152 results for 'court:"USDC New Mexico"'.
J. Strickland stays a putative labor class action alleging underpayment of wages until arbitration between the company and third-party independent contractors can conclude. While this court is “sympathetic” to the power asymmetry between the workers and the company, which contracted them through a third-party employment agency, the parties had a valid arbitration agreement and the company has “consistently indicated its intent to arbitrate.”
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Strickland, Filed On: July 27, 2023, Case #: 2:20cv1166, NOS: Fair Labor Standards Act - Labor, Categories: Arbitration, Class Action, Labor
J. Riggs dismisses a wrongful death and personal injury suit brought by the spouse of an officer who was killed while attempting to pull over a suspect who was being monitored by Homeland Security Investigations, which had considered arresting him prior to the fatal shooting. While the spouse argues that the suspect was a known danger because of his violent history and his desperation "not to be arrested," these facts nonetheless do not overcome the federal government's sovereign immunity.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Riggs, Filed On: July 24, 2023, Case #: 2:22cv430, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Government, Immunity, Wrongful Death
J. Garcia grants a motion to dismiss brought by several parties in a wrongful death suit stemming from a car accident after an insurer sued seeking injunctive relief declaring a cap to potential damages. As a state court is already in the process of addressing these questions of liability and damages, the federal court has "no sound legal or factual basis to exercise jurisdiction" over this issue.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Garcia, Filed On: July 21, 2023, Case #: 2:22cv737, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Insurance, Jurisdiction, Wrongful Death
J. Gonzales dismisses the due process and negligence claims brought by a family against Las Vegas and its police personnel following violent murders that were streamed live to Facebook while police maintained a perimeter around the house where the shootings occurred. The court laments the failure of police to prevent the violence but does not find that officers’ actions or inactions were so obviously improper that they violated the plaintiffs’ due process rights or amounted to negligence.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Gonzales, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 1:21cv1222, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Negligence, Wrongful Death, Police Misconduct
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J. Gonzales dismisses some negligence claims against law enforcement agencies and officers in a complex civil rights lawsuit over the law enforcement response to a “unfortunate and regrettable violent murder.” A precedent cited by the person who brought this suit involved a sheriff department’s “complete failure to respond to a call reporting a crime in progress,” whereas this case instead involved a “dynamic” situation, and the person suing has not shown that law enforcement’s actions were so negligent as to overcome immunity.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Gonzales, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 1:21cv1222, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Negligence, Police Misconduct
J. Gonzales dismisses some constitutional claims against law enforcement agencies and officers in a civil rights lawsuit over the law enforcement response to a “unfortunate and regrettable violent murder.” While the underlying incident was complex and dynamic, officers “did not create the danger” of the situation “nor increase the vulnerability of the victim” through their actions, nor was their behavior “shocking to the conscience,” so they are largely entitled to immunity.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Gonzales, Filed On: July 20, 2023, Case #: 1:21cv1222, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Constitution, Immunity
J. Yarbrough partially approves attorney fees following a class action settlement between consumers and a health care company over a data breach, determining that around $99,000 is a reasonable amount for attorney fees given the “novelty” of this case and other factors, including a comparison with similar cases.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Yarbrough, Filed On: July 18, 2023, Case #: 1:21cv652, NOS: Personal Injury - Health Care/Pharmaceutical Personal Injury/Product Liability - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Civil Procedure, Health Care, Attorney Fees
J. Garcia grants a motion to dismiss by the New Mexico superintendent of insurance after it was sued by a “healthcare sharing ministry” following an enforcement action by the office of the superintendent, which had found the ministry was effectively operating as a health insurer without meeting necessary requirements. The ministry failed to show animus on the part of the superintendent, and it would be improper to keep this case in the federal court system as it “implicates important state interests.”
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Garcia, Filed On: July 14, 2023, Case #: 1:23cv276, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Constitution, Health Care, Equal Protection
J. Khalsa denies summary judgment to a driver who was beat up by another motorist after his car was intentionally hit by that motorist. The driver is seeking uninsured motorist coverage for the serious injuries he suffered. Genuine factual disputes exist as to whether the injuries arose from the operation, maintenance or use of the attacking driver’s vehicle.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Khalsa, Filed On: July 12, 2023, Case #: 1:22cv370, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Insurance, Tort, Assault
J. Browning grants the University of New Mexico’s dean of students’ motion for judgment on the pleadings in this case in which a student basketball player accused of battery was banned from campus while classes were not in session, finding the player has not sufficiently alleged a due process interest.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Browning , Filed On: June 28, 2023, Case #: 1:20cv3, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Due Process
J. Yarbrough partially grants a motion to compel in a lawsuit brought by an employee alleging that his employer underpaid for overtime. While the company must provide further documents that do conform with the employee’s “discovery class definition,” some other discovery requests seem to stem from the employee’s “frustration that only a small amount of documents exist” concerning his claims, but that is not enough reason for this court to further compel when the company has already “repeatedly confirmed that it has not withheld any responsive documents.”
