Justia Nebraska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the county court concerning the distribution of the Sheila Foxley Radford Trust, holding that the county court had insufficient evidence upon which it could base its findings.The county court concluded that a gift from Sheila Foxley Radford to Mary Radford was in satisfaction of Mary’s inheritance from the trust. The gift preceded the trust’s restatement but was acknowledged by Mary as an inheritance in a contemporaneous writing. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the transcript before it was insufficient to support the decision of the county court, and the matter must be remanded for a new hearing. View "In re Estate of Radford" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment in favor of Plaintiff, a former officer at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, and against Scott Busboom, an officer at the facility, holding that Busboom was entitled to qualified immunity on Defendant’s claim that he was denied due process when he was placed on unpaid investigatory suspension without any opportunity to be heard. The district court determined that Busboom was not entitled to qualified immunity in his individual capacity because Busboom had signed the letter suspending Plaintiff while acting under color of state law and that “any reasonable officer” in his position would have understood that Plaintiff was entitled to a hearing before being deprived of a protected property interest. In reversing, the Supreme Court held (1) when Plaintiff was suspended without pay, the law did not clearly establish that a public employer must first provide notice and an opportunity to respond to allegations of misconduct to an employee with a protected property interest in continued employment, and therefore, Busboom was entitled to qualified immunity; and (2) Plaintiff failed to show that he was deprived of due process because he did not receive a posttermination hearing. View "White v. Busboom" on Justia Law

At issue was whether the county court erred in overruling Defendant’s motion to suppress. The county court overruled Defendant’s motion after finding that the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment applied. The district court and court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals, albeit on different grounds, holding (1) because the initial police-citizen encounter did not amount to a seizure, it was not necessary to invoke the community caretaking exception; but (2) the circumstances clearly established reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed, and therefore, the detention that followed the stop of Defendant’s vehicle was constitutionally permitted. View "State v. Rivera" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s order dismissing with prejudice Plaintiff’s complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Plaintiff, which operated commercial grain warehouses and elevators and owned trading businesses through Nebraska, filed a complaint alleging that several defendants engaged in a pattern of behavior with the intent to deprive it of information, an opportunity to be heard, and due process of law. The district court concluded that Defendants were entitled to immunity under Nebraska’s Consumer Protection Act and the Noerr-Pennington doctrine and that Plaintiff’s claims of conspiracy and aiding and abetting required an underlying tort to be actionable. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiff failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted because Defendants were entitled to immunity under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine and Plaintiff alleged only underlying statutory violations; and (2) any amendment to Plaintiff’s petition would be futile. View "Salem Grain Co. v. Consolidated Grain & Barge Co." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s application to probate his father’s will. Plaintiff allegedly learned about his father’s will more than three years after he and his brother commenced an informal probate proceeding to administer their father’s intestate estate. The father’s other two children objected to probating the will. The district court granted summary judgment to the objectors and dismissed the amended petition as time barred. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court did not err (1) in determining that the three-year statute of limitations barred Plaintiff’s application to probate his father’s will; (2) in determining that Plaintiff failed to prove elements of equitable estoppel; and (3) in rejecting Plaintiff’s argument of equitable tolling. View "In re Estate of Fuchs" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the orders of the district court sustaining Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and overruling Plaintiff’s motion to alter or amend the judgment in this action brought by Plaintiff against the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska and Kevin Ruser. In her complaint, Plaintiff asserted claims of discriminatory wage and employment practices based on her sex, as well as claims of employment retaliation arising from occurrences while she was a supervising attorney for the civil clinic law program at the University of Nebraska College of Law. The district court concluded that Plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of wage discrimination, failure to promote because of sex, retaliation, and retaliation in violation of public policy. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court did not err when it sustained Defendants’ motion for summary judgment with respect to Plaintiff’s claims and did not abuse its discretion when it overruled Plaintiff’s subsequent motion to alter or amend the judgment. View "Knapp v. Ruser" on Justia Law

In this breach of contract action brought by Kelly Armstrong (Plaintiff), a former student at Clarkson College (Defendant), the Supreme Court reversed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to set aside a jury verdict in favor of Plaintiff in the amount of $1 million or, in the alternative, for a new trial. Plaintiff was placed on probation and then administratively withdrawn from the school. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court erred by refusing to give Defendant’s requested jury instruction on Plaintiff’s alleged failure to fulfill a condition precedent by not exhausting the college’s grievance procedure. The Supreme Court agreed and remanded the case for a new trial, holding that the district court committed reversible error in failing to instruct the jury on the issue of Plaintiff’s alleged failure to fulfill a condition precedent by not exhausting Defendant’s grievance procedure. View "Armstrong v. Clarkson College" on Justia Law

The common-law rule in contracts that common-law rule that the release of one joint obligor on a promissory note operates to release all represents settled law in Nebraska and should have been applied by the district court in this case.Eric Cano brought this action against Michael Walker and Billy Claborn alleging that they had failed to pay amounts due on a promissory note, which imposed joint and several liability on Walker and Claborn. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of Cano. The court entered judgment on the promissory note. Thereafter, without the consent of Walker, Cano and Claborn entered into a stipulation that operated as an unconditional release of Claborn once he satisfied the terms of the stipulation. Walker filed a motion to discharge the judgment premised on the common-law rule that “[t]he unconditional release of one of several makers of a joint and several promissory note, without the consent of the other makers thereof, operates as a release of all.” The district court overruled the motion for discharge. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded with directions to grant the requested discharge, holding that, under the common-law rule, the unconditional release of Claborn from the judgment operated as a release of Walker. View "Cano v. Walker" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the probate court denying the application of the decedent’s wife (Wife) to be treated as an omitted spouse under a section of the Nebraska Probate Code after the decedent made no provision for her in his will. The decedent’s estate resisted the application, arguing that Wife waived her rights to the estate in a prenuptial agreement. The probate court found that the prenuptial agreement was valid and that Wife had waived the right to take as an omitted spouse. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that the probate court did not err in concluding that Wife executed the waiver voluntarily and in denying her application to take as an omitted spouse. View "In re Estate of Psota" on Justia Law

Defendant pled no contest to first degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Defendant was sixteen years old at the time of the murder. Defendant’s life sentence was later vacated pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), and Defendant was granted a resentencing. The district court resentenced Defendant to imprisonment for eighty years to life after a hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s resentencing, holding (1) the sentencing court did not impose a de facto life sentence in violation of the Eighth Amendment and Neb. Const. art. I, 9 and 15; (2) the district court did not err when it did not make specific findings of fact regarding age-related characteristics; and (3) Defendant’s sentence of eighty years’ to life imprisonment with parole eligibility at age fifty-six was not unconstitutionally disproportionate. View "State v. Jones" on Justia Law