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Thursday, May 5, 2016
What Health Insurance Companies Write Binds Even In Spite of Interpretation Difficulties
An Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals case demonstrates the importance - even to health care services providers – of carefully scrutinizing contractual provisions in contracts with health insurance companies. In spite of some contractual interpretation difficulties, the Eighth Circuit has found that the contractual language binds. It favored the insurance companies, even on a motion for summary judgment. The case is 32nd Street Surgery Center ("32nd Street") v. Right Choice Managed Care ("insurer"), No. 15-1727. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3197844/32nd-street-surgery-center-v-right-choice-managed-care/
In this case, the health care provider 32nd Street contracted with the insurer to become a network provider, which ensures increased patient volume as well as marketing and promotion by the insurer. In exchange for these benefits, a network provider generally agrees to receive discounted reimbursement rates. The disputed contract stipulated that a network provider is one "designated to participate in one or more [of insurer's] Networks." Another contractual stipulation stated, in much legalese, that if 32nd Street's participation was limited to a certain plan, which it was, it would only receive the discounted in-network reimbursement rates for services in relation to other plans of which it was not a member. In other words, even though 32nd Street had contracted for only one certain "stick" in the insurance provider's overall bundle, the entire lower insurance bundle pricing applied to 32nd Street.
This is boiled down from many gobbledygook contractual stipulations that, to me, seemed to indicate at least some reasonable factual doubt and thus at a minimum not to be suitable for summary judgment. But the court found the contract provisions sufficiently clear for that standard. Claims of unjust enrichment and quantum meruit were also rejected because they sound in quasi-contract whereas Missouri law does not allow such remedies when an express contract exists.
In today's health insurance company apparent strong-arming tactics and power grabs, this case again demonstrates the importance of making sure that one has read and truly understands all the contractual provisions in the health care context. However, that is, as this case and others demonstrate, difficult enough to do for corporations with, presumably, sufficient assistance of counsel. But where does such law and precedent leave private individuals encountering similar problems? Not in a good place. This area is ripe for abuse by the stronger contractual party, which in this context always seems to be the health care insurance company. Arguments of good faith and fair dealing are, as this case demonstrates, largely or entirely ignored. The court did in this case. Good luck to future patients encountering problems of this nature. Further regulations truly seem to be in order in the health care field.
May 5, 2016 in Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Oops! Will That Typo Cost You?
According to a recent Eleventh Circuit case, Patterson v. CitiMortgage, Inc., No. 14-14636, the answer is no.
Toby Breedlove (an additional plaintiff in the suit) had bought a house with a CitiMortgage loan. After falling behind in his payments and hoping to avoid a foreclosure, Breedlove sought to sell the house to Patterson in a short sale. Patterson and CitiMortgage negotiated over a price. Patterson offered $371,000, which was rejected; then $412,000, which was rejected; then $444,000. It is the response to the offer of $444,000 that is at issue here.
CitiMortgage sent Patterson a letter that stated that it wished to receive a payoff of $113,968.45. This was not what CitiMortgage meant to communicate. That amount is clearly much lower than the amounts which the parties had been discussing. Nevertheless, Patterson received the letter and immediately agreed to go forward with the deal. Patterson did not confirm the amount of the deal; neither did CitiMortgage. On the date of closing, CitiMortgage received the payment of $113,968.45 and at that point realized its mistake. It contacted the closing attorney's assistant and stated that it was rejecting the funds and would be returning them. CitiMortgage then contacted Patterson and informed him that it had meant to accept the $444,000 offer, with a few tweaks. Patterson, however, demanded that CitiMortgage accept the $113,968.45 for the house, since that had been the amount stated in CitiMortgage's letter.
For reasons that are never made clear, two years went by before CitiMortgage took any further action, moving to foreclose on Breedlove's house. That resulted in this lawsuit seeking to enforce the sale of the house for $113,968.45.
The question in this case was whether CitiMortgage's unilateral clerical error in the letter to Patterson prevented the parties from forming a valid contract. Georgia courts (the law that applied) often do not save contracting parties from their own mistakes if due diligence would have prevented the error. However, Georgia courts also refuse to allow parties to take advantage of obvious mistakes made by the other side. When the other party should have known that there was a mistake involved, then that can be grounds for rescinding the contract. And here, CitiMortgage's mistake should have been obvious to Patterson. They had been discussing numbers in the $400,000s; he should have realized that a number in the $100,000s had to be a typo. Therefore, there was no contract between the parties.
May 4, 2016 in Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Arbitration Clauses in Legal Fee Agreements
We all know about arbitration clauses but a recent case out of California, East Coast Foods v. Kelly, Lowry & Kelley, LLP, No. B262679, had something to say about arbitration specifically in the case of legal fee disputes. Is the arbitration clause in an engagement agreement between lawyer and client enforceable? In this case, yes.
East Coast Foods is perhaps best known through one of its businesses, Roscoe's House of Chicken 'N Waffles. There was a copyright dispute raised by ASCAP over allegedly unlicensed public performance of music. After being sued by ASCAP, East Coast Foods sought to retain counsel. After discussions, Kelly sent East Coast's general counsel a fee agreement. The fee agreement was three pages long and had eleven paragraphs. Paragraph 7 was an arbitration clause. Although there was disagreement over exactly when East Coast's president Herbert Hudson signed the fee agreement, it was undisputed that he did sign and return it to Kelly.
Kelly represented East Coast throughout the course of the copyright litigation, which lasted three years and included an appeal to the Ninth Circuit. At the end of the litigation, which ended in a judgment for ASCAP, East Coast stopped paying Kelly for the legal fees incurred, even though Kelly alleged that East Coast still owed over $81,000.
A few months after the end of the litigation, East Coast sued Kelly for malpractice. Kelly answered the complaint by asserting that the fee dispute was subject to mandatory binding arbitration pursuant to the terms of the fee agreement. East Coast, however, argued that the arbitration clause was unenforceable because it had not been adequately disclosed or explained to East Coast.
While it's true that an attorney-client relationship is full of fiduciary obligations and ethical responsibilities, the court here found that that relationship does not relieve a party of its responsibility to read a contract before signing it. The fee agreement represents a negotiation of employment, basically, which a lawyer is allowed to treat as an arm's-length negotiation. Here, the arbitration provision was clear and conspicuous. The agreement was not a long one, and the provision was not buried in legalese. Indeed, the fee agreement was initially sent to East Coast's general counsel to review, so it wasn't as if East Coast didn't have an opportunity to have the agreement reviewed by an attorney. There was no indication that East Coast couldn't have asked questions or even attempted to negotiate the fee agreement's terms. The circumstances here raised no red flags of fraud or unconscionability.
Therefore, this appellate court found, the trial court was correct in compelling arbitration and in confirming the arbitrator's award, which found in favor of Kelly to the tune of over $400,000.
May 3, 2016 in Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, May 2, 2016
You Might Think City Buses Don't Have a System, But They Totally Do! (it just might be copyright infringing)
Entities and people come together, do business, have disagreements, go their separate ways. It happens all the time. But nowadays, since so many things have embedded software, these break-ups of business relationships have copyright implications. If you don't have a license to continue using the embedded software, when you break up with another business, that means you have to stop using whatever contains the software, too. Theoretically.
A recent case out of the Middle District of Tennessee, ACS Transport Solutions, Inc. v. Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority, 3:13-CV-01137, dealt with this issue. The Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority ("MTA") had contracted with ACS to develop a system for MTA to manage its buses. The system ACS created contained copyrighted software that ACS expressly licensed to MTA. A few years after the development of the system, MTA discontinued its relationship with ACS, but it continued to use the system that contained the embedded software. ACS contacted MTA and told it that it was using the software without a license and infringing ACS's copyright. Nevertheless, MTA continued to use the system with the embedded software, and so ACS eventually brought this lawsuit.
MTA argued that, when it terminated its relationship with ACS, it did not terminate the license to use the software, and so it was still properly licensed. However, MTA's relationship with ACS was governed by a contract, within which was the software license. Terminating the relationship set forth by that contract, the court found, necessarily terminated the software license also found in that contract.
MTA additionally argued that it had paid for the system and that therefore it should be entitled to use the software within the system indefinitely. ACS did agree that MTA had paid for the system and would not have owed ACS any further payments...if ACS and MTA had fulfilled the rest of their contractual obligations. Instead, ACS argued, MTA breached its obligations. Therefore, ACS rescinded MTA's license to use the software.
There was some slim hope for MTA. MTA argued that it had an implied license to use the software for a "reasonable" period of time while it transitioned to the new software of the company it hired to replace ACS. The court seemed skeptical that the length of time MTA had used ACS's software after terminating ACS (it ended up using the software for more than two years after terminating ACS) was reasonable; the court implied that, even if MTA had had an implied license to use the software while it transitioned, MTA's use had exceeded that implied license's scope. However, the court found this to be a material fact in dispute and so inappropriate to resolve at the summary judgment stage.
Under the terms of its contract with ACS, MTA received only a non-exclusive, revocable license for the software. If MTA had wanted more protection, MTA should have negotiated better license terms. ACS, of course, might never have been amenable to granting better license terms. But let this case be a lesson: Many things are going to come with embedded software these days, and that software is copyrighted. You're going to need to dot your copyright i's and cross your copyright t's regarding this software; don't lose sight of that by focusing instead on the larger product you're buying. MTA may have thought of itself as buying a system, but it really needed to think of itself as buying the software within the system.
