Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

This case arose when Leiferman Enterprises LLC (Leiferman) unilaterally suspended negotiations with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 82 (Union) regarding the renewal of the two parties' collective-bargaining agreement. The NLRB eventually filed a complaint but, during the litigation's pendency, a secured creditor forced Leiferman into receivership. During the receivership, the secured creditor sold Leiferman to Auto Glass Repair and Windshield Replacement Service (WRS), agreeing to indemnify WRS against any potential Board liability. At length, the Board found Leiferman liable for certain unfair labor practices and imposed that liability on WRS, which it determined to be a liable successor-in-interest under Golden State Bottling Co. v. NLRB. The Board subsequently petitioned the court to enforce its order and Leiferman cross-petitioned for review of the order. The court held that the record, reviewed as a whole, contained substantial evidence to support the Board's conclusion that WRS was Leiferman's Golden State successor-in-interest and therefore, the court enforced the Board's order and denied WRS's petition for review.

Appellant, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in St. Louis, Missouri, sued appellee, a Spanish corporation with its principal place of business in Barcelona, Spain, for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. At issue was whether the district court properly granted appellee's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, declined to reach the forum-non-conveniens argument, and denied the motion for failure to state a claim. The court held that the proper application of the five-factor test set forth in Johnson v. Arden supported hearing the present case in Missouri. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's decision to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and remanded for further proceedings. As a preliminary matter, the court held that it would address the forum-non-conveniens argument because no additional facts were needed to resolve the issue. The court held, however, that because the plaintiff's choice of forum was entitled to significant deference and because the public-interest factors favor deciding the case in Missouri, the court did not find that the present case presented the exceptional circumstances necessary to invoke the doctrine of forum-non-conveniens. Therefore, the court denied appellee's motion to dismiss based on this ground. The court further held that in denying appellee's motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the district court did so without analysis and without prejudice. Therefore, the issue should be left for the district court to consider on remand.

Viasystems, Inc., a Missouri-based corporation, filed suit against EBM-Papst St. Georgen GmbH & Co., KG (St. Georgen), a German corporation, alleging several claims in contract and tort. At issue was whether the district court properly concluded that it had neither specific nor general personal jurisdiction over St. Georgen and granted its motion to dismiss. The court held that Viasystems failed to establish a prima facie case that specific and general jurisdiction could be asserted over St. Georgen. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Viasystems' motion for jurisdictional discovery. Therefore, because St. Georgen did not have sufficient "minimum contacts" with Missouri, the maintenance of the suit would offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the case.

The SEC brought a civil action against defendant alleging that, as an outside director of Engineered Support Systems, Inc. (ESSI), he violated numerous federal securities laws by participating in the grant of backdated, "in-the-money" stock options to ESSI officials including his father. At issue was the district court's grant of defendant's Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 50(a)(1) motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court agreed with the district court's conclusion that the SEC had failed to prove the requisite elements of scienter and negligence. The court also held that there was no clear abuse of discretion in excluding any reference to the Incentive Stock Option Agreement between defendant's father and ESSI. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

This case stemmed from a distributor agreement (Agreement) granting Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada (Southern) "the exclusive right to sell and distribute" bottled water products supplied by Mountain Valley Spring Company (Mountain Valley) within a seventeen-county region around Las Vegas, Nevada. The parties appealed in part the district court's judgment. The court held that the district court did not err when it determined that the Agreement was for a perpetual term where the parties contemplated the duration of their relationship and agreed to a term that ended only by mutual consent or specific acts of default and when it denied Mountain Valley's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on Southern's implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claim. The court held, however, that the district court erred when it set aside the jury's verdict on Mountain Valley's claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Lead plaintiff in this consolidated, but uncertified, class action securities lawsuit sued defendants alleging violations of section 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78j(b) and 78t(a). At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's lawsuit, reasoning that defendants did not have a duty to announce production failures to defendant's investors immediately and, in any event, plaintiff failed to allege "facts giving rise to a strong inference" of scienter as required by section 21D(b) of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 15 U.S.C. 78u-4(b)(2). The court held that plaintiff did not sufficiently allege an actionable omission or scienter for his claim and therefore, the complaint must be dismissed. The court also held that, because it affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's section 10(b)/Rule 10b-5 claim, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's section 20(a) claim. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion to amend. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.