An appellate court in California has affirmed a trial court decision refusing to compel arbitration of a breach of contract, fraud and defamation claim brought by a member against the American Contract Bridge League.  The Court had held that the member had no knowledge of the requirement to arbitrate that was included on the back of his annual membership renewal form.

The City of Rutland, VT, has lost its argument that a pair of parent-child centers offering a variety of state-funded programs for new and prospective parents and for families with small children should not be eligible for real estate tax exemption.  The City argued that they do not serve an “indefinite class” of beneficiaries and confer a benefit on the public as a whole.  The Supreme Court of Vermont has affirmed a trial court decision rejecting the claim and granting exemption for the parcels.

A trial court in North Carolina has refused to dismiss a corporate derivative suit brought by a private foundation director on behalf of the foundation and against the other four directors for breach of fiduciary duty and gross mismanagement.  The director is seeking damages for the foundation and removal of the other directors from the board.  The defendants had claimed that the director did not meet the requirements of state law to make demands on them before filing the action.

A employee claiming that she was fired in retaliation for taking family medical leave has to prove only that retaliation was a motivating factor in the decision, not that she would not have been terminated “but for” the retaliation, the second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.  It has reversed a trial court jury trial where the court instructed the jury that it could find for the employee only if it found that she would not have been fired but for the retaliation.