Case Updates

A single member Limited Liability Company is dissolved when its sole member dies unless either of the following two exceptions apply:
(1) The operating agreement allows the continuation of the LLC and provides a method for determining the successor to the deceased member; or
(2) The heirs, successors, and assigns of the deceased member’s interest elect to continue the LLC within 90 days of the sole member’s death. Read more

Residue of a special needs trust must reimburse DHCS for Medi-Cal payments to deceased beneficiary. Read more

Generally, non-competes are not enforceable in California as set forth in California Business and Professions Code section 16600 which states that, “[e]xcept as provided in this chapter, every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.” There are some limited exceptions to this rule. One of those exceptions is when an owner of a business sells the company’s goodwill or interests. Read more

Kisor v. Wilkie (US 18-15 6/26/19) Agency Deference Doctrine. Upholding Auer deference doctrine, whereby courts defer to an agency’s reasonable reading of the agency’s own ambiguous regulations. Read more

Summary: Although a debtor-licensor's rejection of a trademark licensing agreement under the Bankruptcy Code breaches the contract, such action does not rescind it. Accordingly, the United States Supreme Court held, in an 8-1 decision, rejection of the license in bankruptcy does not deprive the licensee of its rights to use the trademark. In so ruling, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of a divided First Circuit and resolved a circuit split. Read more

The California Department of Health Care Services prepared a Medi-Cal audit of Hoag Hospital’s 2009 cost report, determining that Hoag had to pay more than $2.4 million in reimbursements mandated by Assembly Bills (AB) 5 and 1183, which reduced the amount of certain Medi-Cal payments. Hoag filed a timely administrative appeal contesting the legality of the Assembly bills and the reimbursement deductions based on federal and state laws and constitutions. Hoag later filed a second appeal requesting that its existing appeal also address an alleged $620,903 calculation error to be corrected if AB 5 and 1183 were lawful. The ALJ dismissed Hoag’s first appeal for lack of jurisdiction and dismissed its calculation error appeal as untimely. Read more

Ethan Lomeli’s guardian sued medical care providers for his birth injuries. Through Medi-Cal, the California Department of Health Care Services paid for his medical care before and during the lawsuit. After Lomeli settled with defendants for $4 million, the Department moved to impose a $267,159.60 lien on the settlement, seeking reimbursement for the care it provided. The trial court granted the motion, and Lomeli appealed. Read more

In an unpublished memorandum decision, the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Ninth Circuit in In re Miller, BAP No. CC 18-1267-SFL, filed March 11, 2019, reversed the bankruptcy court’s award of Rule 9011 sanctions in the amount of $50,875 because the claimant lacked standing to seek a recovery of his attorney’s fees. Read more

On May 21, 2019, District Judge Lucy H. Koh of the Northern District of California ruled that Qualcomm, Inc.’s standard essential patent licensing practices were anticompetitive.[1] FTC v. Qualcomm, No. 5:17-cv-002200, 2019 U.S. Dist. WL 2206013 (N.D. Cal. May 21, 2019). Judge Koh found that Qualcomm possessed monopoly power in the markets for CDMA and premium-LTE modem chips. Qualcomm in turn used this monopoly power to (a) force SEP licensees into anticompetitive licensing agreements, (b) refuse to license its SEPs to rival modem chip manufacturers, (c) extract supra-competitive royalties from customers, (d) push competitors out of the market, and (e) secure exclusive deals. This anticompetitive behavior harmed original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) and Qualcomm’s rivals in the CDMA and premium-LTE modem chip markets. Indeed, Qualcomm had required OEMs to sign a patent license agreement before they could purchase their model chips (i.e., the no license/no chip policy), a practice which the court deemed anticompetitive. Read more

In July 2018, Plaintiffs Wi-LAN Inc., Wi-LAN USA, Inc., and Wi-LAN Labs, Inc., (collectively, “Wi-LAN”) brought a patent infringement action against Defendants LG Electronics, Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., and LG Electronics Mobilecomm U.S.A., Inc., (collectively, “LG”) alleging that LG’s wireless communications products that are compliant with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 4G LTE standard (3GPP LTE) directly infringed four of Wi-LAN’s patents. Wi-Lan Inc., et al. v. LG Elecs., Inc., et al., --- F. Supp. 3d ----, No. 18-cv-01577-H-BGS, 2019 WL 1586761, at *1 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 12, 2019). Wi-Lan was once a company that engaged in research and development of various wireless technologies but now primarily focuses on licensing patent portfolios owned by others. LG, in response, asserted various counterclaims relating to the unenforceability of Wi-LAN’s purported standard-essential patents and, particularly, claims for (1) monopolization and attempted monopolization in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §2; (2) unfair business practices under Section 17200 of the California Business and Profession Code, Cal. Bus. & Prof. § 17200; and (3) declaratory judgment of unenforceability of U.S. Patent No. 8,867,351 (“the ’351 patent”) under a theory of infectious unenforceability. Read more