Maine

The Court recently clarified an important issue of civil procedure – the precise point at which a court may consolidate a preliminary injunction hearing with a hearing on the merits.

Rule 65 of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a court may consolidate a preliminary injunction hearing with a trial on the merits “[b]efore or after the commencement of the hearing of an application for a preliminary injunction.”  In McKeeman v. Duchaine, the Law Court held that, if a court is to consolidate the hearing and trial, it must do so before the preliminary injunction hearing concludes.

In McKeeman, tenants filed a complaint alleging that their landlord had violated various Maine statutes.  After a preliminary injunction hearing, the court granted the tenants’ motion in part, but denied a request to order the landlord to pay for temporary lodging.  Later, after the landlord failed to timely answer the complaint, the court denied the tenants’ motion

What is the remedy in an administrative appeal when the fact-finder doesn’t do its job by making findings of fact to explain its decision? As the Law Court recently reaffirmed in Fair Elections Portland, Inc. v. City of Portland, the proper remedy is generally a remand for further proceedings.

Fair Elections Portland involved a Rule 80B challenge relating to a citizen-initiated change to a municipal charter.  Under Maine law, charter “amendments” and charter “revisions” are treated differently.  The former must be submitted directly to the voters, while the latter can only be submitted to voters upon recommendation of a charter commission.  If a charter revision is proposed and is accompanied by statutorily-mandated language, it must be put to the voters as a proposal to form a charter commission.   In Fair Elections Portland, voters sought to modify Portland’s charter, and characterized it as an amendment; however, the statutory form language regarding a charter commission was not included. 

It isn’t every day that the Law Court addresses claims of civil conspiracy or aiding and abetting breaches of fiduciary duty, but that is exactly what the court did in Meridian Medical Systems, LLC v. Epix Therapeutics, Inc. – with a bit of literary allusion thrown in.

In Meridian, the Court clearly stated for the first time that

civil liability can attach for aiding and abetting another’s tortious conduct.

Meridian involved a business relationship gone bad.  Ken Carr, in his capacity as assignee of the claims of Meridian, sued corporate defendants which had a relationship with Meridian as a result of a licensing agreement.  The complaint asserted that the value of Meridian’s technology was not maximized due to the conduct of Ken Carr’s co-managers at Meridian, which allegedly was encouraged by the defendants.  The complaint included counts for “conspiracy” and “aiding and abetting breaches of fiduciary duty.”

Reviewing the

In a recent blog post, I explored the application of the final judgment rule to appeals from preliminary injunction orders in state court.  As I noted, the Law Court has recently applied the “death knell” exception to that rule to hear an interlocutory appeal regarding a preliminary injunction.  In two other recent cases, the Law Court has taken up and considered the “judicial economy” exception to the final judgment rule.  These cases help delineate the scope of that exception.

The first case is Cutting v. Down East Orthopedic Associates, P.A.  In that case, a plaintiff brought separate cases in federal court asserting a discrimination claim and a medical malpractice claim against a physician.  The district court granted summary judgment against the plaintiff in the discrimination case, and dismissed the second case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  The plaintiff then filed a malpractice claim in state court, which the defendant moved to dismiss on claim preclusion grounds.  The Superior

As recently noted on this blog, parties can appeal a preliminary injunction order in federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1292 – but, typically, the same right of appeal is not available under Maine law.   As stated in Sanborn v. Sanborn, “an order granting or denying a motion for a preliminary injunction is not a final judgment and generally is not an action from which we will entertain an appeal.”

As the Law Court reaffirmed just a few weeks ago, in Cutting v. Down East Orthopedic Associates, P.A.,

[t]he final judgment rule is a judicially-created doctrine that promotes judicial economy and curtails interruption, delay, duplication and harassment.

Because it is a judicially-created rule, the final judgment rule has various exceptions which might permit the Law Court to address an appeal from a preliminary injunction order.  Indeed, the Law Court has, on occasion, reached the merits of