Recently in Contract Law Category

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed out a big win for Warner Bros. in its Superman lawsuit against Marc Toberoff. The court ruled that documents stolen from Toberoff weren't privileged and Warner could use them against him.

Toberoff represents the estates of late Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Toberoff was accused of tortious interference after he tried to strike a deal with the estates' heirs for Superman's rights. Warner filed suit after learning of the venture when documents concerning the deal were stolen from Toberoff by a former associate and given to Warner.

Warner's victory isn't only bad for Toberoff's defense, but it could also result in stark changes in how people cooperate with police investigations.

Money comes, money goes — especially for the defendant in the New Jersey Mega Millions lawsuit. A jury has awarded $20 million to the former co-workers of Americo Lopes, leaving him with only a sixth of his original $38.5 million ($24 million after taxes) lottery jackpot.

The co-workers sued Lopes after he refused to share the winnings. They claimed he used money from a group lottery pool to buy the 2009 winning ticket. Lopes disagreed, and instead argued that he had bought the ticket for himself.

A New Jersey appellate court has upheld the dismissal of a personal injury suit brought against the operator of Mountain Creek , the state's largest ski resort. This wouldn't ordinarily be news, but the ruling may have just kicked off a nationwide trend.

Derek Dearnley filed the Mountain Creek lawsuit after being injured during the 2008-2009 season. When he purchased a 2009-2010 season pass , he unknowingly gave up his ability to continue pursuing these claims.

All you need is love, the Beatles famously proclaimed. But if you're entering into a contract, you need a lot more than that, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled.

"Love and affection are not consideration for a contract," Ohio's highest court held in the case of an ex-couple's real-estate dispute, The Columbus Dispatch reports.

The decision means Frederick Ormsby, 57, of Medina, Ohio, can keep $324,000 from the sale of a house he once shared with his ex-fiancée Amber Williams. A June 2005 contract, which called for a 50/50 split of the proceeds, is invalid, the court held.

Who owns "Ghost Rider" -- Marvel, or the man who created the comic book character? According to U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, Marvel does. Writer and former Marvel employee Gary Friedrich's lawsuit against the comic book company was dismissed in federal court this week.

Friedrich created the fiery motorcycle-riding "Ghost Rider" character in the early 1970s.

He sought movie rights after he heard that Marvel planned other uses of the "Ghost Rider" character. The 2007 "Ghost Rider" flick, starring Nicolas Cage, grossed around $115.8 million in the U.S. and Canada.

A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling this week was supposed to bring an end to the family feud raging between Jack Link and his sons Troy and Jay, but it appears as though Link Snacks, the nation's largest purveyor of beef jerky, will keep battling it out in court for some time to come.

While the justices unanimously voted to reinstate a jury verdict awarding Jay Link $5 million in punitive damages, they also remanded the case back to the trial court to determine if he should have received more.

A lawsuit challenging AT&T's practice of charging tax on the full retail price of a free cell phone may have just rendered class action lawsuits obsolete.

In the recently decided AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court determined that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state law that invalidates contractual clauses that bar classwide arbitration.

Despite his polite wording, the 9th Circuit's Chief Judge Kozinski put the smackdown on the Winklevoss twins and their hopefully final Facebook appeal.

After settling claims against Facebook alleging that Mark Zuckerburg had stolen their idea for a social network, the Winklevoss twins tried to renege on the agreement, claiming that it was acquired by fraud.

Upholding the agreement, Judge Kozinski implies that the twins should have hired better attorneys.

The kind of actions the jury found in this case are just the type the Romans must have had in mind when they coined the phrase "caveat emptor." Of course the Romans didn't have to contend with hundreds of illegally calibrated gas pumps that rip you off.

But that is what Texans had to contend with, found a Harris County jury, when they delivered their verdict against SunMart convenience stores November 9. The gas pumps in question were set to deliver less than, but fully charge for, a gallon of gas.

High-profile British investor Guy Hands lost a high-profile civil trial when a New York jury found that Citigroup didn't fool him and his company into buying EMI Music.

Guy Hands and his Terra Firma Capital Partners LP went down in defeat in the high-profile New York case against Citigroup Inc. Hand's company alleged that they were misled when they bid for EMI Group PLC. Hands alleged that Citigroup and top U.K. investment banker David Wormsley tricked him into believing a bidding war was on for EMI in 2007. But Terra Firma was in fact the only bidder.

It took the jury only four hours to consider the case before ruling that Citigroup did not fool Terra Firma into buying EMI. The verdict was a clear indication that the jury believed that Hands and Terra Firma made a poor business decision, nothing else. Hands testified at the trial but failed to convince the jury that his company was fraudulently misled.