc. was a Minnesota company that designed, manufactured, and marketed outdoor recreation and shooting products. In November 2018, Vista and CZ Czech entered into an expense reimbursement agreement covering CZ Czech’s potential acquisition of a Vista firearm brand. Under the contract, Vista was obligated to reimburse CZ Czech for certain reasonable expenses in connection with its evaluation and negotiation of the proposed transaction. Even though the sale was not consummated, Vista refused CZ Czech’s subsequent reimbursement demands. CZ USA, not CZ Czech, filed a federal diversity action in the District of Kansas against Vista for breach of contract. The "twist" was that there was no contract between CZ USA and Vista, nor was CZ USA a beneficiary of the contract. CZ Czech, soon realizing the mistake, attempted to amend the complaint under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and substitute itself as the party-plaintiff. The district court declined, finding that the original complaint controlled and that CZ USA, as a non-party to the contract, lacked standing to sue, meaning the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the dispute. To this, the Tenth Circuit concurred and affirmed: the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction and correctly dismissed the lawsuit. View "Ceska Zbrojovka Defence SE ("CZ") v. Vista Outdoor" on Justia Law

StreetMedia and Turnpike Media were companies that are in the sign business: owners of billboards and other advertising signs. They contended that Colorado’s regulatory scheme violated the First Amendment because it treated billboards, so-called “advertising devices,” differently depending on whether the message was paid for or not. The district court disagreed and dismissed the case. Applying recent Supreme Court precedent, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed: Colorado’s signage act was a constitutionally permissible policy choice—it furthered Colorado’s objectives of promoting roadside safety and aesthetics. View "StreetMediaGroup, et al. v. Stockinger, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal centered on claims for securities fraud against Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., and four of its executives. Spirit produced components for jetliners, including Boeing’s 737 MAX. But Boeing stopped producing the 737 MAX, and Spirit’s sales tumbled. At about the same time, Spirit acknowledged an unexpected loss from inadequate accounting controls. After learning about Spirit’s downturn in sales and the inadequacies in accounting controls, some investors sued Spirit and four executives for securities fraud. The district court dismissed the suit, and the investors appealed. "For claims involving securities fraud, pleaders bear a stiff burden when alleging scienter." In the Tenth Circuit's view, the investors did not satisfy that burden, so it affirmed the dismissal. View "Meitav Dash Provident Funds and Pension Ltd., et al. v. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, et al." on Justia Law

For decades, Johns Manville Corp. ("JM") was the sole domestic manufacturer and supplier of calcium silicate (or “calsil”), a substance used to make thermal pipe insulation. In March 2018, Chase Manufacturing, Inc. (doing business as Thermal Pipe Shields, Inc., or "TPS") challenged JM’s monopoly status by entering the calsil market with a superior and less expensive product. JM responded by threatening distributors that it would not sell to them if they bought TPS’s competing calsil. By August 2021, more than three years after TPS’s market entry, JM retained over 97% of the domestic calsil market. TPS sued under the Sherman Act, alleging that JM had unlawfully: (1) maintained its monopoly; and (2) tied the availability of its insulation products to distributors’ not buying TPS’s calsil. The district court granted summary judgment for JM. Though the Tenth Circuit affirmed some of the district court’s rulings, it held that the district court erred in finding no genuine issues of material fact on whether JM unlawfully maintained its monopoly after TPS’s market entry. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Chase Manufacturing v. Johns Manville Corporation" on Justia Law

