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

Wife, suing on behalf of her deceased husband, (plaintiff) filed tort claims and a breach of warranty claim against pharmaceutical companies, alleging that the prescription Mirapex that husband used to treat his Parkinson's disease lead him to compulsively gamble. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment to defendants because plaintiff's claims were time-barred. The court held that the district court correctly determined that plaintiff's claim accrued more than two years before he brought his suit and thus was time-barred. The court also held that because husband became aware of the effect of the Mirapex more than two years before he filed suit, the continuing tort doctrine did not save his claim; that the open courts provision did not operate to save plaintiff's claim; that the district court did not err in determining that the facts were sufficiently developed to establish a concrete injury in 2006 for the purpose of determining ripeness; that the affidavits at issue did not raise a genuine issue of fact as to whether husband's behavioral problems and side effects were so severe as to render him legally incompetent and therefore, the tolling provisions of section 16.0001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code were unavailable; and that plaintiff had not satisfied the requirement that purchasers gave notice of a breach of warranty claim prior to filing suit and therefore, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to defendant on that claim. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

After defendant denied plaintiff's claim for long-term disability benefits (LTD benefits), where plaintiff suffered from fibromyalgia, plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant pursuant to ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1000 et seq. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in plaintiff's favor finding that defendant had abused its discretion in denying benefits to plaintiff. The court held that the district court improperly determined that defendant abused its discretion when it ultimately denied the LTD benefits claim. Based on the record, there was more than a scintilla of evidence supporting defendant's conclusion that plaintiff's condition did not render him "disabled" under the policy's any occupation definition and defendant's decision was supported by substantial evidence, where a reasonable person could have reached a similar decision. The court also held that the fact that defendant operated under a structural conflict of interest, as both plan administrator and insurer, did not warrant a finding that defendant abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's claim. Accordingly, the court reversed summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

Appellant, the named beneficiary of an accident benefits plan that her husband obtained through his employer, brought suit under ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq., alleging that the plan administrator, Metropolitan Life Insurance (Metlife), abused its discretion in determining that her husband was intoxicated at the time of the accident and denying coverage. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment to Metlife because Metlife's interpretation of the relevant policies was arbitrary and capricious and not supported by substantial evidence. The court held that Metlife did not abuse its discretion as plan administrator when it denied benefits based on the general exclusion for intoxication that appeared in the certificate of insurance. The court also held that the toxicology report, which concluded that the husband's blood alcohol level was above the state limit, constituted evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion and therefore, satisfied the substantial evidence standard. The court also held that because it agreed with the district court's conclusion that the denial of benefits was justified in light of the intoxication conclusion, it need not address Metlife's assertion that the husband's death was not accidental because it was reasonably foreseeable or, alternatively, the result of intentional self-inflicted injury. Accordingly, summary judgment was affirmed.

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.

Plaintiff sued the City of Jonesboro, its mayor, and the members of its city council, alleging that methane gas from a city landfill invaded a tract of land owned by plaintiff and so reduced its value which amounted to a taking of the property by the city. Plaintiff sought just compensation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, other compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief. At issue was whether the district court properly granted defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's complaint, holding that plaintiff's claims were barred by issue preclusion and, in the alternative, that the court lacked jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The court held that plaintiff's claims did not complain of injuries caused by the state court judgment, but of injuries caused by the invasion of plaintiff's land by methane emanating from the city's landfill. Thus, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine did not apply to those claims. The court found that the parties and the district court focused on issue preclusion, but the court held that the case was more readily resolved based on claim preclusion. Thus, the court held that plaintiff's claims were barred by claim preclusion and that plaintiff did not avoid claim preclusion through the reservation of federal rights that he included in the third amended complaint in the state court action. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Plaintiffs sued defendant over the sale of an automated hunting and fishing licensing system, alleging that defendant misrepresented the capabilities and costs of its software system, as well as information about key programming personnel. Both parties appealed the judgment of the district court, which awarded plaintiffs $965,000 and designated its post-trial order as a final judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). The court held that, due to the close factual and legal relationship between the fraud, warranty, and good faith and fair dealing claims, Rule 54(b) certification was inappropriate where plaintiffs' unadjudicated claims shared the same facts as the certified claims and where, under Missouri law, fraud and breach of warranty claims shared similar elements and the same conduct could support both theories. The court also held that the district court correctly dismissed defendant's cross-claim against Active Network, Inc. (Active Network) and its assessment of the equities was not clearly unreasonable. Accordingly, the court held that the district court properly certified its order dismissing the cross-claim against Active Network. As there was no final judgment on all claims or a proper 54(b) certification as to the claims between plaintiffs and defendant, the remainder of the appeals were dismissed without prejudice, and the case remanded for further proceedings.