May 2, 2016 in Commentary, Government Contracting, Recent Cases, Travel, True Contracts, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, April 28, 2016
No Contractual Duty of Good Faith in Texas
In spite of most jurisdictions reading a duty of good faith and fair dealing into all contracts, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that it is unlikely that the Texas Supreme Court would find such a duty to exist in Texas. Wow. Additionally, the court found that no fiduciary relationship between a university student and his/her university faculty and other representatives.
Section 205 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts states that "[e]very contract imposes upon each party a duty of good faith and fair dealing in its performance and enforcement." See also Farnsworth, "Good Faith Performance and Commercial Reasonableness under the Uniform Commercial Code," 30 U.Chi.L.Rev. 666, 670 (1963).
The seminal case in this area is Market Street Associates v. Frey, 941 F.2d 599 (7th Cir. 1991). In that case, Judge Posner held that in spite of the somewhat "moralistic overtones of good faith," not every contract signatory is expected to be his "brother's keeper." Nonetheless, "the essentials of the modern doctrine [are] well established in nineteenth-century cases." "This duty is … halfway between a fiduciary duty (the duty of utmost good faith) and the duty merely to refrain from active fraud. Despite its moralistic overtones it is no more the injection of moral principles into contract law than the fiduciary concept itself is." "The office of the doctrine of good faith is to forbid the kinds of opportunistic behavior that a mutually dependent, cooperative relationship might enable in the absence of rule. "
In the new Texas case involving a student at SMU who got fired from his part-time job as a Community Adviser for misconduct toward students and faculty, the circuit court held that "Texas law does not impose a generalized duty of good faith and fair dealing and, in fact, rejects it" in all circumstances apart from when 1) a formal fiduciary relationships exists or 2) a "special or confidential relationship" exists. Examples of the former are attorney-clients, trustee-beneficiary, and principal-agents. In Texas, the latter apparently only includes the relationship between an insurer and an insured. That's it! Texas courts have, found this panel, refused to impose the duty on, for example, employer-employees (not too surprising), lender-borrowers, medical provider-patients (double wow!), mortgagor-mortgagees, and franchisor-franchisees. The court in the described case also said that an "ordinary student-professor relationship is no different;" in other words, there is no fiduciary or even "confidential" or "special" relationship between students and faculty in Texas.
The case does not show how the student's allegation that a duty of good faith existed between SMU and the student would really have helped the student on the merits. SMU seemed to have a very good case for firing the student from his job. Nonetheless, it is surprising that the court would so categorically reject that such a duty even exists apart from in traditional fiduciary relationships. While it may make sense that "a purely unilateral, subjective" sense of trust in one's contractual counterpart and that the other party will have one's interests at heart is not enough to create a fiduciary relationship, there is a vast difference between that and reading out the duty of good faith and fair dealings from most contracts law in general in Texas. Of course, as contracts law is state law, it is true that it is the Texas courts who must change this line of thinking, but doing so seems to be highly warranted given how courts in other parts of the nation rule on the issue.
The case discussed is Hux v. Southern Methodist University, 2016 WL 1621720 (no free online copy available yet).
April 28, 2016 in Labor Contracts, Recent Cases, Teaching, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Making an Option Irrevocable: The Mere Performance of Due Diligence Isn't Enough
A recent case out of California, Clever Hospitality, Inc. v. Patel, B264921, sheds light on the limits of due diligence to serve as consideration when it comes to making an offered option irrevocable. In that case, the Patels, the owner of a hotel, gave Clever, a prospective buyer, a 60-day option to buy the hotel. During that time, Clever indicated it was going to conduct due diligence. If, at the conclusion of its due diligence, Clever was interested in buying the hotel, it was supposed to exercise the option by depositing $150,000 into escrow. Clever used the 60-day period to perform significant amounts of due diligence, so much that Clever asked for an extension of the 60-day period. The Patels eventually refused the request and indicated to Clever once the 60-day period was over that, because Clever never deposited $150,000, the option had lapsed. However, the Patels and Clever continued to have contact regarding the hotel, although the Patels also told Clever that they were speaking to other potential buyers as well. Eventually, a few months later, the Patels sold the hotel to another buyer. Clever then sued the Patels for breach of contract.
Clever's main argument was that its time, effort, and money invested in its due diligence acted as consideration to render the Patels' option irrevocable. The court, however, noted that the necessary consideration here had to be money or services that the Patels had bargained for. In this case, Clever's due diligence only benefited Clever, not the Patels. After all, the Patels would have been quite content if Clever had performed no due diligence at all and instead just bought the hotel.
Clever then argued that promissory estoppel should save it and render the option irrevocable. However, the court could find no evidence that the Patels ever made any promise to Clever that it would keep the option open. In fact, the evidence seemed to show that the Patels had indicated the opposite to Clever: that the option had expired and that they were talking to other buyers. Therefore, there was no promise for Clever to reasonably rely upon and promissory estoppel was inappropriate.
Clever never at any time placed any money in escrow the way it was supposed to under the terms of the option. It seems as if Clever assumed that the Patels had no other serious buyers and that maybe there would be plenty of time for Clever and the Patels to work out a deal, and so the lapsing of the option didn't seem to concern Clever all that much...until a sale to someone else had been consummated. This case serves as a warning: Due diligence alone might not be enough to save you from losing out on the object of that due diligence.
April 26, 2016 in Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (1)
Monday, April 25, 2016
Love It, List It, or Sue Over It
(Source: hgtv.com)
My love for HGTV is real and enduring. It started as a House Hunters addiction when I was a practicing lawyer looking for something mindless to watch when I got home at night and it has seriously spiraled out of control. I find something soothing about the formulaic nature of the shows; their familiarity is like a security blanket to me. And I've also realized that I've actually learned a lot about my taste. For what it's worth, I do feel like HGTV has made me think more about how I decorate my house, even if I can't afford a professional decorator.
So I gobbled up with interest every single article I could find on the recent "Love It or List It" lawsuit. If you don't know the show, it's one of my favorites for the snark between the competing real estate agent and designer. One half of a home-owning couple wants to renovate their existing home; the other half wants to give up and move away. Enter the "Love It or List It" team, showing the couple houses they could buy while simultaneously renovating their home. The theory is that the couple can then decide to love it, or list it.
I entertain no illusions about the "realness" of reality television (really, mostly I've learned from reality television that apparently an enormous number of people are tremendously good actors - while others are decidedly not), but this recent lawsuit attacks not just the "realness" of reality television but practically the *definition* of it: "Love It or List It," the homeowners accuse, were much more interested in making a television show than they were in renovating this couple's home. On at least some level, this lawsuit seems to be a challenge to what "Love It or List It" is: a television show or a general contractor.
As a general contractor, the homeowners weren't too happy with the show's performance. They allege shoddy work on their house, including low-quality product, windows that were painted shut, and holes big enough for vermin to fit through. (They also allege their floor was "irreparably damaged," although I think they can't possibly mean that in the true legal sense of "irreparably," because surely the floor can be repaired?)
It seems to me this is going to come down to the contract between the parties. What did "Love It or List It"'s production company promise? I would love to see what the contract said about the work that was to be performed, how that work was to be performed, and what the financial arrangements were (since part of the couples' allegations is that a large portion of their money was diverted away from the renovations). However, for some reason, I have had an incredibly difficult time locating a copy of the complaint (never mind the contract). None of the stories I've found linked to it, and I have had zero luck finding it through Bloomberg Law's docket search.
April 25, 2016 in Commentary, Current Affairs, In the News, Recent Cases, Television, True Contracts | Permalink
Monday, April 18, 2016
The Perils of A Duty to Negotiate in Good Faith
I've recently finished writing a textbook on contract clauses which takes a different approach to teaching contracts. The book, to be published in September, uses contract clauses and case excerpts to introduce doctrinal concepts and to teach students how to problem solve. (I always thought it unfortunate that a typical 1L learns contract law without knowing what common contract clauses mean or how they relate to what they've been learning). One of the cases mentioned in my book is SIGA Technologies, Inc. v. PharmAthene, Inc., 67 A. 3d 330 (Del. 2013). I've been meaning to blog about this case for some time now because it's an important one for readers of this blog and corporate lawyers everywhere and illustrates the importance of using the right words in a contract.
SIGA and PharmAthene signed a term sheet for an eventual license agreement and partnership to further develop and commercialize an anti-viral drug for the treatment of small pox. The term sheet was not signed and contained a footer on each page that stated "Non Binding Terms." Subsequently, the parties drafted a merger term sheet that contained the following provision:
"SIGA and PharmAthene will negotiate the terms of a definitive License Agreement in accordance with the terms set forth in the Term Sheet…attached on Schedule 1 hereto. The License Agreement will be executed simultaneously with the Definitive [Merger] Agreement and will become effective only upon the termination of the Definitive Merger Agreement."
The license agreement term sheet was attached as an exhibit to the merger term sheet. On March 10, 2006, the parties signed a merger letter of intent and attached the merger term sheet and the license agreement term sheet.
On March 20, 2006, the parties entered into a Bridge Loan Agreement where PharmAthene loaned SIGA $3million for expenses relating to the merger and for costs related to developing ST-246. It stated the following in Section 2.3:
"Upon any termination of the Merger Term Sheet….termination of the Definitive Agreement relating to the Merger, or if a Definitive Agreement is not executed…., SIGA and PharmAthene will negotiate in good faith with the intention of executing a definitive License Agreement in accordance with the terms set forth in the License Agreement Term Sheet …and [SIGA] agrees for a period of 90 days during which the definitive license agreement is under negotiation, it shall not, directly or indirectly, initiate discussions or engage in negotiations with any corporations, partnership, person or other entity or group concerning any Competing Transaction without the prior written consent of the other party or notice from the other party that it desires to terminate discussions hereunder."
