Public officials must know religious freedom gets strict scrutiny, so lose qualified immunity in civil rights case over church access

In a civil rights case involving the freedom of religion, the Massachusetts Appeals Court today denied qualified immunity to public officials who prevented the employee-plaintiff from going to church for Christmas, even without a plain prior case on similar facts.  The decision has important implications across the field of qualified immunity and "constitutional tort," because civil rights plaintiffs routinely claim violations of fundamental rights that officials should know trigger strict scrutiny in constitutional law.

St. Michael's Chapel at Chelsea Soldiers' Home
By Randall Armor, Boston's Hidden Sacred Spaces (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Teresa Krupien was working at the Soldiers' Home in Chelsea, a veterans' healthcare facility.  Another employee reported that Krupien injured the other's wrist when the two were moving a patient into a wheelchair.  After investigation, and upon mixed conclusions among officials, Krupien was issued a "stay-away directive," barring her from the home premises.  Krupien promptly informed officials that the directive would prevent her from attending Christmas services at the chapel, her "spiritual home," and alleged in her civil rights complaint that the directive in sum barred her from church services for 37 days.  Officials for that time refused to modify the directive.

The trial court dismissed claims under the Massachusetts civil rights act on grounds of qualified immunity, and the Appeals Court reversed.  Qualified immunity pertains when (1) a plaintiff complains of a public official's violation of statutory or constitutional rights, (2) the plaintiff's right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation, and (3) a reasonable person in the shoes of the defendant would have understood that plaintiff's rights were clearly violated.  Qualified immunity is an important defense in the law of "constitutional tort," because torts with public-official defendants usually must rise to the level of civil rights violations in order to overcome sovereign immunity, which is absolute unless waived.

The argument in qualified immunity usually centers on the second element, with an assist from the third, the two forming something like a "reasonable belief" test.  Public officials, who bear the burden of proof of immunity, invariably argue that they were clueless about any clear violation because never before have the courts had a case quite like this one.  Plaintiffs invariably respond by saying that of course this has never happened before, but come on, a lot of cases just like this have happened.  Where element two is hard on plaintiffs with its clarity requirement, element three gives plaintiffs an assist by testing officials' denial objectively.  Many a commentator has noted that the odd yet defensible effect of this rule is to give public officials a pass on a kind of civil rights offense once--but only once.

True to form, defendants here argued that no precedent provided clear guidance to officials on how to handle Krupien's desire to go to church.  Nevertheless, the court opined, ample precedents demonstrate that struct scrutiny applies to claims of free religious exercise.  And strict scrutiny, a public official should know, tests for narrow tailoring to achieve a legitimate state interest.  Officials here had no evidence that Krupien's attendance at church would jeopardize anyone's safety.  It would have been a simple matter to narrow the order and let her attend worship services.

Judge Posner at Harvard Law
By chensiyuan (CC BY-SA-2.5)

The appeals court pointed to an oft-cited lamentation of renowned jurist, sometimes-"consummate ass," advocate-for-the-downtrodden-whilst-né-Circuit-Judge Richard Posner, in which he pointed out that the lack of case law spelling out the impermissibility of selling a child into slavery cannot mean that a defendant gets one free pass to do so.  Wrote Judge Posner in full:

Our job is the humbler one [than Congress's, in extending or abolishing immunity] of applying the immunity doctrine. We begin with the elementary proposition that it would be improper to deny immunity to a particular defendant on the ground that his conduct could be subsumed under some principle of liability in force when he acted. That approach would shrink immunity to trivial dimensions, since it is always possible to find a principle of comprehensive generality (such as "due process of law"). But the immunity doctrine as it has evolved goes much further than this to protect public officers. It is not enough, to justify denying immunity, that liability in a particular constellation of facts could have been, or even that it was, predicted from existing rules and decisions, even though law, as Holmes famously remarked, is a prediction of what courts will do faced with a particular set of facts. (Maybe it is more than that, but it is at least that.) Liability in that particular set must have been established at the time the defendant acted.

It begins to seem as if to survive a motion to dismiss a suit on grounds of immunity the plaintiff must be able to point to a previous case that differs only trivially from his case. But this cannot be right. The easiest cases don't even arise. There has never been a section 1983 case accusing welfare officials of selling foster children into slavery; it does not follow that if such a case arose, the officials would be immune from damages liability because no previous case had found liability in those circumstances.

Judge Henry
(Ballotpedia)

Murphy ex rel. K.H. v. Morgan, 914 F.2d 846, 851 (7th Cir. 1990) (paragraph break added).  The Massachusetts Appeals Court here sought to fine-tune that balance between the general principle, religious freedom, and the specific distinction between one strict-scrutiny case and the next.

