53 results for 'judge:"Tunheim"'.
J. Tunheim grants motions for summary judgment brought by the EPA, state regulators and major iron and steel industry players in the Native American bands' suit alleging that the agency failed to consider impacts on wild rice and fish protected by treaty rights when it approved Minnesota's 2021 water quality standards. The agency's decision was based on science and data in which it and one of the state regulators are experts, and therefore its decision was not arbitrary or capricious. Minnesota's alleged struggles to implement and enforce those standards are also not a factor that the agency must consider in deciding whether to approve them.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: March 29, 2024, Case #: 0:22cv1783, NOS: Administrative Procedure Act/Review or Appeal of Agency Decision - Other Suits, Categories: Administrative Law, Environment, Native Americans
J. Tunheim partially grants the healthcare provider's motion to dismiss the patient's putative class action alleging that it improperly shared personal information with the technology company Meta through its website. The patient's claims for violations of the Minnesota Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act and Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act and for unjust enrichment survive, since the patient has plausibly alleged that the healthcare provider deceived patients as to the extent of its use of patients' data and a failure to comply with HIPAA, that his proposed class action would serve a public benefit, and that the healthcare provider receives benefits from the use of his personal information. His intrusion on seclusion claim fails because he voluntarily provided his data to the healthcare provider, and he has not provided sufficiently specific examples of his use of the website to support a Minnesota Health Records Act claim. He has also not pleaded an unlawful interception of data under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: March 26, 2024, Case #: 0:23cv482, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Privacy, Class Action, Technology
J. Tunheim grants the video game maker's owner's motion for summary judgment in the game reseller's suit against him and his company alleging breach of contract and fraud. An email the owner forwarded with a delivery schedule, which proved to be false, is not sufficient to support a fraud claim.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: March 25, 2024, Case #: 0:19cv3114, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Fraud, Contract
J. Tunheim largely denies the employer's motion for summary judgment in its employee's suit alleging that it invested employees' 401(k) savings in underperforming funds for over a decade. The employer did not breach any enforceable portion of its Investment Policy Statement, so a count alleging breach of that policy is dismissed, and the employer's Board of Directors are dismissed as defendants because they were not functional fiduciaries and had no duty to monitor the fund. Genuine disputes remain as to the employee's other claims, and they survive "because a reasonable trier of fact could easily find" that the employee caught the employer "with its hand in the cookie jar."
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: March 12, 2024, Case #: 0:21cv1049, NOS: Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) - Labor, Categories: Erisa, Fiduciary Duty, Class Action
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J. Tunheim partially grants summary judgment to the credit reporting agency in the consumer's suit alleging that it failed to remove information about an alleged debt from her credit report after a state court found that the creditor could not establish that it owned the debt. The consumer has not met her prima facie burden to show that the creditor was an unreliable source of credit information, nor that any violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Material fact questions persist as to whether the credit reporting agency's information was accurate, whether it reasonably reinvestigated the consumer's disputes and whether the consumer suffered actual damages.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: March 4, 2024, Case #: 0:22cv86, NOS: Consumer Credit - Other Suits, Categories: Evidence, Consumer Law
J. Tunheim grants the immigrant's motion for summary judgment and vacates the immigration officials' denial of his application for adjustment of status. The immigrant did not render himself inadmissible by by joining an organization, after leaving Liberia, which fundraised for the United Liberation Movement for Democracy, a group which opposed Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia. The immigration officials have not alleged that he engaged in a "terrorist activity" in doing so. The immigration officials' determination that the group was a Tier III terrorist organization was also arbitrary and capricious, and must be set aside. Finally, the immigrant has demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that he neither knew or should have known that the group was a terrorist organization.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 0:18cv3163, NOS: Other Immigration Actions - Immigration, Categories: Immigration, Terrorism
J. Tunheim denies both the university and the cell phone companies' motions to exclude expert testimony in the university's suit alleging infringement on its patents for cellular data transmission technology. The companies' damages expert's report is not so speculative as to warrant exclusion, and her purported use of a report with undisclosed methodology as a single data point for her own evaluation is a factual dispute better suited as a subject for trial testimony. The university's damages expert's report, similarly, is not excludable because of his use of the companies' entire LTE and 5G wireless subscriber base to calculate a reasonable royalty, although the expert's failure to properly apportion the royalty base is "highly concerning." Questions about whether the expert should have accounted for the age of the patents in suit should be decided by the jury, and his choice of one of 200 licensing agreements as a comparison in his negotiation analysis, while also concerning, is adequately explained to avoid exclusion.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 28, 2024, Case #: 0:14cv4672, NOS: Patent - Property Rights, Categories: Patent, Experts
J. Tunheim partially grants the university's motion for summary judgment that a Patent Cooperation Treaty application is not prior art which undermines the validity of the university's patents for cellular technology, and denies the various phone service providers and phone manufacturers' motions for summary judgment on the university's patent-infringement claims. The providers and manufacturers may rely on the application for prior art arguments, but the associated patent is not prior art. Issues of material fact remain as to the providers and manufacturers' non-infringement arguments, and they have not met the high bar to prove inequitable conduct required to support their allegations that the patents are unenforceable.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 23, 2024, Case #: 0:14cv4672, NOS: Patent - Property Rights, Categories: Patent