On June 8, 2006, the parties signed the Merger Agreement which contained a provision nearly identical to section 2.3 of the Bridge Loan Agreement and provided that if the merger was terminated, the parties agreed to negotiate in good faith to enter into a license agreement with the terms of the License Agreement term sheet. The Merger Agreement also stated that the parties must use their "best efforts to take such actions as may be necessary or reasonably requested by the other parties hereto to carry out and consummate the transactions contemplated by this Agreement."
Shortly thereafter, SIGA terminated the Merger Agreement and announced that it had received a $16.5million NIH grant. SIGA also proposed different licensing terms from those contained in the term sheet and argued that the license agreement term sheet was not binding because of the "Non-Binding" footer. PharmAthene sued -- and won. SIGA appealed and the Supreme Court of Delaware found that the "express contractual language" obligated the parties to "negotiate in good faith with the intention of executing a definitive License Agreement" with terms "substantially similar" to the terms in the license agreement term sheet.
The damages to PharmAthene ended up being around $200million– in other words, expectation damages. In order to stop PharmAthene from enforcing the judgment while undergoing the appeals process, Siga filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Siga subsequently lost its second appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, which upheld the award of expectation damages.
Last week, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York approved a reorganization plan that sets the stage for SIGA to exit from bankruptcy. The judgment is expected to be satisfied by October 20, 2016.
A long and expensive road for SIGA which could have been avoided by paying more attention to the language used in the contract.
April 18, 2016 in In the News, Miscellaneous, Recent Cases | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, April 15, 2016
Gilmore Girls, Netflix, Derivative Works, and Contracts in a Changing Television Landscape
(image from IMDB)
Gilmore Girls fandom rejoiced when it was announced that the show would receive a revival on Netflix (and, even better, that it will include Sookie!). But, as often seems to be the case, developments that bring a fandom joy can come with legal entanglements. In this case, producer Gavin Polone's production company Hofflund/Polone has filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros., alleging breach of contract. The lawsuit, Hofflund/Polone v. Warner Bros. Television, Case No. BC616555 (behind paywall), was filed in the Los Angeles County, Central District, Superior Court of California.
The case revolves around the agreement between the parties concerning the original production of Gilmore Girls. The parties agreed, according to Hofflund/Polone, to provide Hofflund/Polone with "$32,500 for each original episode of Gilmore Girls produced in any year subsequent to 2003," along with some percentage of the gross and with "executive producer" credit. With the news of the recent Netflix revival, Hofflund/Polone allegedly reached out to Warner Bros. seeking compensation under the agreement. According to the complaint, Warner Bros. took the position that the Netflix version of Gilmore Girls is a derivative work based on the original series, and so therefore does not trigger compensation to Hofflund/Polone.
It's an interesting question that highlights one of the debates copyright scholars have: What, exactly, is a "derivative" work? Copyright owners have the exclusive right to reproduce their own works or works substantially similar to those works. They also have the right to produce derivative works based on those works, which, in the jurisprudence, has ended up using the same substantially similar standard to elucidate the "based on" language. Which means: what is the point of the derivative work right, if its standard seems the same as the reproduction right? This case has the potential to force confrontation with that problem: Where do we draw the line between infringement of the reproduction right and infringement of the derivative work right? When does a substantially similar work cross the line between reproduction and derivative work?
One thing that's been noted about the derivative work right is it tends to be talked about when there's some kind of change in medium or other kind of adaptation different from the original form (book to film, or translation from one language to another). The definition in the statute points us to that focus. Which raises the question: Is a Netflix revival more like a translation or adaptation of Gilmore Girls than it is like an exact copy of Gilmore Girls? Does this depend on how true it is to the original show?
The "television" landscape has shifted dramatically since Gilmore Girls premiered. It'll be interesting to see how contracts formed pre-Netflix-and-Amazon-production-era function going forward.
April 15, 2016 in Celebrity Contracts, Commentary, Current Affairs, In the News, Recent Cases, Television, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (1)
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Shipping War (the package kind, not the fanfiction kind)
How far does a franchisor have to go to help out a franchisee? That was the question asked in a recent case out of the Southern District of New York, The UPS Store, Inc. v. Hagan, 14cv1210 (behind paywall). This particular dispute between UPS and its franchisees the Hagans attracted a fair amount of online attention when it first erupted back in 2014. Now, UPS has been granted partial summary judgment on the contractual disagreements.
UPS and the Hagans entered into a variety of contract carrier agreements, franchise agreements, and promissory notes in connection with the Hagans' operation of eleven UPS franchises in the New York City area. The relationships between the parties eventually broke down, and accusations were flung back and forth between them. This federal lawsuit included trademark and trade secret allegations, in addition to breach of contract claims, and the Hagans counterclaimed alleging violations of New York's deceptive trade practices act.
With regard to the breach of contract claims, the Hagans conceded that they failed to perform under the contracts, but alleged that their breach was excused by impossibility, impracticability, or UPS's own breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The court, however, granted summary judgment to UPS, finding that the Hagans had impermissibly breached the contracts.
The Hagans' main allegations revolved around UPS's failure to police other franchisees, to allow the Hagans to bundle customer invoices, to provide the Hagans with better computer technology, and to negotiate with private investors who were funding the Hagans' businesses in order to soothe them about the businesses' profitability. But UPS was not required to do any of those things under the terms of the contract. Because they were not "basic assumptions" of the contract, the impractiability and impossibility defenses failed, and the alleged breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing was likewise doomed. The Hagans' arguments essentially boiled down to a desire for UPS to take "affirmative action" to save the Hagans' businesses as they began to fail. The Hagans termed this a "duty to cooperate" that was included in the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. But the court, applying California law, rejected this idea. Again, there was nothing in the contracts that required UPS to take the affirmative steps the Hagans desired, and the court declined to impose obligations on UPS beyond those agreed to under the contract.
The franchise agreement between the parties contained a liquidated damages clause dictating that damages should be the amount of royalties paid to UPS the previous year multiplied by the number of years (not to exceed two) left in the contract term. The Hagans argued that this was an unreasonable estimate of UPS's damages because UPS would recoup the lost royalties from the Hagans' franchises through either issuing new franchises or increased business to the remaining UPS franchises in the area (which the Hagans showed were all less than half a mile from the Hagans' locations, this being New York City). The court, however, found that, although maybe the Hagans might be right, that didn't mean that the clause had been unreasonable at the time of execution of the contract, which was the relevant test. Therefore, the liquidated damages clause was enforceable.
April 9, 2016 in Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Marijuana Growing Facility Insurance Policies
By Rotational - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3455706
Here's an area of law where we're going to need a lot more guidance over the coming years, I suspect: how exactly does the wording of specific insurance policies apply to (now legal in some places under some circumstances) marijuana growing facilities?
A recent case out of the District of Colorado, The Green Earth Wellness Center, LLC v. Atain Specialty Insurance Company, Civil Action No. 13-cv-03452-MSK-NYW, deals with that question. In that case, Green Earth, a marijuana growing facility, alleged that a wildfire sent so much smoke and ash into Green Earth's ventilation system that it ended up damaging the marijuana plants inside. Green Earth therefore made a claim under its insurance policy with Atain for this damage.
This case contains an interesting discussion of how exactly marijuana plants are grown. The important takeaway is that Green Earth was making claims both for Green Earth's growing marijuana plants and for buds and flowers that had been harvested and were being prepared for sale. Green Earth argued that both the growing plants and the harvested buds and flowers were covered under the insurance policy's definition of "Stock." Atain maintained, however, that "Stock" did not apply to the growing plants, only to the buds and flowers that had already been harvested.
The insurance policy defined "stock" as "merchandise held in storage or for sale, raw materials and in-process or finished goods, including supplies used in their packing or shipping." Everyone agreed that the harvested buds and flowers qualified as "stock" so the debate centered entirely around whether the growing plants also qualified as "stock." There was no prior discussion between the parties as to this issue, so the court ended up relying heavily on dictionary definitions, especially of the term "raw materials." The court ended up concluding that this wasn't appropriate for summary judgment, because the court could see the definition as including growing plants or not.
However, the court then turned its attention to another part of the insurance policy that specifically excluded "growing crops." Green Earth argued that its growing marijuana plants weren't "growing crops" because crops are grown outside, not in indoor facilities. But, once again looking at dictionaries, the court concluded that the exact location was not important to the definition of "crop." "Crops" referred to things growing out of soil and did not differentiate between outdoor soil and indoor soil. Therefore, even if the growing marijuana plants could be "raw material" under the definition of "stock," they were specifically excluded from coverage as a "growing crop." And, indeed, in correspondence proposing the policy, Atain wrote that it would not cover "growing...plants," supporting the court's more expansive reading of "crops" as just being a type of plant, whether inside or outside.
Interestingly, Atain then tried to argue that, even though the harvested buds and flowers were technically "stock," they weren't covered because they were "contraband" and public policy was against insuring such forbidden goods. The court noted that the attitude of the federal government toward the legality of marijuana is "nuanced (and perhaps even erratic)" and focused on the fact that it was undisputed that Atain knew Green Earth was growing marijuana and agreed to insure it, so it wasn't fair to allow Atain to back out of that now.
