Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

This case arose from the unemployment compensation claim filed by appellee Gary Powell. The Unemployment Compensation Service Center determined appellee was ineligible to receive benefits pursuant to Section 402(b) of the Unemployment Compensation Law (the UC Law) because he voluntarily quit his job with Joe Krentzman & Sons (employer), without “cause of a necessitous and compelling nature.” The Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether an attorney who has been suspended from the practice of law by the Supreme Court could represent a claimant in unemployment compensation proceedings. A divided three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court determined the claimant was entitled to his choice of representative, even if that representative was a suspended attorney, and remanded for a new hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision to remand, but reversed the Commonwealth Court’s holding that a suspended attorney may represent claimants in unemployment compensation proceedings. View "Powell v. UCBR" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the constitutionality of a collection of New York regulations and laws that together prevent for‐profit law firms from accepting capital investment from non‐lawyers. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to allege the infringement of any cognizable constitutional right. On de novo review, the court concluded that neither as a for-profit partnership nor as a professional limited liability company do plaintiffs have the associational or petition rights that they claim. Even if the court were to assume, given the evolving nature of commercial speech protections, that they possess First Amendment interests, the regulations at issue here were adequately supported by state interests and have too little effect on the attorney‐client relationship to be viewed as imposing an unlawful burden on plaintiffs' constitutional interests. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Jacoby & Meyers v. The Presiding Justices of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Departments" on Justia Law

The Tuschl patents relate to RNA interference, a process for “silencing” genes from expressing the proteins they encode, which may be useful in treating various diseases. In 2000, before the invention was reduced to practice, Dr. Tuschl published an article describing the discoveries. Weeks later, Dr. Bass published a mini-review that focused on Tuschl’s article and included her own hypotheses about enzymatic processes that may be responsible for the RNAi activity reported in Tuschl’s article. Tuschl read Bass’ article and recognized and successfully tested her hypothesis. Bass’ mini-review was cited as prior art during prosecution of the Tuschl patents, each of which issued. Bass sued for correction of ownership, claiming that Bass should be named as either a sole or joint inventor of the patents. During depositions, Bass made admissions undermining allegations that Bass reduced the Tuschl invention to practice and that Bass collaborated with the inventors. On the eve of the deadline for dispositive motions, Bass withdrew the sole inventorship claims, but not the joint inventorship claim. The district court rejected the joint inventorship claims on summary judgment, finding no evidence of collaboration between Bass and the Tuschl inventors. The district court declined a request for eight million dollars in attorney fees under 35 U.S.C. 285, The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the case was not objectively unreasonable when all reasonable inferences were drawn in Bass's favor. View "University of Utah v. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft" on Justia Law

In 2015, the court of appeal upheld the probate court’s decision to grant the petition of Alexander Hughes, the sole noncontingent trust beneficiary (and trustor Mark Hughes’ only child), to suspend and remove trustees due to their breach of trust in failing to exercise reasonable prudence in connection with the trust’s sale of Tower Grove, a 157-acre parcel of previously undeveloped Beverly Hills real property. A subsequent order allowed the former trustees to withhold from the successor trustee and Alexander Hughes, some, but not all, of a collection of documents identified on a supplemental privilege log submitted by the former trustees under court order. The documents, which are from the trust’s legal files and relate to two trust accountings submitted by the former trustees prior to their removal, were withheld on the basis of attorney-client privilege. The court of appeal reversed in part, finding that the probate court failed to consistently and appropriately apply the legal standards prescribed by the California Supreme Court. View "Fiduciary Trust International of California v. Klein" on Justia Law

The patents-in-suit relate to soybeans genetically engineered to tolerate herbicide, and, particularly, to the Bayer-developed dmmg gene. The parties disagreed over the scope of Bayer’s license of the patents to MS Tech, specifically, whether the license granted MS Tech a broad license to commercialize and sublicense the soybean technology. MS Tech had sublicensed to Dow. When Bayer sued Dow for infringement, Dow raised that sublicense as an affirmative defense. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of Dow; the Federal Circuit affirmed. The district court then awarded Dow attorney fees under 35 U.S.C. 285, declaring this an "exceptional case.” The Federal Circuit affirmed, noting Bayer’s weak positions on the merits and litigation conduct. “Bayer’s own witnesses as well as key documents contradicted Bayer’s contorted reading of the contract.” Bayer’s arguments were “fallacious” because they were “implausible” and “made no business sense” in light of the facts surrounding the agreements and their negotiation. View "Bayer Cropscience AG v. Dow Agrosciences LLC" on Justia Law

