Background: Brian Joeseph Melber was charged in Natrona County in June 2023 with conspiracy to deliver fentanyl, and Wyoming authorities obtained a warrant for his arrest. Before officers could arrest him, he left Wyoming. Police in Waterloo, Iowa, located him in December 2023, but he tried to evade them in a vehicle and collided with a…
Held: The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the denial of additional presentence credit. Justice Jarosh explained that Wyoming requires credit against both the minimum and maximum terms when presentence confinement results solely from a defendant's inability to post bond on the offense of conviction. The rule does not extend to confinement that would have continued regardless of the defendant's ability to secure…
Background: Moshe Friedman, who has been blind since birth, petitioned to require the Central Elections Committee and its chair to make voting independently accessible to blind and visually impaired voters while preserving ballot secrecy. Israeli law generally bars another person from entering the voting booth but permits a voter who cannot perform the physical voting steps…
Held: The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and the request for interim relief at the threshold because of laches. Justice Ruth Ronen explained that laches has subjective and objective components, considered alongside the seriousness of any harm to the rule of law. Although Friedman had advocated on the issue for years and therefore had not simply abandoned it, his delay in…
Background: IsZo Capital LP, Emisphere Technologies, Inc.’s largest unaffiliated stockholder, joined other stockholders in challenging Novo Nordisk A/S’s acquisition of Emisphere. IsZo alleged that Emisphere’s directors, officers, and controlling stockholder, MHR, breached their fiduciary duties by approving an unfair process and price and by allowing MHR to obtain an improper side benefit.
Held: The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed. It declined IsZo’s request to require Rule 23(b)(3) certification or an opt-out whenever a settlement releases monetary-damages claims without providing class-wide equitable relief. The court held that its decision in In re Celera Corp. Stockholder Litigation remained workable: courts may grant discretionary opt-outs from a Rule 23(b)(2) class when inadequate representation, materially distinct claims, or…
Background: Coventry & Warwickshire Development Partnership LLP engaged Avison Young (UK) Limited to act as NEC project manager and supervisor for major reclamation and earthworks at Gateway South in Coventry. The developer alleged that Avison Young failed to exercise reasonable skill and care when certifying interim payments to contractor Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd, including by accepting…
Held: Mr Justice Eyre granted summary judgment enforcing the adjudicator’s decision. Reading the decision as a whole, the court held that the adjudicator had addressed the dispute actually referred: whether Avison Young failed to perform its duties with the required skill and care and what loss resulted. Although breach, causation, valuation, and loss were interwoven rather than addressed in separate sections,…
Background: RedDot General Trading Pte Ltd held 45.2% of The Golden State Capital (Singapore) Pte Ltd, a Singapore holding company whose value derived from several downstream subsidiaries operating power plants in India. RedDot sought permission under s 216A of the Companies Act 1967 to bring a derivative action in GSC Singapore’s name against two of its…
Held: The High Court dismissed the application. It held that the proposed derivative action lacked a reasonable semblance of merit and was not prima facie in GSC Singapore’s interests. Most alleged wrongs concerned downstream subsidiaries rather than GSC Singapore, and RedDot did not establish the necessary link between duties owed to those separate companies and an actionable breach of duties owed…
Background: After Caitlin Malay gave birth in September 2021, she and Christian Hernandez signed an acknowledgment of paternity, or AOP, believing Hernandez was the biological father. Hernandez later obtained genetic testing showing otherwise but served as the child’s primary caregiver for more than a year while Malay was incarcerated. Genetic testing obtained by Tyler Strang in…
Held: The Arizona Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction and granted relief, holding that § 25-812(E) does not categorically bar a biological father who was not a party to an AOP from maintaining an independent paternity action under § 25-803. The Court distinguished an attempt by an AOP’s parties to set aside that acknowledgment—which remains governed by § 25-812(E) and Rule 85—from a…
Background: Revenue appealed a Tax Appeals Commission determination concerning amended income-tax assessments issued to Aoife Quinn for 2011 and 2012. The assessments sought €301,718 in total tax arising from payments she had received from three Russian companies ultimately owned by the Quinn Group. Quinn initially declared the payments as foreign employment income and claimed transborder relief,…
Held: The High Court held that the Tax Appeals Commission erred in finding that Revenue knew, when the amended assessments were issued on 21 December 2016, that the Finansstroy income arose from an unlawful source or activity. Section 58(1)(c) requires actual knowledge, not constructive knowledge or facts that merely place Revenue on inquiry. Revenue had no duty to investigate beyond the…
Background: A jury convicted Steven Ronald Ennis, Jr. in 2018 of felony lewd conduct with a minor and two counts of felony sexual abuse of a child. He received concurrent sentences including life with 20 years fixed for lewd conduct and 25 years with 20 years fixed for each sexual-abuse count.
Held: The Idaho Supreme Court vacated the judgment dismissing the post-conviction petition, reversed the summary-dismissal order, and remanded for further proceedings. It held that post-conviction counsel’s statements at the hearing expressed counsel’s own ethical assessment while seeking withdrawal and did not bind Ennis, who made clear that he disagreed and claimed to possess supporting evidence.
Background: Wahyu Sasterawan had unsuccessfully sued Parulunnessa Molla in the District Court, alleging that she guaranteed a $195,000 debt owed to him by her husband. The District Court entered judgment for Molla and later fixed Sasterawan’s liability under its costs order at $82,391.
Held: Parker J determined the separate question in Sasterawan’s favor. An adult is presumed capable of managing his or her affairs, and Sasterawan therefore had no obligation to prove his capacity. No admissible evidence before the Court displaced that presumption. The Court declined to introduce the opposing solicitor’s affidavit on its own motion because doing so risked compromising both actual and…
Background: On October 4, 2017, Mr. [I] [H] was seriously injured in an accident involving a vehicle driven by the minor [V] [A], who had stolen it the previous night from Mr. [X] [G] and Ms. [Y] [G]. In an earlier proceeding, a juvenile judge had placed the minor in a judicial youth-protection facility beginning September…
Held: The Criminal Chamber dismissed the appeal. It held that when a juvenile judge lifts a minor’s placement under the criminal-law framework governing juvenile offenders, the parents who jointly exercise parental authority automatically resume strict civil liability for damage the minor causes after the order is pronounced. Notification to the parents is not required for that restoration of liability.
Background: A.I.C. owned a registered trademark for “ゴミサー” (“Gomisaa”) and sued Eskey Koki over its use of that mark on commercial food-waste processors. A.I.C. sought an injunction against use, sale, advertising, export, and online provision of marked products, destruction of the products and related materials, and ¥417,422,688 in damages plus interest.
Held: The Intellectual Property High Court affirmed and dismissed the appeal. Given the parties’ history, A.I.C. remained obliged, as between these parties, to respect Eskey Koki’s continued use of the product name even after the former trademark expired and A.I.C.’s registration took effect. Eskey Koki had a legitimate interest in continuing that use without interference from A.I.C.; accordingly, enforcing A.I.C.’s trademark…
Background: Sheetz and affiliated companies proposed redeveloping a former restaurant site in Centerville, Ohio, with a gas station, convenience store, and drive-through restaurant. The Centerville Planning Commission unanimously approved Sheetz’s major site plan, but the City Council reversed after opponents appealed the approval.
Held: The Supreme Court of Ohio answered no. Claim preclusion requires, among other elements, that the claims in the later action were or could have been litigated in the earlier action. That requirement remains part of Ohio res judicata law notwithstanding Grava v. Parkman Township’s transaction-or-occurrence formulation.