April 6, 2016 in Commentary, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Hurricane Sandy and Art
Hurricane Sandy's flooding of the Red Hook section of Brooklyn damaged are in the Christie's warehouse located there, and provoked a rash of subrogation cases against Christie's, including AXA Art Insurance Corp. v. Christie's Fine Art Storage Services, Inc., 652862/13.
All of the cases revolved around the same core set of facts: As Hurricane Sandy was approaching, the Mayor of New York warned that Red Hook was likely to be flooded, and eventually ordered its evacuation. Christie's sent an e-mail to its clients stating it would "take extra precautions" in the face of "significant inclement weather," and that "may include" making sure the generators were working, providing extra security, and raising all of the artwork up off the floor. Allegedly Christie's did none of these things. Shortly after Sandy went through, Christie's sent another e-mail assuring its clients that the artwork was safe, but a few days later Christie's corrected itself, contacting some of its client to inform them that flooding had damaged some of the artwork.
Some insurance companies had to pay out millions of dollars in the wake of this news, and this insurance companies sought to collect the money from Christie's. AXA brought a typical case, that resulted in a typical failure, based on the fact that Christie's storage agreement contained a waiver of subrogation: Christie's clients were "responsible for arranging insurance cover" for the artwork stored at Christie's and "agree[d] to notify [the] insurance carrier/company of this agreement and arrange for them to waive any rights of subrogation against [Christie's] . . . with respect to any loss of or damage to the [artwork] while it remains in [Christie's] care, custody and control."
The court held that this subrogation waiver acted to bar AXA's claims for gross negligence, negligent misrepresentation, breach of bailment, and breach of contract. AXA tried to argue that this was in violation of U.C.C. Section 7-204, but the court disagreed: The U.C.C. prevented Christie's from exempting itself from all liability, but this subrogation waiver, according to the court, merely allocated the risk of liability to the insurance companies. AXA also argued that Christie's breached the storage agreement in its actions (apparently no artwork was supposed to be stored on the ground floor, which had been represented to the clients as being used for "intake" before the artwork was move to more secure storage), but the court said those breaches didn't affect the enforceability of the subrogation waiver.
Well, the appellate court has spoken, and claims like AXA's now live to be litigated another day. In the similar case XL Specialty Insurance Company v. Christie's Fine Art Storage Services, Inc., the appellate court held that the subrogation waiver did violate Article 7 of the U.C.C. and attempt to exempt Christie's from all liability, the lower court's characterization otherwise notwithstanding. Therefore, the fight will now shift to whether Christie's actions were reasonable.
April 5, 2016 in Commentary, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, April 4, 2016
Universities, Graduate Students, Patents, and Policies
CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39855 (Harvard Science Center)
It's a very common thing, to be provided with a "policy" as opposed to a "contract." A recent case out of the District of Massachusetts, Charest v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, Civil Action No. 13-11556-DPW, addresses that exact issue, and concludes, as you might expect, that what you call something isn't as important as how you behave.
Dr. Mark Charest was a chemistry graduate student at Harvard University. While he was there, he and his supervisor (also a defendant in this lawsuit) and other scientists developed a "novel and valuable method for creating synthetic tetracyclines," important for commercial antibiotics. Universities have lots of valuable things being created by their employees and students, so it's not surprising that Harvard had a policy in place for this sort of situation. Harvard had Dr. Charest, as a student, sign the Harvard University Participation Agreement, which contained a clause that Dr. Charest "ha[d] read and [] under[stood] and agree[d] to be bound by the terms of the 'Statement of Policy in Regard to Inventions, Patents, and Copyrights,'" referred to in this case as the IP Policy. A lot of things happen from that point on, but the important thing to know for purposes of this blog entry is that Dr. Charest maintained that Harvard had breached the IP Policy. Harvard, in response, maintained (among other things) that the IP Policy was not a contract.
Other than being called a "policy," you might think this an odd argument for Harvard to try to make, considering that having Dr. Charest sign an agreement to be bound by the IP Policy sounds pretty contract-y. A 1988 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision, Jackson v. Action for Boston Community Development, had held that an employer's personnel manual was not a contract, and so Harvard relied heavily on that precedent, trying to cast its IP Policy as similar to the personnel manual in that case.
Jackson established a number of factors for its decision, and, while some of those factors did weigh in favor of Harvard, others weighed in favor of Dr. Charest. For instance, Harvard maintained the ability to unilaterally modify the IP Policy and there were no negotiations between Harvard and Dr. Charest over the IP Policy, two factors Jackson said support a conclusion that the IP Policy does not impose contractual obligations. However, Harvard called special attention to the IP Policy and Dr. Charest's agreement to it, required Dr. Charest's signature acknowledging the IP Policy, and the IP Policy spoke in mandatory terms rather than suggestive terms, all of which made it seem more like a binding contract.
In the end, the court found that, as the Jackson precedent has developed, the really important thing is whether Dr. Charest understood himself to have to agree to the terms of the IP Policy in order to continue as a student researcher at Harvard, and that Harvard was likewise agreeing to be bound. The court concludes that yes, this was true. The IP Policy sounded as if it was being very clear about Harvard's obligations, because of its unambiguous language. Harvard itself consistently referenced the IP Policy as governing its actions when questioned by Dr. Charest and when communicating with its students. Therefore, Harvard could not pretend now that it had not been behaving as if it was bound by the terms of the IP Policy.
(Nevertheless, the court went on to dismiss most--but not all--of Dr. Charest's claims. The facts are too complicated to get into in the scope of this blog entry, but if you're interested in the relationship between research universities and their graduate students, it's an interesting read.)
UPDATE: This case has now settled. Dr. Charest released the following statement:
"Harvard University and I have settled our ongoing litigation regarding the allocation of royalties related to the license with Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals on mutually agreeable terms. In light of my claims and goals in bringing this litigation, I am very pleased to accept terms I view as equitable."
You can read more here.
(Thanks to Brian O'Reilly at www.oreillyip.com for the update!)
April 4, 2016 in Commentary, Recent Cases, Teaching, True Contracts, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Seventh Circuit Rejects Arbitration Clause in "Scrollable Window" Internet Contract
Have you ever been frustrated with seeming endless and practically unreadable scroll-down window that accompany many internet contracts? Or maybe you don't even think about them enough to be frustrated. The dozens of pages of scroll text typically end with a checkbox stating, "I have read and understood the foregoing agreement." All but the most unusually focused among users will check the box without having read the verbose digital boilerplate, and both sides surely recognize the untruth of the "read and understood" certification.
A court has recently refused to enforce an arbitration provision because it was buried at the bottom of the lengthy scroll able window. And the decision came from not just any court, but from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit--known for present purposes as the founder of the ProCD and Hill v. Gateway 2000 line of shrinkwrap arbitration-clause cases.
Over at the National Law Review, attorney Eric G. Pearson describes the facts of in Sgouros v. TransUnion Corp., No. 15-1371 (7th Cir. March 25, 2016), an opinion by Chief Judge Diane Wood applying Illinois law:
Sgouros purchased a "credit score" package from TransUnion, and he later brought suit, alleging that TransUnion had provided him with a number that was erroneously high and thus useless to him in his negotiations with a car dealer. TransUnion filed a motion to compel arbitration, which the district court denied.
The crux of the dispute concerned the webpage for "Step 2" in Sgouros's purchase, which asked him for an account username and password and for his credit-card information. See slip op. at 4. Below these fields were two bubbles to answer whether a user's home address was the same as the user's billing address ("yes" or "no"), and below that was a scrollable window in which only the first two-and-a-half lines of a "Service Agreement" were visible. Had he read to page 8 of the 10-page agreement, Sgouros would have found the arbitration clause. Below the scrollable window was a hyperlink to a printable version of the agreement and a bold-faced paragraph memorializing an "authorization" to obtain credit information. Rounding out the bottom of the page was a button labeled "I Accept & Continue to Step 3."
Judge Wood's opinion itself begins, for those of us who admire persuasive storytelling, with an excellent example of framing the story around the ultimate result:
Hoping to learn about his creditworthiness, Gary Sgouros purchased a "credit score" package from the defendant, TransUnion. Armed with the number TransUnion gave him, he went to a car dealership and tried to use it to negotiate a favorable loan. It turned out, however, that the score he had bought was useless: it was 100 points higher than the score pulled by the dealership.Believing that he had been duped into paying money for a worthless number, Sgouros filed this lawsuit against TransUnion. In it, he asserts that the defendant violated various state and federal consumer protection laws. Rather than responding on the merits, however, TransUnion countered with a motion to compel arbitration. It asserted that the website through which Sgouros purchased his product included (if one searched long enough) an agreement to arbitrate all disputes relating to the deal.
In what will surely be a much-used and much-cited analysis of the scroll-box layout, the Seventh Circuit described the assent-oriented defects of the Transunion website. As Pearson summarizes it:
- The arbitration clause was not visible in the window.
- The site did not call the user's attention to the arbitration provision in any other way.
- The site did not require the user to scroll to the bottom of the window or to first click on the scroll box.
- It was not clear that the purchase "was subject to any terms and conditions of sale."
- The term "Service Agreement" said nothing "about what the agreement regulated."
- The hyperlinked version of the agreement was labeled only "Printable Version"—not "Terms of Use" or "Purchase" or even "Service Agreement."
- The bold-faced paragraph was merely an authorization, and the button labeled "I Accept" actually misled the consumer to thinking that this was an acceptance of only the authorization's terms. "No reasonable person would think that hidden within that disclosure was also the message that the same click constituted acceptance of the Service Agreement."