The case is Krupien v. Ritcey, No. AC 17-P-870 (Sept. 26, 2018).  The opinion was authored by Associate Justice Vickie L. Henry.  A graduate of Wellesley College and Boston University Law, Judge Henry left a lucrative commercial litigation practice with Foley Hogg in 2011 to serve as senior staff attorney and youth initiative director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).  In that capacity, she appeared in the consolidated cases that became Obergefell v. Hodges (U.S. 2015), establishing the federal constitutional right of gay marriage.  Judge Henry was appointed to the bench by Governor Baker in 2015.

The Adventures of Mass. App. and the 700 Gold Coins

                                                       pnging.com CC BY-NC 4.0

The Massachusetts Appeals Court dove into foreign law and comity today, leaving "700 gold coins" in the possession of an Iranian divorcée.  The case is No. AC 16-P-1131 (Mass. App. Ct. Sept. 25, 2018).

Family law is not my area, but this decision from Mass. App. presented a modest if compelling problem in comparative law.  The divorce of husband and wife precipitated litigation in Iran over the dissolution of the marriage contract and also in Massachusetts over the division of property.  Central in the dispute were "700 gold coins," representing a mahr--a gift from groom to bride in Islamic marriage tradition.

I put "700 gold coins" in quotation marks because I don't think there need actually be 700 gold coins.  The mahr represents a quantifiable asset that is expected to grow in value with the duration of the marriage, thus, at least in theory, providing a divorcée with a time-commensurate award in case of separation.  According to the husband's testimony in Massachusetts court, in event of divorce, the wife may retain the entirety of the mahr, but may receive nothing more.

Despite that testimony, the husband contested award of the mahr in Iranian courts.  He lost at two levels, in trial court and intermediate appellate court in Tehran.  He told the court in Massachusetts that he was appealing to the Supreme Court of Iran.

Meanwhile the trial judge in Massachusetts divided the couple's property assets within U.S. jurisdiction more or less evenly, faithfully to Commonwealth law.  The husband showed that an inherited property in Tehran was wholly under the control of, and generating income for, the husband's mother, so the property was left with the husband as not entwined with the marriage.  But the court awarded the wife an equal share of the appreciation of the property over the course of the marriage.  Other assets were divided evenly.  The court regarded the mahr as an asset of the marriage, so divided it equally as well.  On that latter point, the appellate court reversed.

The principle of comity in international law demands that Massachusetts respect the judgment of a foreign court if it does not run contrary to domestic public policy.  The appellate court found no public policy imperative that would warrant disregard for the Iranian court ruling on the disposition of the mahr.  In the view of the Iranian lower courts, the mahr was the sole property of the wife.  Even if the Iran Supreme Court reverses on that question, no American public policy principle would be offended.  So the Massachusetts trial court abused its discretion in substituting its judgment for that of the Iranian courts on the mahr.  All other rulings of the trial court, including the ruling on the appreciation of the Tehran property, were affirmed.

The courts seemed able to resolve the question presented without expert testimony on Iranian law.  The appeals court relied on the treatment of mahr in a prior New Jersey decision.  Were it necessary, rule 44.1 of both federal and commonwealth rules of civil procedure allows the unusual step of expert evidence on questions of law.  That's fun, because legal scholars get to be experts in court, like experts from other disciplines.  Usually we're relegated to the sidelines.

The opinion was written by Associate Justice Sydney Hanlon, a graduate of Brown and Harvard Law.  Her skills include training for court personnel on dealing with domestic violence, training she has given in central and eastern Russia, as well as the United States, as part of rule-of-law work. 

The court's decision on comity comes at a curious time, with the United States tuning up sanctions on Iran and the EU negotiating with Iran to the express end of undermining U.S. sanctions.  Of course domestic claims playing out against the backdrop of U.S.-Iranian foreign policy is no new thing in American tort law.  See The Adventures of Tort-tort and the Frozen Assets.

John Does on sex-offender registry lose all civil rights claims against state, despite possible errors in listings

Persons listed on a part of the Massachusetts sex-offender registry for perpetrators who "moved out of state" have no constitutional privacy claims, state or federal, against commonwealth officials, despite a possibility of egregious error in listings, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled yesterday.  The case is John Doe, Sex Offender Registry Board No. 474362 v. Sex Offender Registry Board, No. 17-P-985 (Mass. App. Ct. Sept. 19, 2018).

