Lead Stories

An appellate court in Washington has refused to follow several federal Circuit Courts of Appeals and refused to permit confidential ex parte communications between an attorney representing a defendant hospital and a physician employed by an outside contractor in the operation of the hospital’s emergency room when the hospital has been sued by a patient.  The state Court of Appeals, by a vote of 2-1, has refused to expand the scope of the privilege.

A federal District Court in Montana has put at least a temporary hold on the Internal Revenue Service’s effort to suspend the requirement for tax-exempt organizations to file a list of their significant donors on Schedule B to the Form 990 tax information return.  The Administration had eliminated the requirement for all exempt organizations except 501(c)(3) public charities by publishing a new Revenue Procedure in 2018.  (Rev. Proc.

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire has denied standing to a “branch church” of Christian Science to contest the administration of an original testamentary trust of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Church of Christian Science, when it is only a “potential” beneficiary of the trust.  It has weighed five specific criteria for determining whether a potential beneficiary has a “special interest” that would justify standing and found the branch church lacking.

A federal District Court in Massachusetts has dismissed a putative class action brought against Mount Ida College, its Board of Trustees and several officers by students upset by the abrupt closing of the institution.  They made various claims of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, contract and privacy.

Members of a Masonic/Scottish Rite organization lost their standing to bring a derivative suit on behalf of the organization against several of its officers when the members lost their membership rights and started a competing organization.  An appellate court in Tennessee has ruled that the plaintiffs could not fairly represent the interests of the remaining members of the original organization when they had started a new one.

A California appellate court has reversed a trial court decision that a director of a public benefit nonprofit lost her standing to sue the organization and another director for self-dealing and breach of fiduciary duty when she was removed from the board following initiation of her suit.  In what is apparently a case of first impression in the state, the Court said that a close reading of the Corporations Code and the needs of public policy justified its ruling that the plaintiff could continue to lead the case.