All in all, an interesting turn of events from an important court on issues of clickwrap terms and arbitration.
March 30, 2016 in E-commerce, Recent Cases, True Contracts, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Wording That Assignment Clause Correctly
One of the areas of contract law where the mere language alone frequently trips my students up is the area of assignment and delegation, largely because neither courts nor contracts are always exactly precise in what they mean in this area. It remains one of the areas that, say, a large insurance company can find it got the wording wrong, as happened in a recent case out of Florida, Bioscience West v. Gulfstream Property and Casualty Insurance, Case No. 2D14-3946.
A homeowner had bought a insurance policy from Gulfstream. The policy prohibited assignment "of this policy" without Gulfstream's written consent. The homeowner's house suffered water damage and she hired Bioscience to fix the damage. She assigned "any and all insurance rights, benefits, and proceeds pertaining to services provided by BIOSCIENCE WEST INC. under the above referenced policy to BIOSCIENCE WEST, INC." When Gulfstream subsequently denied the homeowner's insurance claim, Bioscience sued as the assignee of the homeowner's right to recover the insurance policy's benefit. Gulfstream responded by stating that the policy could not be assigned with Gulfstream's consent, which had never been given. The distract court agreed, found the homeowner's assignment to be improper, and entered summary judgment in Gulfstream's favor.
The appellate court disagreed. The appellate court said that the phrase "assignment of this policy" plainly referred to the entire policy. What the homeowner assigned, however, was something less than the entire policy, i.e., just a portion of the benefits. Therefore, under the "unambiguous" wording of the policy, the homeowner's actions were permissible without Gulfstream's consent; Gulfstream's consent was only required if she tried to assign the entire policy.
And, in fact, the court found this was consistent with the loss-payment portion of the policy, which provided that Gulfstream would pay the homeowner "unless some other person . . . is legally entitled to receive payment." The court said that proved that Gulfstream understood that the homeowner would be able to assign benefits under the policy. (Although arguably all this proved was that Gulfstream understood that the homeowner would be able to assign benefits under the policy with Gulfstream's consent.) At any rate, there was ample precedent in Florida's case law supporting the proposition that policyholders can assign post-loss claims without the consent of the insurer.
March 27, 2016 in Commentary, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Things We Should Talk About When We Talk About Health Care
I just find this case so tragic and frustrating that I had to share with others, because that's just how I am, I like to spread those emotions around. But I think it's important, as we continue to debate how we do health care and health insurance in this country, to really think about the outcomes of these questions. And I have a nephew who was born premature and had to spend a little time in the NICU. My nephew is now a happy, energetic, clever five-year-old who we are very grateful for (even though we don't understand how five years have managed to pass, surely that's incorrect and he was just born yesterday, no?), but this case made me think of him and remember those first few scary days when you have a baby who you can't bring home with you. And how unforgiving bureaucracy can be in the face of your mere human emotions.
Kurma v. Starmark, Inc., No. 12-11810-DPW, a recent case out of the District of Massachusetts, introduces us to the Kurmas. Their son was born about two months premature and was immediately hospitalized after birth and remained in the intensive care unit for over two months. His hospital bills totaled more than $667,000. It seems as if it was a happy ending for the baby boy and that he eventually went home with his parents, because the case doesn't tell us otherwise, so that at least seems like good news for the Kurmas.
The bad news was that they failed to comply perfectly with all of the formalities of their health insurance policy, and for this reason the court found it had no choice but to find that the baby boy was not covered by his father's health insurance plan and therefore the Kurmas are responsible for the $667,000 hospital bill.
Mr. Kurma had been employed by First Tek since 2006. First Tek enrolled in the Bluesoft Group Health Benefit Plan on July 1, 2010. Mr. Kurma and his family joined in the plan as soon as it became available. His wife at the time was already pregnant, and her pregnancy care was covered under the plan. Their son was born on October 7, 2010, three months after they joined the Bluesoft plan.
What makes this case so tragic to me is that it wasn't as if Mr. Kurma did nothing to inform his health insurance that his baby son had been born. He did, in fact. He called his health insurance's claims processor on October 14, 2010, to inform him that his son had been born the previous week. Everybody agreed that this was timely notice to the health insurance company of the baby's birth. A week later, on October 21, Mr. Kurma received a letter from an affiliate of his health insurance company referring to "Baby Boy" and requesting medical information to determine the necessity of the baby's ongoing treatment.
Mr. Kurma had several more conversations with his health insurance company during the month of October. The parties disputed what was said in those conversations, although they agreed that Mr. Kurma wished to add his newborn son to the health insurance plan. There was disagreement as to whether or not Mr. Kurma was told that he needed to provide his HR department at work with written notice of his son's birth in order to add him to the policy. At any rate, on November 8, 2010 (more than 30 days after the baby's birth, which was the time limit Mr. Kurma had under the policy), the health insurance company sent Mr. Kurma a "Certificate of Group Coverage" that "is evidence of your coverage under this plan." The new baby was listed as the individual to whom the coverage applied and the "Date coverage began" was given as October 7, 2010, the date of the baby's birth. To be honest, I would at that point, if I were Mr. Kurma, probably have considered the baby to have been covered, as that piece of paper would have seemed self-evident to me as "evidence of...coverage." However, this piece of paper contained a trick: It claimed the "Date coverage ended" as October 6, 2010, the date before the baby's birth. According to the health insurance company, this should have been a red flag to Mr. Kurma, as that was the health insurance company's way of indicating that it had refused coverage on the baby. I'm not entirely sure why the way to do this wouldn't have been to send a letter saying "We are not covering the baby," rather than sending some weird time-travel-y message like this. It would be a good policy for all of us to just say what we mean in communications like this, don't you think? This paper, far from raising any red flag that Mr. Kurma needed to do anything further, seemed to reassure Mr. Kurma that he had done everything he needed to do.
And, even more confusingly, not even the insurance company itself, internally, seemed to know whether or not it thought the baby was covered. On November 4, an employee noted that the baby was automatically covered for the first month of his life and then needed to be formally added to the policy. A second note on November 5 corrected that to explain that the baby needed to be immediately enrolled in order to be covered. But it seems to me that if not even the health insurance company's own employees can figure out whether or not the baby was covered, it seems ridiculous to assume that a harried new father, with a baby in intensive care and a five-year-old at home to worry about, was supposed to be able to figure it out.
On November 29, 2010, Mr. Kurma had a conversation with his health insurance company in which he stated that he had added his new son to the plan. That night he e-mailed HR at First Tek to ask them to add the baby to the plan. That e-mail was the first written contact Mr. Kurma had had with HR. It came, as you can see, more than 30 days after the baby's birth. Which was a violation of the policy, which provided, "You notify Us and the Claims Processor of the birth . . . within 30 days," with "Us" defined as Mr. Kurma's employer, First Tek. Mr. Kurma had only informed the claims processor within 30 days.
In December 2010, Mr. Kurma was told for the first time that the health insurance company was denying coverage for his new baby. Confused, Mr. Kurma inquired as to why and was told it was his failure to return the written enrollment forms to his HR department within 30 days of the baby's birth. Mr. Kurma called his health insurance company to complain; they were unmoved.
Mr. Kurma's employer, however, was moved by Mr. Kurma's situation. To be honest, it seems as if First Tek knew all along that Mr. Kurma's son had been born and was in intensive care, which makes sense to me, as it is the kind of thing that employers tend to know, if you're taking time off and such. First Tek's CEO actually contacted the health insurance company on behalf of Mr. Kurma, asking for leniency: "[Mr. Kurma] has a prematurely born child who is still in hospital and in deep sorrow and was not in a right frame of mind. Is there anything you can do to make the carrier make an exception?" The carrier--who nobody disputed was well aware of the baby's existence and Mr. Kurma's desire to add him to the plan--refused to make such an exception, insisting that it could not because First Tek (the company requesting leniency) had not been properly notified. Note that that was the only basis for the health insurance company's denial, as stated in the letter it sent Mr. Kurma: "The plan required that Mr. Kurma notify [the insurance company] AND his employer, within 30 days after the infant's date of birth. [The insurance company] received notification within the required time frame, but First Tek did not." No matter, apparently, that First Tek itself requested that its notice requirement be waived and at any right apparently believed itself to have been properly notified.
Now the insurance plan in this case contained language that added further confusion to what was going on here: It gave First Tek "full, exclusive and discretionary authority to determine all questions arising in connection with this Contract including its interpretation." Under this clause, one might think that, if First Tek considered itself to have been validly notified, then it was. Not so fast, though. The insurance plan also contained language that the insurance company "has full, discretionary and final authority for construing the terms of the plan and for making final determinations as to appeals of benefit claim determinations . . . ." So whose interpretation, First Tek's or the insurance company's, should win here, when they both have some sort of "full" and "discretionary authority"?