Plaintiffs sued officials of the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB) on theories of procedural and substantive due process under the federal and state constitutions after their names, pictures, and criminal histories were posted on the SORB website as "moved out of state."  The claimants alleged errors in the reporting, both in accuracy of the information and in the propriety of the posting.  The court recited the facts of one egregious case that suggested merit in the allegations of error:

[John] Doe No. 106929 came to Massachusetts in 2005 to attend school. He had previously been convicted in California for engaging in sexual relations with a sixteen year old when he was nineteen years old; California's age of consent was eighteen. After learning that Massachusetts had preliminarily classified him as a level three offender, Doe No. 106929 immediately left Massachusetts, and SORB ceased publishing his photograph and criminal history. Ten years later, in June of 2015, Doe No. 106929 learned through an Internet conversation that SORB had resumed publishing his name and photograph—this time on its "moved out of state" page. The sex offense listed on the page was "rape of a child." Doe No. 106929 received no notice from SORB regarding SORB's new practice, or that his name was being republished on SORB's Web site. Moreover, after Doe No. 106929 left Massachusetts, a court in California had entered an order expunging the record of his sex offense. Doe No. 106929 lost two jobs in California in 2015 once this information was made known at his workplaces.

The SORB abandoned its practice of publishing "moved out of state" records in 2015, but the superior court rejected the state's mootness defense.

Nevertheless, the Appeals Court rejected all plaintiff claims.  Affirming on federal procedural due process, the court held that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, because federal case law has not established any clear wrong in privacy violation.  Indeed, federal constitutional law points widely to the contrary.  Affirming on federal substantive due process, the court held that the claimants were unable to meet the demanding "shocks the conscience" standard that can turn what otherwise might be a state tort into a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.  And reversing on claims under the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the court held that the defendants were entitled to sovereign immunity.  The Massachusetts legislature has voluntarily abrogated sovereign immunity for claims of "threats, intimidation or coercion" under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, but plaintiffs did not make such claims.

The court's reasoning on constitutional law is sound, but the facts point to the continuing failure of U.S. law to keep pace with Americans' privacy expectations in the digital age, especially relative to the pace of privacy law developments elsewhere in the interconnected world.  John Doe No. 106929's case is especially troubling in light of his California expungement.  Expungement already is an embattled concept—cf. "ban the box" movement—in the age of the internet that never forgets and the refusal of American policymakers to engage with the right to erasure.  For persons who committed crimes but served their time, that can mean stinging and enduring punishment well beyond what society and the justice system already determined was due.  The consequences are even more grave when the punishment is civil in nature, not even necessarily predicated on a criminal conviction.

The state should have no more license to defame or invade privacy than any person.  The common law maxim prized by the renowned Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., himself a Bay Stater, asserts that for every wrong, the law provides a remedy (ubi jus ibi remedium).  Yet where digital privacy is concerned, profitable commerce in information seems to be holding at bay common law evolution, legislative innovation, and good sense.

'Have You Seen This Man?': Student newspaper editor on libel hook for campus crime coverage

A suit for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) may proceed against the former editor of the college newspaper at UMass Boston (UMB) since the Massachusetts Appeals Court reversed summary judgment for the defendant today.  The case, Butcher v. University of Massachusetts, No. 17-P-161 (Mass. Ct. App. Sept. 17, 2018), raises a buffet of compelling issues for the media law buff, to say nothing of the specter of student journalism's uneasy relationship with public university oversight.

The facts are complicated and controverted.  Plaintiff Butcher worked in IT at UMB and took pictures with his cellphone while on a university shuttle bus.  The bus driver accused him of taking pictures of women on the bus; Butcher maintains that he was taking pictures of buses and structures.  After a verbal confrontation, the bus driver and Butcher took pictures of each other.  The driver sent pictures of Butcher to UMB police.  Butcher, using a pseudonym to protect his privacy, he asserted, complained about the bus driver to UMB public safety.

The student newspaper published an item from the police blotter based on the bus driver's report.  That item recounted that "[a] suspicious white male in a black jacket took photographs and video of nearby women, as well as some buildings on campus."  Soon thereafter, the newspaper published in print and online an additional report with the pictures of Butcher and the headline, "Have You Seen This Man?"  The latter report stated that "the man in the photograph allegedly walked around the UMass Boston campus snapping pictures of female members of the university community without their permission."  The gravamen of Butcher's complaint arises from the suggestion that he is some kind of sexual predator.  The newspaper moreover erred in stating that Butcher was reported by a student rather than by a bus driver, and that Butcher took pictures "around ... campus" rather than on the bus.

