Damages Awarded for Breach of Loyalty Duty

No Error in Denial of Nondebtor Releases

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 24, 2013
Tags: Bankruptcy, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In this appeal by debtor National Heritage Foundation, the Alexandria U.S. District Court upholds the bankruptcy court’s decision that certain nondebtor release provisions of debtor’s fourth amended plan of reorganization were not warranted and should be severed from the reorganization plan. On appeal, debtor National Heritage Foundation Inc. raises three issues: whether, on remand the [...]

No Hardship Discharge for Doctor’s Loans

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 22, 2013
Tags: Bankruptcy, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A 65-year-old student loan recipient who has trained and worked as an ophthalmologist, and who has a graduate degree in special education and has nearly completed a Ph. D. in education, has not demonstrated that her inability to make student loan payments is likely to persist or that she had made good faith efforts to [...]

A Super Bowl sob story

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 10, 2013
Tags: Federal Courts, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, Real Estate

Here’s how missing the Super Bowl can get your case into federal court. Residents of two NoVa subdivisions chafed under contracts that said they could subscribe to one, and only one, cable provider. The folks in Lansdowne on the Potomac, which had over 2,000 residents, began complaining about the quality of service provided by OpenBand [...]

Virginia Dating-Site Subscribers Yield ‘Sufficient Contacts’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 10, 2013
Tags: Civil Procedure, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In this copyright infringement suit filed by the dating website, MATCH.COM, an Alexandria U.S. District Court has personal jurisdiction over the owner of XXXMATCH.COM and EROTICMATCH.COM, which has nearly 9,000 subscribers in Virginia and generates $1 million per year. Defendants’ domain names lead users to the same website. The users pay a monthly fee, complete [...]

No Proofs of Claim for HOA Members

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 29, 2013
Tags: Bankruptcy, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In this bankruptcy proceeding by debtor homeowners’ association, the bankruptcy court erred in allowing proofs of claim filed by HOA members who say they suffered damages when they reasonably relied on false representations about allocation of parking spaces to townhomes without garages; the Alexandria U.S. District Court reverses judgment for the appellee-creditors, who failed to [...]

Nonprofit Lacks Standing

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 12, 2013
Tags: Civil Procedure, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

The Alexandria U.S. District Court dismisses a nonprofit’s suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alleging violation of regulations governing human experimentation: nonprofit show no final action required for subject matter jurisdiction under the Administrative Process Act and National Research Act; nonprofit also lacks standing, the alleged harms to three members– increased health risk, reputational [...]

Video ‘Re-enactment’ of Child Injury Suppressed

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 12, 2013
Tags: Criminal, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Although defendant, a child-care provider at the Quantico Marine Corps base accused of murder by “shaken baby syndrome,” may have felt coercion because she was a military spouse subjected to an agent’s misleading and manipulative statements, defendant was not in “custody” and she may not suppress her recorded statements; however, the Alexandria U.S. District Court [...]

Isolated Comments Not Hostile Environment

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 7, 2013
Tags: Employment Discrimination, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A supermarket wins summary judgment in this hostile environment race discrimination suit filed by an African-American male who was terminated as a grocery department manager after the first assistant manager asked plaintiff to help out at the cash registers and the two had a “heated” exchange. After an investigation of the incident, a human resources [...]

Patent Review De Novo

By Deborah Elkins
Published: December 19, 2012
Tags: Intellectual Property, Judge Anthony J. Trenga, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In an action for review of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (Board) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Alexandria U.S. District Court denies USPTO’s motion for partial summary judgment based on applicant’s waiver of claims under a procedural rule for administrative proceedings: Kappos v. Hyatt, 132 S. Ct. 1690 [...]