The court concluded that this language meant that First Tek had authority over contract interpretation, but the insurance company had authority over claim determinations under the contract. Therefore, First Tek was correct in its assertion that the baby was enrolled, because that lay within First Tek's discretion. However, First Tek could not contradict the insurance company's determination, even accepting that the baby was enrolled, that the benefits were denied. I admit I'm so confused by this determination, I read this paragraph of the decision over several times, and I'm fighting a cold myself at the moment (and worrying about what health insurance coverage I'm going to mess up should I need to see a doctor over this illness!), so if I'm reading this wrong, please let me know, but this seems contradictory. What's the point of giving First Tek "ultimate" authority over who's enrolled under the policy if the health insurance company has "ultimate" authority to ignore First Tek's "ultimate" authority and deny benefits because it doesn't think people are enrolled? The court seems to think that this is a system that makes sense, but it mostly seems to me that it's just a fancy way of obscuring the fact that First Tek really had no authority here. Which might be fine as just a straightforward matter, but this is anything but straightforward: The contract manages to strip First Tek of authority by saying the opposite, much like the weird denial of coverage the insurance company sent that actually read that it was "evidence . . . of coverage." This is like being Alice in Looking-Glass Land, frankly.
At any rate, as you could probably tell was coming, Mr. Kurma loses this case. What's interesting is that he presents no claim that he ever informed First Tek in any way of the birth of his son within the relevant 30-day period. I find this difficult to believe, personally, and I don't know how there couldn't have been something he could have used to argue that he gave First Tek some notice, especially given the evidence that even First Tek's CEO tried to get coverage for the baby. But the court says there was no dispute that there had been no notice "of any kind," not even oral, and so Mr. Kurma failed under the terms of the policy.
Mr. Kurma argued that First Tek clearly wished the baby to be enrolled and tried to intercede with the insurance company on Mr. Kurma's behalf. The court's reaction to this is unimpressed: the plan says what the plan says, and First Tek's desire not to follow the plan doesn't mean anything. (Of course, presumably First Tek didn't have a whole lot of opportunity to negotiate the terms of the plan in the first place.) Mr. Kurma also tries to argue estoppel, which fails because, again, the words of the plan were clear, and Mr. Kurma failed to follow them, so he can't argue estoppel. Likewise, there was no duty on the insurance company's part to explain to Mr. Kurma what steps he had to take to insure his son, and there was no bad faith on the insurance company's part in failing to do so.
So, the end result is that the Kurma family is now over $667,000 in debt, as a result of having sought to save their son's life. This case just kills me. I know what the plan said, but I am a trained lawyer who found the words being said to Mr. Kurma confusing; I am bewildered by how it could be reasonable to expect Mr. Kurma to wade through all of this during what was doubtless the most stressful and emotionally exhausting time of his life. Think of how challenging you find it to deal with bureaucracy under ideal circumstances; imagine having to do it while your tiny infant son is fighting for his life in intensive care. And having to do it under circumstances where you're given dense pages of legalese, no assistance to walk through that legalese, and documents that say one thing while meaning the opposite.
I know that insurance companies have a lot to deal with, too. And I know this insurance company didn't want to pay $667,000 in medical bills. I know this insurance company wanted to make sure it makes people jump through a few hoops first to make sure they really deserve the health care. But I just find this outcome in this case tragically absurd in a way that makes me despair for how we're dealing with health care in this country: Nobody disputed that the health insurance company was well aware Mr. Kurma's wife was pregnant and would presumably soon be having a child; nobody disputed that the health insurance company was well aware Mr. Kurma's son had been born and was hospitalized; nobody disputed that the health insurance company indicated to Mr. Kurma that it was evaluating the necessity of his son's medical treatment; nobody disputed that the health insurance company even sent "evidence of . . . coverage" to Mr. Kurma. And still the health insurance company didn't have to cover the baby, because of one missed hoop that the company it pertained to sought to waive entirely.
Maybe your view is that Mr. Kurma should have been more on top of things. But I just think this seems like an incredibly harsh case.
Peter Gulia, an adjunct professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law, sent me this as a follow-up and I add it to the text here with his permission because I think it's a valuable contribution.
Your great essay on Kurma v. Starmark, Inc. paints a striking story. But let me give you a way to reconsider what happened.
The health plan is a "self-funded" health plan that is not health insurance. The employer pays the claims from the employer's assets. (The employer likely has a stop-loss insurance contract that pays the employer, not the plan or any participant, if claims exceed specified measures.)
Starmark is not an insurer; it provides services to the employer, which also is the health plan's sponsor, administrator, and named fiduciary.
In any moment during Mr. Kurma's difficulties, the employer, acting as the plan's administrator, could have instructed the processor to treat Kurma's newborn as regularly enrolled. Doing so would make the employer responsible to pay the mother's and newborn's medical expenses.
(Even if the employer asked: "Is there anything [the processor] can do to make the carrier make an exception?", this likely referred to trying to persuade the stop-loss insurer to provide more coverage than its contract promised.)
If one analyzes this case under the common law of contracts, one might classify it as a duty-to-read case. The reported facts suggest the participant did not read the plan, and also did not read, at least not carefully, its summary plan description.
That Mr. Kurma suffered a loss because he didn't sufficiently understand his employee-benefit plan's conditions is harsh. But it's not because Starmark failed to perform its service agreement. And it's not because Starmark sought to avoid an expense it never would bear.
March 26, 2016 in Commentary, Legislation, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (1)
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Browsewrap Unenforceable and Motion to Compel Arbitration Denied
A recent California appellate court case, Long v. Provide Commerce, Inc., found that a browsewrap agreement containing an arbitration clause failed to provide notice sufficient for assent. The case is likely to be significant in shaping wrap contract doctrine because it is the first California appellate court decision which addresses "what sort of website design elements would be necessary or sufficient to deem a browsewrap agreement valid in the absence of actual notice."
The plaintiff, Brett Long, purchased a floral arrangement on the ProFlowers.com website. The arrangement he purchased was advertised as a "completed assembly product" but he alleged that it was delivered as a "do-it yourself kit" which required assembly. He filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of California consumers. Provide, the owner and operator of the ProFlowers.com website, moved to compel arbitration pursuant to its Terms of Use which contained an arbitration clause.
The Terms of Use were accessible via a hyperlink titled TERMS OF USE at the bottom of each webpage. The hyperlink was in light green typeface on a lime green background along with other hyperlinks in the same format. In order to complete his order, Long had to input information and click through buttons which were displayed in a white box against the website's lime green background. At the bottom of the box was the following notice, "Your order is safe and secure." Below the white box was a dark green bar with a hyperlink stating SITE FEEDBACK in light green typeface. Below the dark green bar, at the bottom of each "checkout flow" page were two hyperlinks, PRIVACY POLICY and TERMS OF USE in the same light green typeface as the website's lime green background.
After placing the order, Provide sent Long an email order confirmation. The email contained a dark green bar with several hyperlinks to product offerings such as "Birthday" or "Anniversary." Next, the email displayed a light green bar thanking the customer for his order and followed by order summary details and other related information. Following the order details were two banner advertisements and a notification regarding account management services with accompanying hyperlinks. Following that, another dark green bar stated "Our Family of Brands" and listed logos for Proflowers and 5 other companies. Next, the email contained customer service information in small grey typeset and then, in the same grey typeset, two hyperlinks titled "Privacy Policy" and "Terms".
The California appellate court found that the Terms of Use hyperlinks were not sufficiently conspicuous to put a "reasonably prudent Internet consumer" on inquiry notice and that the Plaintiff did not manifest his unambiguous assent to be bound. The court noted that just because the Terms of Use hyperlinks were visible without scrolling was insufficient to establish an enforceable browsewrap. It referred to the "bright line rule" set forth in Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble Inc.: "(W)here a website makes its terms of use available via a conspicuous hyperlink on every page of the website but otherwise provides no notice to users nor prompts them to take any affirmative action to demonstrate assent, even close proximity of the hyperlink to relevant buttons users must click on- without more – is insufficient to give rise to constructive notice." The court also noted that "to establish the enforceability of a browsewrap agreement, a textual notice should be required" to show continued use constitutes assent. In other words, a conspicuous hyperlink alone does not constitute reasonable notice.
This case is another in a line of cases coming out of California and the Ninth Circuit which is making a long overdue correction to contract law doctrine -- doctrine which veered dangerously off course with ProCD and its ilk. As I've previously noted, the law in this area is still working itself out, and my guess is that other jurisdictions will start reevaluating the meaning of "assent" when it comes to wrap contracts (and start following the Ninth Circuit's more reasonable understanding of reasonableness).
(Disclosure and fun fact: I am the recipient of a chair funded from a class action settlement involving ProFlowers).
March 20, 2016 in E-commerce, Recent Cases, True Contracts, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, March 19, 2016
When Minutes Really Matter
Every time I teach the mailbox rule, I'm amazed by how different the world was not so long ago. Imagine having to wait days to receive documents, instead of seconds via e-mail. When I was practicing, if documents didn't come through to me instantaneously, I found myself going through my spam, annoyed at the delay and the time I was losing in not having the documents in hand immediately. I think all the time that the practice of law must have been very different.
A recent case out of the District of Maryland, CMFG Life Insurance Co. v. Schell, Case No. GJH-13-3032, made me think again about how important timing can be. In that case, a delay in sending a document that amounted to only a couple of hours contributed to a sizable financial loss.
Sandra Lee had an annuity with CMFG that listed as its beneficiaries her husband William Schell and her three children. On December 14, 2012, between 11 and 11:30 am, Schell delivered a Change of Beneficiary form to the office of Lee's financial advisor, Nelson Turner. The form, signed by Schell as attorney-in-fact for Lee pursuant to a power of attorney that had been executed by Lee on December 6, named Schell as the sole beneficiary of the annuity, removing Lee's three children. Turner faxed the form to CMFG; the fax transmission stated CMFG received it at 2:01 pm.
