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

This lawsuit arose from the dispute between the parties about how much appellant was obligated to pay appellee for auto-glass goods and services rendered on behalf of appellant's insureds. Appellants appealed from the district court's orders dismissing its counterclaim that appellee violated Minnesota's anti-incentive statute, Minn. Stat. 325F.783, granting summary judgment in favor of appellee on appellant's counterclaim for breach of contract, and denying appellant's motion to vacate the arbitration award. The court held that, given the plain language of the statute and the ordinary meaning of the terms of rebate and credit, appellee's practice did not violate the anti-incentive statute. The court also held that even if the blast faxes at issue constituted offers to enter into unilateral contracts, appellee rejected the offers when its actions failed to conform to the terms of the offer. The court further held that the arbitration award did not require reversal or new proceedings because the award was based on the finding that appellant failed to pay the competitive price standard set forth in the applicable endorsement and Minnesota law.

T-Mobile Central LLC ("T-Mobile") sued Missouri municipalities for refund of certain tax payments that it had paid under protest and filed ten separate lawsuits seeking to recoup tax payments made within ten specific time periods. Appellees brought ten separate class action suits against T-Mobile in state court for passing the contested tax onto customers and sought to recover any money that the Missouri municipalities refunded to T-Mobile. At issue was whether the district court had jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act ("CAFA"), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(6), to remand the ten class actions to the state court from which they were removed. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court and held that there was no indication that appellees artificially divided the lawsuit to avoid the CAFA where the structure of appellees' class actions exactly mirrored the underlying ten lawsuits brought by T-Mobile and were driven by T-Mobile's own litigation decisions.

Plaintiff, a former Nelnet, Inc. ("Nelnet") loan advisor, alleged that certain Nelnet marketing practices were continuing violations of the Federal Family Education Loan Program ("FFELP") established under Part B of the Higher Education Act of 1965, 20 U.S.C. 1071, that rendered Nelnet liable under the False Claims Act ("FCA"), 31 U.S.C. 3729(a). Plaintiff joined JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup, Inc. as defendants alleging they were knowing participants in a conspiracy to submit false claims. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's third amended complaint. The court affirmed the dismissal and held that there was no abuse of discretion in dismissing plaintiff's claims where plaintiff failed to plead fraud with sufficient particularity and for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b).

Appellant brought a products liability lawsuit against appellee after appellant's left arm was amputated below his elbow as the result of a farming accident on a 1998 New Holland Model 648 hay baler. A jury found in favor of appellee and appellant appealed challenging six of the district court's evidentiary rulings. The court affirmed the judgment and held that the district court did not abuse it's discretion by admitting two jury verdicts favorable to appellee in other cases involving accidents substantially similar to appellant's where appellant's opening statements and theme increased the probative value of the verdicts; by excluding other accidents involving appellee's hay balers where admitting similar-incident evidence threatened to raise extraneous controversial issues, confuse the issues, be more prejudicial than probative, and create a trial within a trial for each previous incident; by excluding expert testimony of the pinch point and the baler tire where the evidence was minimally probative, cumulative, and would have unnecessarily confused the issue; and by admitting the total number of Series 6 balers manufactured where admitting the total number provided context for the jury to consider the substantially similar incidents. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding photographs and exhibits that had limited probative value and would unduly confuse the jury. The court further held that the district court did not err in excluding expert witness testimony regarding the Engineering Code of Ethics where such testimony was irrelevant because there was no legal force or effect to those rules and no foundation.

Plaintiffs sued DAP, Inc. ("DAP") on behalf of herself and the decedent's minor children when decedent suffered second and third-degree burns on 80% of his body and ultimately died from an accident that occurred when he dropped a can of DAP Weldwood Gel Formula Contact Cement ("DAP cement") on the floor of his home and attempted to clean the spill which caused the DAP cement to ignite and caused a flash fire. At issue was whether the label on the DAP cement complied with the Federal Hazardous Substances Act ("FHSA"), 15 U.S.C. 1261, for failure to warn and whether the DAP cement label failed to exhibit adequate precautionary measures describing the action to be followed or avoided under section 1261(p)(1)(F). The court affirmed summary judgment and held that the risk of fire from an accident spill of DAP cement was not a principal hazard that the FHSA required the label to affirmatively make. The court also held that the FHSA did not require the DAP cement label to warn consumers against spreading the product after a spill as a precautionary measure.