Appellants were salespersons who sold solar lenses to investors on behalf of RaPower-3, LLC, International Automated Systems, Inc. (“IAS”), LTB1, LLC and their subsidiaries (collectively, the “Receivership Entities”). Appellants appealed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of R. Wayne Klein, the Receiver who controlled the Receivership Entities. In an adjunct action, the government filed suit against Receivership Defendants Nelson Johnson and R. Gregory Shepard for allegedly operating a fraudulent and unlawful solar energy tax scheme in which they encouraged investors to take federal tax deductions for purchasing defunct solar technology. The district court enjoined the entities from continuing to promote the scheme, ordered disgorgement of their gross receipts, and appointed Klein as the Receiver with full control of their assets and business operations. The Receiver then filed suits against individuals and entities (including Appellants) that were paid commissions for selling the Receiver Defendants’ solar lenses to investors. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Receiver on his claims. Appellants appealed, arguing the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the Receiver’s Uniform Voidable Transaction Act (“UTVA”) claim, as Appellants allegedly gave reasonably equivalent value for the commissions they received. They also claimed the court’s disgorgement order was improper. Finding no reversible error, however, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment. View "Klein v. Roe" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Zubair Kazi, through co-plaintiff KFC of Pueblo, Inc., owned the only Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Pueblo, Colorado. In 2019 Defendant KFC US, LLC licensed a second Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Pueblo. Kazi believed that KFC acted improperly in how it went about licensing this second restaurant and sued KFC for breach of contract, bad faith (breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing), promissory estoppel, and unjust enrichment. His lawsuit went to trial on his bad-faith claim only, and the jury found in his favor. KFC appealed. The Tenth Circuit held that Kazi’s claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing was barred by Kentucky law because KFC’s alleged bad faith did not undermine any benefit or protection afforded to Kazi by his franchise agreement with KFC. The court therefore vacated the judgment and remanded for entry of judgment in favor of KFC and against Kazi and KFC of Pueblo, Inc. View "Kazi, et al. v. KFC US" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellee Baker Hughes Services International, LLC, after winning an Ecuadorian arbitration against the Ecuador-based Pesago Consortium, secured an arbitral award enforceable jointly and severally against the Consortium’s two members: Defendant and third-party Campo Puma Oriente S.A. Plaintiff then brought its award to Oklahoma and sued Defendant to confirm the award in the United States. Plaintiff again prevailed, and the district court entered judgment against Defendant for the award’s amount, prejudgment interest, and attorney’s fees. Defendant challenged the enforcement of the arbitration award, arguing: (1) the U.S. district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to confirm the award; (2) the district court should not have confirmed the award because the parties never agreed to arbitrate their dispute; and (3) the district court improperly awarded attorney’s fees and incorrectly calculated prejudgment interest. After its review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed affirm everything except the district court’s award of prejudgment interest, which was vacated and remanded for the district court to reconsider. View "Baker Hughes Services International v. Joshi Technologies International" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Vitamins Online, Inc. believed that its competitor, Defendant Heartwise, Inc. (d/b/a NatureWise), was misrepresenting the ingredients of its competitive nutritional supplements and manipulating those products’ Amazon reviews. Vitamins Online sued for violations of the Lanham Act and Utah’s common law Unfair Competition Law. The case proceeded to a bench trial, at the conclusion of which the district court ruled for Vitamins Online and ordered disgorgement of NatureWise’s profits for 2012 and 2013. The court also awarded Vitamins Online attorney fees and costs for NatureWise’s willful misrepresentation and for various discovery abuses. Both parties appealed. NatureWise contended the district court erred in finding that it made false or misleading representations about its own nutritional supplements’ ingredients and its Amazon reviews. NatureWise further asserted the district court erred in concluding that Vitamins Online was entitled to a presumption of injury for these misrepresentations. Vitamins Online contended the district court erred in bifurcating Vitamins Online’s injury into two separate time periods and requiring Vitamins Online to prove that a presumption of injury was applicable separately for each period. Vitamins Online also argued the district court erred in denying disgorgement for the second time period, and for failing to consider an award of punitive damages and an injunction as to NatureWise’s further manipulation of reviews. The Tenth Circuit concluded the district court did not clearly err in applying a presumption of injury, and affirmed the award of profits, attorney fees, and costs, and found no reversable error in the amount awarded. The Court also held the district court failed to consider properly Vitamins Online’s request for punitive damages and an injunction; the Court remanded for the district court to reconsider. View "Vitamins Online, Inc. v. HeartWise, Inc." on Justia Law

This appeal concerns a trademark dispute between two credit unions: “Elevate Federal Credit Union” and “Elevations Credit Union.” Elevate sued for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement, and Elevations counterclaimed for trademark infringement under the Lanham Act. The parties proffered expert witnesses and challenged the admissibility of the adversary’s expert testimony. The district court excluded opinion testimony by Elevations’ expert witness and granted summary judgment to Elevate on its claim for a declaratory judgment and on Elevations’ counterclaim. Elevations appealed these rulings. The appeal presented two issues for the Tenth Circuit's resolution: (1) whether the district court acted within its discretion when disallowing Elevations' expert testimony because Elevations failed to disclose information that the expert witness considered; and (2) whether the marks belong to credit unions with differing eligibility restrictions in distinct geographic markets, could the presence of some similarities create a likelihood of confusion. The Tenth Circuit concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion in disallowing the expert testimony, and the differing eligibility restrictions in differing markets did not create a likelihood of confusion. View "Elevate Federal Credit Union v. Elevations Credit Union" on Justia Law