At 1:10 pm, in between the time of Schell leaving the form with Turner and the time of CMFG receiving the faxed form, Lee died. Therefore, CMFG rejected the beneficiary change because it had not received the form prior to Lee's death, as required by the contract. Schell objected to CMFG's payment of the benefits to Lee's children, arguing that he was the only beneficiary of the annuity, and this lawsuit resulted.
Section 4.2 of the annuity stated that the beneficiary could be changed "by written request any time while the annuitant is alive." Both parties agreed that this language was clear that any beneficiary change had to take place while Lee was alive. But Schell said that the contract said the beneficiary change would be effective on the date signed, and he signed it while Lee was alive. The court, however, noted that this reading of the contract ignored the "by written request" language. The annuity actually contained a definition of "written request" that said it was a "written notice . . . received in our home office." The court noted that, although Schell might have signed the beneficiary form while Lee was still alive, it was not received by CMFG, as required by the contract, until after Lee had died. Therefore, it was not effective under the terms of the contract requiring it to be received while Lee was alive.
You might be thinking that, if not for Turner's delay in faxing the form, Schell would have been tens of thousands of dollars richer at this moment. However, the court went on to rule that the change of beneficiary form would not have been effective in any event because Schell could not breach his fiduciary duty to Lee and use his power of attorney to achieve his own personal gain.
At any rate, though, if you do have a properly executed change of beneficiary form for an annuity, it is in your best interest not to delay sending it in and making it effective.
March 19, 2016 in Commentary, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (2)
Monday, March 14, 2016
Using Contract Law to Protect Guestworkers
H-2B visas provide for foreign citizens to work temporarily for American businesses in non-agricultural roles. However, these visas can sometimes lead to abuse of the foreign citizens working under them, as was alleged in a recent case out of the Eighth Circuit, Cuellar-Aguilar v. Deggeller Attractions, No. 15-1219. Also blogged about here from a workplace law point of view, the case involved a group of nineteen workers who had been employed in a traveling carnival. The workers alleged, among other things, that their employer had breached their employment contracts by paying them below the minimum wage.
The district court found that there had been no contract between the workers and their employer, basing its decision on the federal regulations governing the H-2B visa program. However, the appellate court said that was the incorrect place to look for guidance on whether a contract existed. Rather, the existence of a contract is governed by state common law, and in this case there was enough evidence of a contract to survive a motion to dismiss. The workers received offers of employment from Deggeller and then traveled to the United States in acceptance of those offers, which was enough to establish a contractual relationship. The court then used the federal regulations governing the H-2B visa program to fill in the particular terms of the contract, which included a requirement that the employer pay no less than the minimum wage. Therefore, the workers' allegations that the employer had breached this requirement established a valid contract cause of action.
Allowing the workers to proceed on a contract theory may seem like a positive development for similarly situated workers who might find themselves taken advantage of. However, I had the pleasure recently of hearing Prof. Annie Smith from the University of Arkansas School of Law speak on the prospect of mandatory arbitration clauses being applied to guestworkers. As we all know, mandatory arbitration clauses are currently in major vogue, and Prof. Smith expressed concern that mandatory arbitration would be detrimental to already vulnerable guestworkers. The decision here might encourage employers like Deggeller to enter into more formal contracts that would include arbitration clauses. If they're going to be found to be in a contractual relationship anyway, presumably the employers would want to exercise control over the terms of that contractual relationship.
March 14, 2016 in Commentary, Games, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, March 7, 2016
Regulating against Forced Arbitration in Consumer Cases
As Stacey writes just below this post, much is happening in the arbitration arena currently.
In December, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act pre-empts state law. Thus, when parties have executed agreements calling for arbitration rather than court resolutions, the arbiration clause will be upheld. The case was DirectTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, No. 14-462.
In the case, Imburgia's contract stated that "[i]f ... the law of your state would find this agreement to dispense with class arbitration procedures unenforceable, then this entire Section 9 [the arbitration section] is unenforceable." http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-462_2co3.pdf
The Supreme Court noted that when DIRECTV drafted the contract, the parties likely believed that the words "law of your state" included California law that then made class-arbitration waivers unenforceable. But the Court's subsequent holding in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Conception found that the Federal Arbitration Act pre-empts state law on the issue. Thus, parties cannot contractually bind themselves to invalid state law. When they refer to "state law," this means only valid state law.
These rulings favor businesses, not consumers. This is so particularly so in cases between consumers and banks or credit card companies. A 2007 report found that over four years, arbitrators ruled in favor of the financial institutions in no less than 94% of the cases. Of course, in the typical take-it-or-leave it style contract, consumers have the choice only of agreeing to arbitrate or not getting the desired service.
As for the belief that arbitration saves scarce judicial resources, it is noteworthy that businesses file four times as many lawsuits as individuals. "It is hard to imagine any company giving up its own right to sue another company in a business dispute." Double standards abound here.
Meanwhile, in early February, Senators Leahy and Franken introduced the Restoring Statutory Rights Act. This would create an exception in the Arbitration Act for disputes involving individuals and small businesses. The only way individuals would enter into arbitration is if they agreed to do so after the dispute has been filed. That's very different from the current process, which automatically shunts all customer disputes into binding arbitration.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also considering a ban in mandatory-arbitration provisions in contracts for credit cards and other financial services. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is looking to do the same in relation to nursing home contracts.
Acts and regulations are highly warranted in this context. We know where the Supreme Court currently stands on the issue. We do not know where it will go with a new justice soon to be appointed, but judicial branch action in this area may not be forthcoming any time soon.
March 7, 2016 in Famous Cases, Legislation, Recent Cases, True Contracts | Permalink | Comments (0)


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GECAS Delivers 2 New Leased Boeing 737-800s to China Southern Airlines
GE Capital Aviation Services Limited (GECAS), the commercial aircraft leasing and financing arm of GE, announced delivery of two new leased Boeing 737-800 aircraft to China Southern Airlines.
These are the first of 10 new Boeing 737-800s scheduled for delivery in 2014 on lease from GECAS as part of the airline's fleet renewal program. The 10 aircraft come from GECAS' existing order book with Boeing.
Global Top 4 Commercial Aircraft OEMs - Strategy Focus & Comparative SWOT Framework Analysis - 2015-...
China Southern has been a GECAS customer since the early 1990s. It is the largest airline in Asia with a fleet of more than 400 aircraft flying to some 200 destinations.
Your company's press release on ASDNews and to thousands of other journalists and editors? Use our ASDWire press release distribution service.
Source : General Electric
Aircraft Economic Life Summit 2016
Nov 22, 2016 - Dublin, Ireland

subset: commoncrawl


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CMA Awards 2011: Jason Aldean, Kelly Clarkson and Sugarland Among Early Winners
Hosted by duo Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, this year's Ccountry Music Association (CMA) Awards has just been kicked off at 8 P.M. EST, and broadcast live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on ABC. Some of the musicians who won early at the event were Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney.
Jason grabbed Musical Event of the Year through his performance with Kelly Clarkson in "Don't You Wanna Stay". This becomes the first CMA win for both of them. They pushed aside the likes of Kenny, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band, Loretta Lynn, Sheryl Crow and Miranda Lambert.
Kenny, meanwhile, took home Music Video of the Year, thanks to his "You and Tequila" clip which features Grace Potter. He beat Blake Shelton ("Honey Bee"), The Band Perry ("If I Die Young"), Taylor Swift ("Mean"), and Brad ("Old Alabama" ft. Alabama).
Although losing Music Video of the Year, The Band Perry still managed to get a coveted prize in Single of the Year. Celebrating their first ever CMA win, they got the prize after having a stiff competition with Jason, Blake, Sara Evans and Zac Brown's band.
Later in the evening, Kimberly Perry and friends came back to the stage to accept another kudo. They were presented Song of the Year by Kellie Pickler and Kellan Lutz. In winning the award, they once again beat Zac Brown's band and Jason in addition to triumphing over Taylor and Kenny.
Another early CMA winner was Mac McAnally who brought home Musician of the Year. This marks his victory in the category for four years in a row. The 54-year-old musician, who got his first CMA win in 2008, beat Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Paul Franklin and Dann Huff.
Sugarland also won early that night. Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles were handed Vocal Duo of the Year by Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas. They took down such strong competitors as The Civil Wars, Montgomery Gentry, Steel Magnolia and Thompson Square.
Celebrating its 45th anniversary, CMA Awards is going to made merry with live performances from Sugarland and Scotty McCreery. The other performers include Miranda, Blake, Taylor, Kenny, Keith Urban, Sara Evans, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Lady Antebellum and Natasha Bedingfield.
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text:
Orange to invest $20mln in mobile security firm Lookout
December 4, 2012 - 12:23 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - France Telecom's Orange mobile unit has struck a deal to offer security software from Lookout and take an equity stake in the mobile software vendor, AllThingsD reports.
Starting next year, Orange will offer Lookout's software standard on Android devices in France, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom.
"By investing in Lookout we are ensuring that we will continue to help keep our customers safe in the future, and that the Orange & Publicis initiative with Iris Capital is supporting a company that is positioned to become a global leader in the digital economy," Orange Executive VP Paul-François Fournier said in a statement.
According to TechCrunch, exact financial terms of the investment in Lookout — which has 30 million active installs and has already raised $76 million from a top list of VCs including Khosla Ventures, Chris Sacca, Trilogy Equity Partnership, Index, Accel Partners, and most recently $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz – were not disclosed, but it could be as high as $20 million (€15 million).