J. Tunheim affirms a magistrate judge's order denying the patent defendants' motions to strike portions of one expert's report and the entirety of another's supplemental report. The magistrate judge did not err in only addressing the challenge to the first expert's opinions on preclusion grounds, since that was the only argument raised. As to the second expert, the magistrate judge appropriately weighed the relevant factors.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 22, 2024, Case #: 0:14cv4672, NOS: Patent - Property Rights, Categories: Patent, Experts
J. Tunheim grants the brokerage account servicer's motion to dismiss the bank's suit related to a third party mutual client's transfer of assets which had been pledged as security for the bank's loan. The bank voluntarily released its claims to the client's brokerage account between the time the fund transfer was authorized and the time the client defaulted on the loan. The bank therefore does not have standing to pursue its claims, having broken the causal chain between the brokerage account servicer's wrongdoing and its own harm.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 21, 2024, Case #: 0:22cv1104, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Jurisdiction, Contract
J. Tunheim grants the contest entrant's motion to confirm an arbitration award in a dispute centered on a promised reward for proof that data the pillow magnate used to dispute the 2020 election did not "reflect information related to the November 2020 election." An arbitration panel's did not exceed its authority in interpreting the parties' contract by determining that the contestant's finding that the data did not contain any packet capture data, which would be expected given the way the magnate claimed to have obtained the data, was sufficient to fulfill the contest's terms.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 21, 2024, Case #: 0:23cv1433, NOS: Arbitration - Other Suits, Categories: Arbitration, Elections, Contract
J. Tunheim denies the immigration officials' motion to dismiss the Ethiopian refugee's suit seeking action on his seven-year-old petitions for derivative refugee status for his wife and sons. Approval of those petitions a month after the filing of this action did not render the refugee's claims moot, since while that approval made the Department of State, rather than the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for the refugee's case, the immigration officials retain jurisdiction over his claims until either his petition is denied or travel authorization is issued. The seven-year delay is therefore sufficient to state an unreasonable-delay claim.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 0:23cv902, NOS: Other Immigration Actions - Immigration, Categories: Administrative Law, Immigration
J. Tunheim partially grants the bank's motion to dismiss the consumer's suit alleging that it permitted unauthorized transfers out of her checking account by a third party. The consumer's negligence and conversion claims are precluded by the independent duty rule, which requires that such claims arise from something other than a contract between the parties. They are therefore dismissed. Claims for breach of contract, aiding and abetting tortious conduct and for treble damages, however, are plausibly alleged and survive this motion.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 0:23cv885, NOS: Banks and Banking - Other Suits, Categories: Banking / Lending, Contract
J. Tunheim partially grants the university and its employees' motion to dismiss the former employee's suit alleging a pattern of race, gender and age discrimination and harassment. The university's status as a religious institution and its mission statements and Declaration of Christian Community are not sufficient on their own for its employees' conduct to fall under the ministerial exception to employment-discrimination claims at this stage of litigation. The doctrine of laches is similarly insufficient to dismiss the former employee's case at this stage, since the facts as pleaded suggest that the employee's action was initiated within a reasonable timeline. Two voluntarily-waived claims are dismissed.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 0:23cv2199, NOS: Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Employment, Employment Discrimination, First Amendment
J. Tunheim dismisses a "repetitive" action centered on a dispute around probate proceedings, finding that the decedent's nephew's claims against the decedent's daughter, brother-in-law and estate planning attorney are variously barred by claim preclusion and the attorney's privity with the other parties. Claims against the state court are also barred by the court's sovereign immunity. The nephew, finally, is placed on this court's restricted filer list.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 0:23cv1181, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Civil Rights, Wills / Probate
J. Tunheim partially denies the insurers' motion for summary judgment and grants, sua sponte, summary judgment to the printer in the printer's suit seeking coverage for damages stemming from the failure of press pads installed in its rented printing facility. The printer did not have an obligation to preserve the insurers' subrogation rights since the insurers did not make any payments under their policies, and whether or not the insurers were relying on a promise from the printer, such reliance would not have been reasonable. The insurers' equitable estoppel defense is therefore dismissed.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: February 6, 2024, Case #: 0:22cv1151, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Insurance, Contract
J. Tunheim denies the retailer's motion to certify two questions for interlocutory appeal in the state's action alleging that it knowingly sold firearms to straw purchasers. While the appeals concern questions of pure law, those questions are not controlling and the retailer has established no substantial ground for a difference of opinion for any of the issues except whether a negligent entrustment claim is preempted by federal law. The resolution of the questions would therefore not materially advance the termination of litigation.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: January 2, 2024, Case #: 0:22cv2694, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Preemption, Firearms
