Justia U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff ClearOne Communications, Inc. (ClearOne) filed suit against Defendants Andrew Chiang, Jun Yan, Lonny Bowers, WideBand Solutions, Inc. and Versatile DSP, Inc. (collectively the WideBand Defendants), alleging misappropriation of trade secrets. Mssrs. Chiang, Yan and Bowers are all former engineers of ClearOne who had a hand in developing "acoustic echo cancelling" technology. Prior to their departure, the technology had been licensed from ClearOne by WideBand. When WideBand ended its licensing agreement with ClearOne, ClearOne became suspicious and conducted an internal investigation to find that its former engineers were now associated with WideBand. Furthermore, WideBand was using the proprietary technology it had once licensed. The case proceeded to trial, and ClearOne prevailed on all of its claims. The district court entered a final judgment, as well as a permanent injunction in favor of ClearOne. The court later learned that the Defendants along with several interested parties violated the terms of the injunction. The WideBand Defendants and the interested parties filed a number of appeals. The Tenth Circuit consolidated twelve cases into its holding, taking each Defendant-Appellant's arguments in turn. After careful consideration of the parties' arguments, the Court found no abuse of discretion by the trial court. The Court affirmed the trial court's decision in favor of ClearOne.

BancInsure, Inc. appealed a declaratory judgment in favor of Columbian Financial Corporation and a former director, Carl McCaffree (collectively the Insureds). The insurance policy at issue here was a "claims-made" policy covered any claim made to BancInsure against any Columbian officer or director for a "Wrongful Act" as defined by the policy. A disputed provision of the policy pertained to the scope of coverage if Columbian was placed in receivership or otherwise ceased to engage in active banking business. The parties interpreted the provision differently. The Insureds contended that if Columbian went into receivership, the policy covered all claims made through the end of the original policy period, although only for Wrongful Acts committed before the receivership. BancInsure contended that the policy covered only claims made before the receivership. The operation of the disputed provision became relevant in August 2008 when the Kansas State Bank Commissioner declared Columbian insolvent and appointed the FDIC as its receiver. Soon thereafter, Columbian’s management sent BancInsure a letter to notify it of potential claims by the FDIC and others. The parties disputed many of the claims against Columbian which led to Columbian filing suit to the district court to determine which claims were covered under the policy. The sole issue on appeal to the Tenth Circuit was whether the district court had jurisdiction. Though no party disputed jurisdiction, the Tenth Circuit found that there was no actual controversy between the parties when the district court below rendered its judgment. The court therefore lacked jurisdiction. The Tenth Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision and remanded to case with instructions to the court to vacate its judgment.

Plaintiffs Markyl Lee and Promises to Keep, LLC, failed to produce documents in response to a discovery request. They then proceeded to violate two judicial orders compelling production of those documents. After âpatiently affording the plaintiffs chance after chance,â the district court dismissed the case as a sanction against Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal. The Tenth Circuit held that â[o]ur justice system has a strong preference for resolving cases on their merits whenever possible, but no one. . .should count on more than three chances to make good a discovery obligation.â The Court affirmed the lower courtâs dismissal of Plaintiffsâ case.