Recently in Contract Law Category

Atlanta, the city best known for its "Real Housewives" cast and streets with peachy names, could soon have a new claim to fame as the city with the most legal battles involving water rights.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court refused to hear the tri-state battle between Florida, Alabama, and Georgia over Atlanta's dependence on Lake Lanier as its primary water source.

This week, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Atlanta in a separate aquatic dispute over the southern mega-city's water contract with its neighbor, Sandy Springs.

In September, Eleventh Circuit Judge J.L. Edmondson called out fellow Circuit Judge Ed Carnes for his lengthy opinions. (While Judge Carnes' writing may be verbose, we gravitate toward his opinions because he is easily the most engaging writer on the Eleventh Circuit bench.)

This week, Judge Carnes authored a 25-page opinion explaining why a disgruntled Alabama telecomm customer can't recover improperly assessed fees from AT&T. In true Carnes fashion, rife with analogies about donkeys in lions' hides, Carnes explains why the district court didn't have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reviews a lot of cruise line lawsuits, thanks to the volume of ships going in and out of Florida. Most of the time, the appellate court seems to favor the plaintiffs in these cases. Most of the time, the cruise lines are arguing that liability waivers preclude claims.

A cruise line fares better when it argues improper venue based on the passage contract.

Nursing homes. We can't live without them, and sometimes we can't live in them either. So how can you resolve a wrongful death claim against a nursing home?

The answer depends on whether the patient who resided at the home signed an arbitration agreement, according to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Modern banking affords customers with peace of mind. Picture this: A ne'er-do-well wipes out the funds in a bank customer's account. No problem. The Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) says that the bank will recredit the account if the withdrawals were unauthorized.

Before you start sweating the law on behalf of your banking clients, rest assured that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is a stickler for that "unauthorized" caveat.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is full of overdraft litigation.

In March, we told you about Maxine Given, an Eleventh Circuit litigant who was challenging an M&T checking account arbitration clause. This week, we have Lacy Barras, a Branch Banking and Trust (BB&T) customer who claims that BB&T charges overdraft fees for payments from checking accounts, even when the account contains sufficient funds to cover the payments.

Barras also alleged that BB&T supplies inaccurate and misleading information about account balances, and fails to notify customers about changes to policies for processing checking account transactions, thereby increasing overdraft charges assessed against customers.

This week, we have another Fair Debt Collection Practice Act (FDCPA) claim in which the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that homeowners could sue attorneys acting as debt collectors.

Yes, attorneys are being sued, and you don't want to be one of them, so you need to heed the court’s warnings.

It’s okay for a borrower to whine and complain if a bank denies his request for a mortgage loan modification, but doesn't mean that he has a claim that can withstand a 12(b)(6) motion.

This week, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) does not give a homeowner a private cause of action against a bank.

We suspect that banks deduct multiple transactions from a customer’s checking account in the order of greatest amount to least amount. If the customer overdrafts, that would maximize the bank’s profits.

In college, we occasionally overdrafted because we were too absent-minded busy to keep a check register; Dad was not pleased. Whenever we received a bank statement, it was obvious that our bank had manipulated same-day withdrawals in the way that would yield the most fees.

Maxine Given sued her bank, M&T Bank Corporation, for similar behavior. Last week, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals kicked Given's claim out of court and into arbitration under the terms of the M&T banking agreement delegation provision.

Cautionary tale: If your client files a copyright lawsuit against a major corporation and loses, he could be stuck paying a small fortune in attorney’s fees.

Rafael Vergara Hermosilla sued Coca-Cola Company for copyright infringement, claiming that Coca-Cola used his Spanish adaptation of a song in its advertising without his permission. The district court ruled that Vergara had assigned his copyright interest in the adaptation to Universal Music Latin America, which in turn had assigned its rights to the adaptation to Coca-Cola.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the decision.