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Yarbrough, Filed On: June 16, 2023, Case #: 1:22cv777, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Employment, Labor
J. Khalsa partially grants an art group’s motion for summary judgment on claims that it improperly used work by the suing artist for “marketing and promotion.” While genuine issues do still exist in this case over alleged infringement are not appropriate for summary judgment at this time, there is “undisputed evidence” that at least at one point, the artist understood and approved that this work would be used for marketing and promotion, including the fact that she interacted approvingly with social media posts from the company regarding the art work.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Khalsa, Filed On: June 16, 2023, Case #: 1:20cv237, NOS: Copyrights - Property Rights, Categories: Copyright, Contract
J. Gonzales grants a motion to "dismiss or for a more definitive statement" and dismisses a contract dispute brought by a consumer against a company that was the owner of her car loan and that the consumer claims "improperly repossessed her car and untruthfully reported her debt to credit reporting agencies." While the consumer's complaints "could implicate potential legal claims if stated differently," she "does not proffer the contract itself nor even describe its terms" despite basing her claims on alleged breaches of contract by the company, and she has brought "two different complaints and nine total claims," all of which were implausible or futile.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Gonzales, Filed On: June 16, 2023, Case #: 2:21cv1018, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Fraud, Negligence, Contract
J. Herrera mostly declines to dismiss a civil rights case brought on behalf of a deceased prisoner alleging that healthcare and prison officials were “deliberately indifferent to and recklessly ignored” the medical condition of the deceased man, allegedly ultimately leading to his death. While much of this case can survive, the warden and a top health official should be given qualified immunity on claims that they allegedly made the call to remove the deceased man from life support, because there is not adequate evidence that the two officials personally made this decision and even if they did, they were operating based on the “unanimous medical consensus” of other officials and did not go beyond their official discretion, even if it went against the wishes of the deceased man’s family.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Herrera, Filed On: June 16, 2023, Case #: 1:22cv20, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Health Care, Wrongful Death
J. Urias denies motions for summary judgment in a convoluted dispute involving multiple trucking companies, an insurance company and others over a vehicle accident that damaged pharmaceutical goods in transport. A trucking company that was not transporting the products but was involved in the wreck brought counterclaims after it alleged that another trucking company was responsible for the incident by failing to move their vehicle out of the roadway, resulting in a rear-end collision. Other parties involved in the case sought summary judgment on those claims. Summary judgment is not appropriate at this time because there are still genuine disputes regarding this case, including whether the pharmaceutical company had entered a “principal-agent relationship or an independent contractor relationship” with the company transporting its goods.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Urias, Filed On: June 15, 2023, Case #: 1:18cv336, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Tort, Vehicle, Damages
J. Fashing denies a motion by an insurance company to bifurcate and stay claims after it was sued by an consumer for alleged underpayment of benefits and other claims following a car accident. The insurance company argued bifurcation and stay was appropriate because it argued a finding for the consumer that the company underpaid benefits should be a required “condition” for bringing a bad faith claim, but the consumer’s extra-contractual claims were not entirely predicated on this alleged underpayment, and because the consumer plans to bring the same evidence and witnesses for multiple claims, bifurcation and stay — rather than simplifying this case — “would waste time and judicial resources and would require duplication of effort.”
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Fashing, Filed On: June 13, 2023, Case #: 1:22cv756, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Civil Procedure, Fraud, Insurance
J. Garcia dismisses for failure to state a claim a lawsuit brought by a woman against her former employer over a data breach. While the company did indeed suffer a data breach, and the woman alleges the breach will pose an “omnipresent threat” to affected employees “for the rest of their lives,\” she has failed to show that she suffered an actual injury that is “traceable” to the company.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Garcia, Filed On: June 9, 2023, Case #: 1:22cv662, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Tort, Damages, Technology
J. Robbenhaar finds that one county official has qualified immunity but that another does not in a convoluted civil rights case involving a New Mexico resident living on “Section 8” assistance, who alleged county officials violated her rights by wrongfully depriving her of rent subsidies and other assistance without providing her adequate notice. One of the officials did nothing through “action or inaction” to affect the resident’s benefits, whereas another official was more directly involved with the “erroneous” change and claims against them remain active for now.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Robbenhaar, Filed On: June 8, 2023, Case #: 1:22cv622, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Government, Immunity
J. Gonzales mostly declines to dismiss for failure to state a claim a convoluted lawsuit centered around credit default swap auctions, a type of financial agreement in which the seller agrees to pay the buyer in the event of a corporate or municipal default on bonds. A group of “quasi-state funds” sued several parties involved in these arrangements, arguing they had “conspired to manipulate” these auctions “in an anticompetitive manner,” whereas those parties argued the case should be dismissed for a variety of reasons, including a lack of standing and the statute of limitations. While some of those parties can be dismissed from this case because they’ve shown that this court lacks jurisdiction over them, the case overall can proceed.
Court: USDC New Mexico, Judge: Gonzales, Filed On: June 5, 2023, Case #: 1:21cv606, NOS: Antitrust - Other Suits, Categories: Antitrust, Jurisdiction, Banking / Lending