Appellees brought this declaratory judgment action seeking a determination that there was no coverage for an accident involving a company car driven by Daniel Brandt and injuring Donald Bunch. At issue was whether liability coverage extended to Brandt and whether Donald Bunch was entitled to uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage because the policy at issue was ambiguous. The court concluded that the Bunches conceded that Brandt did not have express or implied permission from his employer to drive the car and that Patricia Bunch lacked the authority to give Brandt permission to use the vehicle as either a named insured or as a second permitee. Therefore, the district court did not err in concluding that liability coverage did not extend to Brandt. The court also concluded that there was no indication that the term "vehicle" was ambiguous or that a person reading the policy would not understand that the vehicle referred to in the exclusion would have included the car involved in the accident. Therefore, the district court did not err in determining that Donald Bunch did not qualify for uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.

Plaintiff and his wife brought an action under Minnesota law against defendant claiming that he had negligently failed to inform plaintiff that a risk of permanent blindness accompanied the spine surgery procedure that left plaintiff completely blind in both eyes. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion when it determined that plaintiff's expert was not qualified to provide expert testimony for the purpose of satisfying Min. Stat. 145.682 and, even if the district court did not err as to that issue, whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment under the statute because it did not need expert testimony to establish a prima facie case. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the expert had no basis in his own experience for offering any expert opinion concerning what defendant should have known or done and that the expert's attempted reliance on sources of information outside his own knowledge and experience failed to cure this lack of expert witness competency. The court also held that there was nothing that defendant knew or should have known about plaintiff to indicate that either a reasonable person in plaintiff's position or plaintiff himself would have a greater concern about the risk that he faced than an ordinary person would. Therefore, the court held that the district court did not err when it failed to conclude that defendant had a duty to disclose the risk of permanent blindness on that basis. Accordingly, summary judgment was affirmed.

Minnesota homeowners brought this action against Zurn Pex, Inc. and Zurn Industries, Inc. (Zurn), alleging that brass fittings used in the company's cross linked polyethylene (PEX) plumbing systems was inherently defective. Zurn appealed the order issued by the district court certifying the warranty and negligence classes. The court held that the district court did not err by conducted a focused Daubert analysis which scrutinized the reliability of the expert testimony in light of the criteria for class certification and the current state of the evidence. In doing so, the district court conducted the requisite "rigorous analysis" of the parties' claims to determine "whether the defendant's liability to all plaintiffs may be established with common evidence." After thoroughly reviewing the record made in the district court in light of the controlling law, the court held that the district court did not commit legal error or abuse its discretion and its class certification was affirmed.

Plaintiff brought a diversity action against Dillard's, Inc. seeking damages for the injuries she sustained to her right shoulder when a high-hanging rack of apparel fell on her at a Dillard's store. Plaintiff's husband, a 300-pound quadriplegic, also brought a claim for loss of consortium where plaintiff was his primary caregiver. Dillard's appealed the amount of the damages award because plaintiff's right shoulder was already damaged from prior accidents and also appealed the district court's judgment in favor of the husband on his loss of consortium claim. The court affirmed the district court's award of damages to plaintiff and held that it was reasonably foreseeable that some injury, even if not a serious shoulder injury, might result from a high-hanging clothing rack falling from the wall onto a customer. The court held, however, that it was unlikely that, absent legislative action, the Supreme Court of Missouri would expand the concept of consortium to include a claim for lifetime professional nursing services that vastly exceeded the underlying award of the injured spouse. Consequently, the court reversed the consortium award as contrary to Missouri law. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding for further proceedings.