Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

In a two-year period, more than eleven million cigarettes manufactured by an Indonesian cigarette manufacturer were sold in Tennessee. After the manufacturer withdrew its cigarettes from the United States market, the State suit the manufacturer, alleging that the manufacturer had failed to pay into the Tobacco Manufacturers' Escrow Fund as required by Tenn. Code Ann. 47-31-101 to -103. The trial court dismissed the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction over the manufacturer. The court of appeals reversed. At issue on appeal was whether Tennessee courts may exercise personal jurisdiction over the Indonesian manufacturer where the manufacturer's cigarettes were sold in the State through the marketing efforts of a Florida entrepreneur who purchased the cigarettes from an independent foreign distributor. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Tennessee courts lacked personal jurisdiction over the manufacturer because the State failed to establish that the manufacturer purposely availed itself of the privilege of doing business in Tennessee. View "State v. NV Sumatra Tobacco Trading Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Olivea Marx appealed a district court's judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee General Revenue Corporation (GRC). Plaintiff defaulted on her student loan. GRC was hired by her lender to collect on the account. Plaintiff sued GRC alleging abusive and threatening phone called in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The district court, after a one-day trial in May 2010, found that the challenged collection practices were not abusive and threatening given its view of what actually occurred. Plaintiff did not appeal these findings, instead she contested the court's conclusion that a fax sent to her employer asking about her employment status did not violate the FDCPA's provision against debt-collector communications with third parties. Finding that the district court did not error in its decision made in her case, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the court's order.

Plaintiff appealed from the dismissal of its complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and from the district court's order denying its motion for reconsideration. Plaintiff asserted, inter alia, claims against defendants under the First and Fourth Amendments and under the Right to Financial Privacy Act, 12 U.S.C. 3401-3422, as well as under state constitutions and various anti-wiretapping, consumer protection, and deceptive trade practices laws. On appeal, plaintiff argued that the district court erred by holding that it lacked standing, by denying jurisdictional discovery, and by denying it leave to amend its complaint. The court held that the district court correctly determined that plaintiff did not have Article III standing to assert its claims. Consequently, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's request for jurisdictional discovery and for leave to amend its complaint. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment and order of the district court.

Appellants appealed the dismissal of their class action complaint against Nextel, the law firm of Leeds, Morelli & Brown, P.C. (LMB), and seven of LMB's lawyers (also LMB). Appellants were former clients of LMB who retained the firm to bring discrimination claims against Nextel. The complaint asserted that, inter alia, LMB breached its fiduciary duty of loyalty to appellants and the class by entering into an agreement with Nextel in which Nextel agreed to pay: (i) $2 million to LMB to persuade en masse its approximately 587 clients to, inter alia, abandon ongoing legal and administrative proceedings against Nextel, waive their rights to a jury trial and punitive damages, and accept an expedited mediation/arbitration procedure; (ii) another $3.5 million to LMB on a sliding scale as the clients' claims were resolved through that procedure; and (iii) another $2 million to LMB to work directly for Nextel as a consultant for two years beginning when the clients' claims had been resolved. The court held that appellants have alleged facts sufficient to state a claim against LMB for, inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty and against Nextel for aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff Kathy Lamarque executed a mortgage with defendant Centreville Savings Bank. After defaulting on another loan for a second mortgage on the same property, defendant disclosed the balance of plaintiff's mortgage to the purchaser of plaintiff's property at a foreclosure sale. Plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant for negligence and a violation of plaintiff's privacy rights. At trial, defendant moved for a judgment on partial findings, which the trial court granted. Plaintiff appealed, arguing that her right to privacy was violated by defendant and that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and defendant's privacy policy created a legal duty to protect private information from disclosure. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that under the facts of the case, plaintiff's privacy rights were not violated and defendant did not breach its duty to plaintiff.

Plaintiffs filed suit under the federal Driverâs Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2721-2725, and 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that personal information, as defined by the DPPA, was disclosed by individual defendants while acting as agents of the Ohio Department of Public Safety or the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV). The BMV apparently made bulk disclosures of personal information from motor vehicle records to a company, for an asserted permissible purpose, and the company resold or redisclosed the information. The district court determined that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. On interlocutory appeal. the Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded. The DPPA is not a strict liability statute and the defendants made the disclosures for a purportedly permitted purpose; they did not violate plaintiffs' "clearly established" rights. The DPPA does not impose a duty to investigate requests for disclosure nor does it clearly prohibit bulk disclosures.

Appellant, an African-American resident of Texas, sued appellees alleging that their credit-scoring systems employed several undisclosed factors which resulted in disparate impacts for minorities and violated the federal Fair Housing Act ("FHA"), 42 U.S.C. 3601, 3619. At issue, in a certified question, was whether Texas law permitted an insurance company to price insurance by using a credit-score factor that had a racially disparate impact that, were it not for the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. 1012(b), would violate the FHA, absent a legally sufficient nondiscriminatory reason, or would using such a credit-score factor violate Texas Insurance Code ("Code") sections 544.002(a), 559.051, 559.052, or some other provision of Texas law. The court answered the certified question by holding that Texas law did not prohibit an insurer from using race-neutral factors in credit-scoring to price insurance, even if doing so created a racially disparate impact.