The district court granted summary judgment to Darwin, concluding that plaintiff was judicially estopped from claiming defense costs in excess of $668,068.38. The district court further found that Darwin was entitled to recover "overpayments" on an equitable "money had and received" theory. Both parties appealed. The court concluded, after thorough review, that plaintiff never took the position that her defense costs in the underlying suit were limited to $668,068.31 and that the prior court never accepted such a position. Therefore, the district court's contrary determination represented an abuse of discretion and the application of judicial estoppel was inappropriate. The court further concluded that summary judgment should not have been granted against plaintiff on the breach of contract claim where the district court relied in part on the judicial estoppel ruling; the proper measure of covered defense costs remains an unsettled question of fact and plaintiff was not entitled to a declaratory judgment; and the court rejected plaintiff's remaining claims. In light of the court's judicial estoppel ruling, the court concluded that the district court's grant of summary judgment on Darwin's claim for money had and received cannot stand. Finally, the court rejected Darwin's breach of contract claim. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Aldous v. Darwin National Assurance Co." on Justia Law

Turnoy sold insurance to Shiner’s in‐laws for decades. After Shiner, a Chicago lawyer, demanded that Turnoy split commissions on their new policies, Turnoy sent him a check for $149,000. Rejecting $149,000 as too little, Shiner sued for breach of contract, then brought another suit, alleging tax fraud, 26 U.S.C. 7434, by reporting to the IRS the $149,000 as income to Shiner; Shiner had not cashed the check. The judge ordered Turnoy to pay Shiner damages of $16,000 for fraud. The Seventh Circuit reversed, noting that the state court rejected Shiner’s breach of contract claim before the district court’s decision. Turnoy had placed a restrictive endorsement on the back of the check, stating that by cashing the check Shiner accepted $149,000 as full payment. U.S. Treasury regulations provide that a check received but not cashed counts as income for tax purposes only if “credited or set apart to a person without any substantial limitation or restriction as to the time or manner of payment or condition upon which payment is to be made,” but Shiner neither asked for a new check nor otherwise communicated rejection of the check. Shiner’s inaction gave Turnoy a solid basis for believing that Shiner had accepted the check, so Turnoy’s filing of Form 1099 was not “willfully … fraudulent.” View "Shiner v. Turnoy" on Justia Law

ECC appealed a final arbitration award of almost $7 million against them and in favor of Manatt. ECC argued that the trial court erred in confirming the interim award because the arbitrator violated mandatory disclosure rules, and that the trial court erred in confirming the final award. The court concluded that ECC did not establish that the arbitrator violated mandatory disclosure rules; ECC forfeited its argument that the 2007 engagement agreement was illegal; ECC did not establish that Manatt procured the final award by fraud or undue means; and ECC did not establish that the arbitrator improperly refused to hear evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "ECC Capital v. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips" on Justia Law

Nicholas Behunin filed suit against Charles Schwab and his son Michael Schwab over an unsuccessful real estate investment deal. Behunin's attorneys, Leonard Steiner and Steiner & Libo, engaged a public relations consultant, Levick Strategic Communications, to create a website containing information linking the Schwabs and their real estate investments in Indonesia to the family of former Indonesian dictator Suharto. Charles Schwab filed suit against Behunin for libel and Michael Schwab filed suit against Behunin for libel, slander, and invasion of privacy. Behunin filed a special motion to strike under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16. At issue was whether the communications among Behunin, Steiner, and Levick were confidential, attorney-client privileged communications and whether disclosure to Levick waived the privilege. The court concluded that, although in some circumstances the attorney-client privilege may extend to communications with a public relations consultant, it did not do so in this case because Behunin failed to prove the disclosure of the communications to Levick was reasonably necessary for Steiner's representation of Behunin in his lawsuit against the Schwabs. Accordingly, the court denied Behunin's petition for a writ of mandate. View "Behunin v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

NAAMJP and two of its members filed suit alleging that bar admission conditions for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, established in the identical text of Local Civil Rule 83.8 and Local Criminal Rule 57.21 (collectively, the "Local Rule"), violate statutory and constitutional legal standards. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss. On appeal, NAAMJP argued that the Local Rule (1) violates the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. 2071 and 2072; (2) runs afoul of the Supreme Court's decision in Frazier v. Heebe; (3) improperly applies rational basis review; and (4) violates 28 U.S.C. 1738, admission requirements of other federal courts and administrative agencies, and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court concluded that the district court properly concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate all claims brought by Patent Lawyer Doe and all claims asserted against the Attorney General; NAAMJP has failed to identify any substantive right that has been infringed by the Local Rule; the Supreme Court in Frazier exercised its own unique supervisory authority to overturn a local rule regarding bar admission in the Eastern District of Louisiana and, in so doing, made no constitutional ruling; and the Principal Office Provision embodies a reasonable assumption: local licensing control is better positioned to facilitate training sessions, conduct monitoring programs, and field complaints from the public—all rational bases for the Local Rule. The court rejected NAAMJP's remaining claims and affirmed the judgment. View "National Association for the Advancement of Multijurisdiction Practice v. Howell" on Justia Law