A man tried to cash some checks at a bank, but the bank refused. The situation evolved into bank employees calling the police and the man being arrested for making a criminal threat. Although the magistrate in the man’s preliminary hearing found the man lacked credibility, a jury acquitted the man on the criminal charges. […]
Robbed By Your Employees…
Robbed By Your Employees…is the name of an article cited by the appellate court in this opinion. In this case, a corporation’s accounting manager stole some of the incoming checks and took them to a check cashing service, forging the signature of a company officer and receiving hard cash. The corporation’s recoupment effort included suing […]
Investment Rating Service’s Anti-SLAPP Motion Denied.
An investment rating service brought an anti-SLAPP motion [Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16] in an action filed by the California Public Employees Retirement System [CalPERS] for its ratings of three structured investment vehicles [SIVs] which later collapsed and caused billions in losses. The trial court denied the motion. The appellate court affirmed, noting that the […]
Diversity Issue: A National Bank Is Located Where Its Main Office Is.
Plaintiffs, citizens of California, filed an action against a bank in the California superior court. The bank’s main office is in South Dakota and its principal place of business is in California. The bank removed the action to a federal district court, asserting subject matter jurisdiction on the basis of federal questions and diversity of […]
California Has Specific Jurisdiction & Defendant Must Defend Itself Here.
In an attempt to collect a judgment, a bank sued a New Zealand company for fraudulently transferring and sequestering the debtor’s assets. The trial court granted the New Zealand company’s motion to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction. On appeal, the appellate court framed the issue as follows: “The primary issue presented is […]
Eliminating Credit Card Fees Nice Try!
A class of credit cardholders brought an action challenging fees, analogizing credit card fees to punitive damages imposed in the tort context, and arguing they were subject to the substantive due process analysis described in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore (1996) 517 U.S. 559, [116 S.Ct. 1589, 134 L.Ed.2d 809]. The Ninth Circuit concluded […]
Trading In Unregistered Stock.
The Securities and Exchange Commission disciplined a financial corporation for violating sections 59 and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 [15 U.S.C. §§ 77e(a) and 77e(c)] which prohibit the sale or offer of sale of a security without filing a registration statement. Petitioners argued to the Ninth Circuit that the brokers’ exemption applied to their […]
An Insurance Policy’s “ Assault Or Battery ” Exclusion And The Meaning Of “ Physical Contact. ”
A nightclub dancer suffered severe injuries shortly after she completed her shift when a patron of the nightclub threw flammable liquid on her and then set her on fire. The man was convicted of aggravated mayhem and torture. In the underlying action, the woman sued her employer for inadequate security; it was resolved by a stipulated […]
Refusing To Step Aside And Seizing A Letter Of Credit A Landlord, Whose Lease With A Bank Was Disaffirmed By FDIC In A Bank Takeover, Has To Return Asset And Is Now On Hook For Attorney Fees.
In an imminent bank takeover, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC] sold the assets of a failed bank to a takeover bank. Among the assets was a $500,000 letter of credit which had been demanded by the failed bank’s landlord to cover any future rents. As part of the takeover, the FDIC disaffirmed the failed bank’s […]
Seller’s Agreement To Subordinate Its Security Interest To That Of The Bank’s Unenforceable.
The court’s first paragraph says it all: “This case involves competing claims of lien priority between the seller of real property, which took back a security interest on property sold to a developer, and the bank which financed development of the project through a construction loan. The issue is whether the seller’s agreement to subordinate its […]