Identification followed from the newspaper publication of the photographs.  Campus detectives interviewed Butcher and took his university-issued phone over his objection.  Inspection of the phone revealed only the bus and structure photos Butcher had said he took.

Butcher complained of extreme social and professional alienation as a result of the newspaper publications.  He alleged exclusion from important projects at work, "fear and loathing" in stares on campus, and harassment by bus drivers compelling him to walk rather than take the shuttle.

The superior court dismissed claims against UMass on grounds of sovereign immunity and awarded summary judgment on the merits to former student newspaper editor Cady Vishniac.  See her compelling UMass Boston alumna testimonial at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.  The Appeals Court reversed as to Vishniac.  Here comes the buffet:

The substantial truth doctrine protected the newspaper on the small stuff.  The appeals court agreed with the lower court that defamation did not arise in the newspaper's plain errors--whether a student or a bus driver reported to police, and where the pictures were taken--because the gist or sting of the erroneous reporting was substantially the same as had the report contained the truth.  I think "around campus" sounds worse than on a bus, but OK, tomato, tomato.

The fair report privilege did not protect the newspaper's recitation of a witness statement to police.  Consistently with state high court precedent, the Appeals Court held that the fair report privilege--which gives journalists latitude to restate even defamatory falsehoods reported in official records, lest the public not be able to ascertain the use of erroneous information to support official action--is not triggered until there is an official police action, such as an arrest.  Because Butcher was not arrested--indeed, because there was no evidence to support an arrest--the fair report privilege never kicked in.  On the one hand, this is a logical construction of the privilege, as without an arrest, the risk of circulating defamatory falsehood outweighs the risk secreting falsehood as a basis of official action. On the other hand, this is a big heads up to editors--from high schools to pros--who mindlessly reprint the police blotter: the allegations of witnesses are as good as direct quotes and need to be fact checked as such.  The common law maxim rings true: the tale bearer is as responsible as the tale maker.

Actual damages include general damages, and reputational injury renders general damages.  Hear me now, believe me later, I say when I teach Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.: a limitation to actual damages does not mean only special damages!  Massachusetts law allows defamation to stand only on, and afford recovery only for, actual damages.  The defense here seems to have argued that that rule would preclude Butcher's recovery for want of demonstrable economic loss.  The court observed that Butcher moved on to another job that pays better, though had to forgo his pension plan, so economic loss is not a gimme.  No matter.  Butcher's alleged marginalization at work and social alienation on campus amply support his claim of reputational injury, and that's an actual damage with mental anguish as consequence, notwithstanding proof of economic loss.  General damages for reputation can be substantial in the eyes of jurors, especially jurors who have a distaste for mass media defendants.

Outrageous!  Like other states, Massachusetts allows IIED to proceed only upon conduct that would cause an ordinary person to proclaim, "Outrageous!"--i.e., as the Second Restatement put it, "so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community."  Does "Have You Seen This Man?" fit the bill?  Well, maybe: when viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the party not moving for summary judgment, "as we must" according to the rules of civil procedure, the Appeals Court recalled.  I agree.  A colleague once told me that there are two allegations that destroy a person's reputation virtually beyond repair, even if proved untrue: child molester and racist.  In the #MeToo era, there might be a third.  However much those allegations might masquerade as "opinion" or mere suspicion, they have the force of factual declaration and are socially, if not also economically, fatal.

A subtext in the case is the problem of student journalism's editorial independence at a public university.  For purposes of the litigation to date, Vishniac was represented along with UMB by university counsel.  Will that representation continue now that the university has been dismissed?  Were the university's and Vishniac's interests always interchangeable anyway?  Is UMass Boston prepared to indemnify Vishniac?  Certainly I empathize with Vishniac.  One does not become a college newspaper editor and figure on having to take out libel insurance--whether for me at 20 years old or for Vishniac as a non-traditional student juggling family and educational opportunity.  But media at public universities have long asserted editorial independence by arguing, logically, that a heavy hand in university editorial control, prior review, or censorship would invite litigation against the university--so hands off!  If the university is on the hook either way, it's much more likely to heed demons' whispers when student journalists come 'round trying to follow the money.  And it's not like UMass Boston and money problems haven't met.