Lookout says that 40 percent of its new activations are coming from outside the U.S. and it plans to open offices next year in both Tokyo and London.
Top stories
The Pro line would be priced at a premium of around $150 on top of the iPhone 7 Plus line according to the rumored pricing.
Credible Japanese site Mac Otakara backs up the recent talk of a second set of speakers being added to the top of the phone.
Among the highlights is Shadowmatic, a famous Armenian tech product which was launched in January 2015 by Triada Studio.
Nokia said it will provide China Mobile with a 5G-ready base station allowing numerous radio technologies to operate at the same time.
Partner news
Latest news
Armenia President sends condolences letter to Turkey over Istanbul attack In his letter, President Serzh Sargsyan condemned the terrorist act, expressing condolences to the families of the victims.
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France proposes holding next Karabakh talks in Paris "Sergey Lavrov briefed me on the outcome of the meeting of Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents," Jean-Marc Ayrault said.
J.K. Rowling reveals 4 houses, history of America's Hogwarts The four houses are named after magical beasts: Pukwudgie, Horned Serpent, Wampus and Thunderbird.


text:
Member Since: May 07, 2013
[5] June 21, 2016 at 12:11pm
They just can't handle the truth. Just as our Muslim President can't handle the truth about Radical Islamic Terrorism, and it's costing precious American lives.
June 7, 2016 at 11:00pm
So she sported a $12,495 Giorgio Armani tweed jacket during an April 19 speech on the heels of her New York Democratic primary win over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Big Deal! People care more about what they're wearing than what their saying.
What kills me is that these news media people, and everyone else, just don't even seem to understand that we are all having democratic primaries, and democratic elections. The Republicans have already had their democratic primary. And Donald Trump won his democratic primary race for the Republicans. Hillary has simply won her democratic primary race for the Democrats. She is a member of the "DEMOCRAT" Party, NOT the "Democratic" Party! We're Americans and we still don't even understand our own democratic political system. Hell, the Presidential candidates don't even understand it, so who cares!
I am amazed how far we've come considering!!
In reply to the story Clinton Tries to Appear More Relatable in Speech About Income Inequality — and Makes $12,000 Mistake
[3] June 8, 2016 at 1:22am
displaced_maineiac responded:
[1] June 8, 2016 at 8:05am
whatdoibelieve responded:
June 8, 2016 at 9:56am
GUARDIANSECURITY responded:
June 8, 2016 at 3:32pm
Debchosen responded:
[4] May 3, 2016 at 10:50pm
Another hapless candidate running on the Republican ticket. Oh boy! I can't wait, again! When are we ever going to learn?
In reply to the story Ted Cruz Ends Campaign for White House After Crushing Loss in Indiana
[-2] May 3, 2016 at 10:53pm
Cbowen responded:
[5] May 3, 2016 at 12:35pm
Another lying politician who goes with the wind. She'll say whatever it takes to get elected. But don't turn your back on her, or you may lose more than your job. Ask the families of the men who died in Benghazi.
May 1, 2016 at 3:41pm
And visa versa for Trump supporters to decide to vote for Cruz.
In reply to TSully's comment on the story Trump Backers Yell Foul Over Loss at Arizona GOP Convention
May 1, 2016 at 3:40pm
Yes, but they have nothing to do with Cruz.
In reply to Hound-Dog's comment on the story Trump Backers Yell Foul Over Loss at Arizona GOP Convention
May 2, 2016 at 3:16am
Hound-Dog responded:
[11] May 1, 2016 at 12:34pm
As an Arizonan and a 3-tour Vietnam Vet, those delegates went exactly where I wanted them to go. I hope and pray that all the remaining delegates go to Cruz as well, so that we can finally have a REAL Constitutional-Conservative President in our White House.
In reply to the story Trump Backers Yell Foul Over Loss at Arizona GOP Convention
[1] May 1, 2016 at 12:38pm
SimpleObservations responded:
May 1, 2016 at 12:39pm
TedsBrother responded:
[7] May 1, 2016 at 12:52pm
balancebound responded:
[-2] May 1, 2016 at 1:17pm
thumper1960 responded:
[5] May 1, 2016 at 1:39pm
JackPhillips2 responded:
[1] April 26, 2016 at 12:53pm
Who cares! Like that's such an accomplishment anymore. He's the biggest media hog on the planet! Nobody gets more interviews than Trump. Too bad Cruz can't get equal coverage, or he'd have half a chance!
In reply to the story Megyn Kelly's Big Interview with Trump Confirmed for Next Month
[8] April 12, 2016 at 3:14pm
Killing four brave American heroes in Benghazi definitely qualifies Hillary to be President. It shows, that like her predecessor, she has no heart or love for the brave men and women that serve her!
In reply to the story 'That's It': Biden's Handlers Try to Cut Interview Short Over 'Woman' Question — but He Shuts His Own Staffers Down
April 12, 2016 at 11:12pm
timarina responded:
[2] March 21, 2016 at 3:07pm
And if Obama had bi-racial sons, they'd look just like the Diaz brothers.
[1] March 21, 2016 at 1:35am
That's the problem with our country today, where liberal politicians are running amuck in little towns throughout the country, as they literally tear down the unifying patriotic fabric of America one small municipality at a time. That's why it's time for a strong Conservative Leader in the White House, so that Liberalism can slide back into the shadows where it belongs.
In reply to the story 'It's a Total Waste of Time': New York Board Members Vote Against Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance During Meetings
[1] March 21, 2016 at 3:33am
MyWifeIsMyBestFriend responded:
[3] March 21, 2016 at 1:16am
We've always known how Liberal the ESPN organization is, but this one is outrageous.
[6] March 19, 2016 at 3:03pm
Every word obviously comes from sound, deep thought. All of which makes absolute perfect sense to me, and is a great analysis of Donald Trump.
In reply to the story 'Leave Megyn Kelly ALONE.' — Beck Defends Megyn Kelly in Ruthless Open Letter to Trump
March 19, 2016 at 3:13pm
Hound-Dog responded:
[4] March 18, 2016 at 4:37pm
Ted never lied about anything. And as for Trump, that's all we need, a President who talks to himself. That will look great in foreign summits.
In reply to DLV's comment on the story Report: Rubio Nearing Decision to Endorse Cruz for President
[13] March 18, 2016 at 4:18pm
Cruz is, has been, and will always be the ONLY Constitutional Conservative running for President. He has my vote and the vote of many of my military comrades.
In reply to the story Report: Rubio Nearing Decision to Endorse Cruz for President
[6] March 18, 2016 at 4:26pm
makingout responded:
[1] March 18, 2016 at 8:16pm
pschlentz responded:
[1] March 17, 2016 at 3:16pm
Just look at her blank face in the photo, as you can see why she is unable to answer any of the questions!
[1] March 15, 2016 at 11:14pm
Nobody but Cruz is worthy of the Presidency, and it's because the Establishment Republicans hate him so much that I have high hopes that he makes it. He is so unlike them, that they just can't stand him.
[1] March 12, 2016 at 3:14pm
I am extremely disappointed in Dr. Carson, as his choice in candidates is a very precarious one, and certainly not one that correlates with what he was professing on his own campaign trail. There must have been some alternative reason for his endorsement of Mr. Trump, or his heart and logic would have certainly directed him to the more obvious candidate. Because of this, I have lost all respect for the doctor, as he has sold-out just as any and all the typical politicians have before him.
In reply to the story Beck Slams Carson for Endorsing Trump: 'The Guy Called You a Pedophile'
March 12, 2016 at 8:01pm
rockntractor responded:
[9] March 10, 2016 at 11:49am
He picked the right man, and as a war veteran myself, I agree with his decision 100%.
In reply to the story 'Some of You Will Be Angry At Me': Mark Levin Makes 2016 Endorsement
[2] March 8, 2016 at 2:39pm
As a 3-tour Vietnam Vet, I am appalled at this and many of the abuses that this administration has shown toward our Vets and our Flag. None of this will stop until we get a true Constitutional Conservative back in the White House, who believes in America and its military.
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text:
H Index
|Subject Area
|Agricultural and Biological Sciences
|Subject Category
|Food Science, Horticulture
|Vigne et Vin Publications Internationales
|Publication type
|The International des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin (four times p.a.) publishes original research reports, short research notes and review papers in the fields of vine-growing, oenological science and fruit technology. Articles are submitted for evaluation to two specialised readers, selected by the Chiefs Editor, either from among the members of the international scientific committe or a person of their own choice. (source)
Q1 (green) means highest values and Q4 (red) lowest values
The SJR indicator measures the scientific influence of the average article in a journal, it expresses how central to the global scientific discussion an average article of the journal is.
Evolution of Citations per Document to a journal's published documents during the two, three and four previous years. The two years line is equivalent to journal impact factor ™ (Thomson Reuters) metric.
Evolution of the total number of citations and journal's self-citations received by a journal's published documents during the three previous years.
Evolution of the number of total cites per document and external cites per document (i.e. journal self-citations removed) received by a journal's published documents during the three previous years.
International Collaboration accounts for the articles that have been produced by researchers from several countries. The chart shows the ratio of a journal's documents signed by researchers from more than one country.
Not every article in a journal is considered primary research and therefore "citable", this chart shows the ratio of a journal's articles including substantial research (research articles, conference papers and reviews) in three year windows.
Ratio of a journal's items, grouped in three years windows, that have been cited at least once vs. those not cited during the following year.
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Scimago Lab, Copyright 2007-2016. Data Source: Scopus®


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