J. Tunheim partially grants the retailer's motion to dismiss the produce supplier's suit alleging that it was underpaid for produce deliveries. A one-year time bar in the parties' contract requires dismissal of all of the supplier's claims except one breach-of-contract claim, which survives because the supplier has plausibly alleged that the retailer "strung it along" and can be equitably estopped from arguing that the claim is time-barred.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: December 28, 2023, Case #: 0:23cv370, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Fraud, Contract
J. Tunheim denies the insurers' motion to stay proceedings pending its appeal of an injunction and underlying rulings that the insurers violated the Minnesota Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Proceeding with litigation on Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act claims will not modify the court's prior conclusions on violations of the No-Fault Act, which underlie its conclusions on the MDTPA and remaining claims under the Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act. Proceeding on remaining elements of the MCFA therefore will not impact an appellate court's ability to review the issues being appealed. A discretionary stay is also denied, since after four years of litigation "the case is getting old" and it is not in the Court's or the parties' interests to spend extra time on it unnecessarily.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: December 11, 2023, Case #: 0:19cv3071, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Civil Procedure, Insurance
J. Tunheim grants the commercial and indirect beef purchasers' motion for an award of attorneys' fees, reimbursement of litigation expenses and a class representative service award related to a class-action settlement with meat packers in ongoing multi-district antitrust litigation. The past litigation expenses incurred were reasonable and necessary, and a $1.75 million fund for future litigation expenses is appropriate. Attorney fees totaling just over $8 million are also appropriate, as is a $15,000 service award.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 0:22md3031, NOS: Antitrust - Other Suits, Categories: Antitrust, Attorney Fees, Class Action
J. Tunheim grants final approval to a class action settlement agreed to by commercial and institutional indirect beef purchasers in multi-district antitrust litigation alleging price-fixing by meatpackers. The settlement, which provides $25 million in monetary compensation and a guarantee of cooperation by one of the packers in ongoing litigation, is fair, reasonable and adequate, and all relevant requirements for class action settlements are satisfied.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: November 21, 2023, Case #: 0:22md3031, NOS: Antitrust - Other Suits, Categories: Antitrust, Class Action
J. Tunheim partially grants the hand sanitizer manufacturer's motion for attorney fees and costs and to amend a judgment in its favor in its suit alleging failure to pay for its products. The purchaser has not demonstrated that the manufacture exaggerated its attorney's hours, but the total fees award is reduced by 30% since the suit involves relatively simple issues. The hourly rate of one attorney is reduced by $140. Costs are awarded in the amount of $3,561.28 and the judgment is amended to include post-judgment interest.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: October 2, 2023, Case #: 0:21cv1026, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Attorney Fees, Contract
J. Tunheim amends a previous order partially granting competing motions for summary judgment in a suit alleging that the sellers of several companies proceeded to steal those companies, and their customers, back from the purchaser along with employees and customers. An arbitrator's findings of fact are not preclusive, and summary judgment is granted to the sellers as to a breach-of-contract claim.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: October 2, 2023, Case #: 0:17cv5009, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Fraud, Contract
J. Tunheim denies the German substance-abuse treatment clinic's objection to a magistrate judge's order which found that the clinic's outside auditor, tax advisor and shareholder was a "managing agent," ordered that that agent and other officers, directors and managing agents be deposed in Minneapolis and granted narrowed motions to compel. The order did not rely upon any clear errors.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 0:20cv409, NOS: Trademark - Property Rights, Categories: International Law, Trademark, Discovery
J. Tunheim largely grants the Minnesota Sex Offender Program and its administrators' motion to dismiss the program detainees' suit alleging failures to transfer them to lower-security facilities. One procedural due process claim survives, but the detainees' other claims are dismissed with prejudice, and their request for damages is dismissed without prejudice. A motion to certify a class is also denied.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 0:23cv486, NOS: Civil Detainee: Conditions of Confinement - Prisoner Petitions, Categories: Civil Rights, Class Action, Prisoners' Rights
J. Tunheim denies the meat packing companies' motion to dismiss multidistrict antitrust litigation alleging anticompetitive conduct in the pork packing industry to unlawfully stabilize the price of pork sold to grocery companies and others. The grocery companies sufficiently alleged a conspiracy to restrict competition in the industry which would impact the prices paid for pork for use in multi-ingredient pork products and pork by-products. The grocery companies' claims are timely even though the action was filed 10 years after the conspiracy allegedly began. The grocery companies alleged specific acts committed by the meat companies for the purpose of fraudulently concealing a conspiracy such that the statute of limitations is tolled. The grocery companies also adequately alleged that they were injured by the meat companies' violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: September 26, 2023, Case #: 0:18cv1776, NOS: Antitrust - Other Suits, Categories: Antitrust
J. Tunheim rules in favor of the mother and son in the amount of $107,000 in an action under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the government arising after they were injured in a collision with a postal service truck. The mother and son showed that the truck driver failed to exercise ordinary care and that his breach of the duty of care proximately caused the wreck. However, a third party driver is 65% at fault for the collision due to his failure to secure a ladder to a van. The postal truck driver is 35% at fault and the government is therefore only liable for 35% of the total damages award for the mother's and son's medical expenses, property damages and other damages.
Court: USDC Minnesota, Judge: Tunheim, Filed On: September 26, 2023, Case #: 0:21cv1747, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: Damages, Negligence