Which Laws Apply to Broker-Dealers? Federal Laws? State Laws? Both? General Principles Leading to an Answer

TAMAR FRANKEL

BU Law emerita professor Tamar Frankel explains the law of preemption as it pertains to broker-dealers and their investor clients. She predicts, among other things, that either the clients will demand that broker-dealers adhere to a fiduciary duty, or else that states will impose that duty on them.

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K.G. v. Secretary of Health and Human Services

Docket: 19-1690

Opinion Date: March 6, 2020

Judge: O'Malley

Areas of Law: Civil Procedure, Health Law, Public Benefits

In 2011, K.G., age 48, received an influenza vaccination in advance of knee replacement surgery. Over the next several months, she experienced increasingly severe nerve pain in her hands, arms, feet, and legs; she succumbed to alcoholism, spent months in the hospital, and developed amnesia. In 2014, an Iowa state court declared K.G. incapable of caring for herself and, against K.G.’s will, appointed K.G.’s sister as her guardian. K.G. regained her mental faculties by May 2016. She then retained an attorney who filed her claim under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, 42 U.S.C. 300aa-1. A Special Master held that equitable tolling was not available during the period that K.G.’s sister acted as K.G.’s guardian and dismissed K.G.’s claim as not timely filed within the three-year statute of limitations. The Federal Circuit vacated. Equitable tolling is available in Vaccine Act cases and the appointment of a legal guardian is only one factor a court should consider when deciding whether equitable tolling is appropriate in a particular case. K.G. was not required to argue the legally irrelevant question of whether she personally was diligent while she was mentally competent and she preserved her argument that her legal representative exercised reasonable diligence under the circumstances. The Special Master erred in adopting a per se rule.

Customedia Technologies, LLC v. Dish Network Corp.

Docket: 18-2239

Opinion Date: March 6, 2020

Judge: Kimberly Ann Moore

Areas of Law: Communications Law, Intellectual Property, Patents

Customedia’s patents, which share a specification, disclose comprehensive data management and processing systems that comprise a remote AccountTransaction Server (ATS) and a local host Data Case Management System and Audio/Video Processor Recorderplayer (VPR/DMS), e.g., a cable set-top box. Broadcasters and other content providers transmit advertising data via the ATS to a local VPR/DMS. That data be selectively recorded in programmable storage sections in the VPR/DMS according to a user’s preferences. These storage sections may be “reserved, rented, leased or purchased from end user[s], content providers, broadcasters, cable/satellite distributor, or other data communications companies administering the data products and services.” On Dish Network’s petition for review, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board found various claims ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 and other claims unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 102. The Federal Circuit affirmed the ineligibility finding, applying the Supreme Court’s “Alice” holding that “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patent-eligible.” The claimed invention is at most an improvement to the abstract concept of targeted advertising wherein computers are merely used as a tool; the invocation of already-available computers that are not themselves plausibly asserted to be an advance amounts to a recitation of what is well-understood, routine, and conventional.

Office Design Group v. United States

Docket: 19-1337

Opinion Date: March 6, 2020

Judge: Jimmie V. Reyna

Areas of Law: Government Contracts

The VA issued Requests for Proposals (RFP) for the provision of healthcare furniture and related services for VA facilities for five geographic regions. The RFP described a best-value tradeoff selection process that considered three primary evaluation factors: Technical Capability, Past Performance, and Price. Technical Capability was more important than Past Performance and Past Performance more important than Price. Technical Capability subfactor 3 specified that an offeror’s technical proposal must include specific elements. The RFP noted that an “unacceptable” rating for any technical subfactor would result in an overall “unacceptable” technical proposal. An offeror with an unacceptable Technical Capability subfactor was ineligible for a contract award. The VA assigned ODG's bid an unacceptable rating for its technical proposal, noting that it was only able to locate responses to six of the 33 questions in Attachment 15, resulting in a failing score of 12 points. The VA explained that ODG’s technical proposal “lacked detail” and failed to address seven service requirements. Each of the awardees earned at least 40 points for its technical proposal. ODG filed a bid protest. The Claims Court and Federal Circuit upheld the VA’s actions, rejecting arguments that the VA unreasonably and disparately evaluated ODG's technical proposal in comparison to the awardees’ technical proposals and improperly relied on Attachment 15 to evaluate its technical proposal.