Finally, let's not be too quick to the ramparts in defense of journalism here, nor to rally the troops to #MeToo battle.  Notwithstanding the issue of whether the the newspaper reports implicated sexual-predator-like conduct, falsely, it seems to me that the newspaper has a bigger problem if even the bus driver witness only accused Butcher of "snapping pictures of female members of the university community without their permission."  Despite all efforts at making that seem creepy--the newspaper characterizing Butcher as "suspicious" and the bus driver claiming that Butcher hid his face when confronted--it happens that taking pictures of people in public places is legal in America.  It's true.  I checked.  No permission required.  Men or women, no matter.  Some might even call it art.  Europe a different story, long story, but different.  There are narrow exceptions, but they don't seem to be in play here.  I would like to learn that the police's first reaction to the bus driver's complaint was, "Sorry, you said 'suspicious'; could you say a little more about that?"

With remand to superior court, this ain't over.  Happy Constitution Day!

[UPDATE, January 28, 2020:  On December 31, 2019, the SJC ruled, per Justice Lenk: "The decisive question in this case is whether a newspaper can be liable for republishing public police
logs and requests for assistance received from a police department. We conclude that, based on the particular facts of these publications, the fair report privilege shielded Vishniac from liability." Read more at Butcher v. University of Massachusetts, No. SJC-12698.]

Despite IP exclusion, insurer bound to defend in right-of-publicity case over running shoes, Mass. high court holds

Upon an underlying case involving the right of publicity coupled with consumer protection and equity claims, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) today held insurers duty-bound to defend an insured running-shoe maker, despite the exclusion of intellectual property claims from coverage.

Abebe Bikila in Rome, 1960

Massachusetts-based Vibram USA, through its affiliate Vibram FiveFingers, named a line of "minimalist" running shoes after Ethiopian Olympic athlete Abebe Bikila, who ran barefoot when he set a marathon world record in Rome in 1960.  (See clips from 1960 and Bikila's 1964 marathon win in Tokyo on the Olympic Channel).  Seriously injured in a car accident in 1969, Bikila died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1973.  Since then, the family has made commercial use of the Bikila name in enterprises including a Spanish retail sporting goods chain, a Bikila biography, a Japanese commercial, and a biographical feature film.  The family objected to Vibram's association of its shoe with Bikila without permission.

The complaint comprised four counts: (1) right of publicity under the Washington Personality Rights Act, (2) violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, (3) unfair competition under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), and (4) unjust enrichment.  Vibram's general insurance and liability policies with two providers, Salem-based Holyoke Mutual and Maryland Casualty, covered "personal and advertising injury liability," without defining "advertising injury"; however, the coverage excluded intellectual property liability.  The insurers sought, and the superior court granted, declaratory relief from coverage.  The SJC reversed.

To trigger an insurer's duty to defend, the insured need show only "a possibility that the liability claim falls within the insurance coverage."  The duty to defend is broader than the duty to indemnify.  The Bikila complaint alleged that Vibram used Bikila as "an advertising idea."  Bikila family members alleged that they had "intentionally and specifically connected the name to running-related ventures, and the name itself conveys a 'barefoot dedication to succeed under any circumstances,' a desirable quality for any of these ventures."  The insurers were mistaken in arguing that the claim was limited to the right of publicity, or was synonymous with trademark infringement, both IP theories excluded from coverage.  Rather, the essence of the Bikila claim was that Vibram sought to profit from Bikila-associated ideas.

Vibram FiveFingers Bikila Running Shoes (by Fuzzy Gerdes, CC BY 2.0)

From the court's opinion, it is not clear to me which or what combination of claims ensures that a complaint such as this one rises beyond the coverage exclusion.  Count 1 right of publicity by itself would not have been covered by the policy, and it is informative to see that the privacy tort now resides firmly in the IP household.  I suspect that count 3 under the Lanham Act also constitutes an excluded IP claim.  So perhaps statutory consumer protection and equitable quasi-contract each could do the trick.  Yet those theories, in any given case, could overlap wholly with IP claims.  The court's opinion suggests that there is something special about the misappropriation of an "advertising idea" that sets this case apart qualitatively from IP claims.  I'm not sure I see it.

Apparently the "advertising injury" language of the insurance coverage here is not without precedent, and the court gave an informative catalog of the "wide variety of concepts, methods, and activities related to calling the public's attention to a business, product, or service [that have] constitute[d] advertising ideas":

• logo and brand name, Street Surfing, LLC v. Great Am. E&S Ins. Co., 776 F.3d 603, 611-612 (9th Cir. 2014);
• patented telephone service enabling sale and promotion of products, Dish Network Corp. v. Arch Specialty Ins. Co., 659 F.3d 1010, 1022 (10th Cir. 2011);
• advertising strategy of "trad[ing] upon a reputation, history, and sales advantage" associated with Native American made products, Native Am. Arts, Inc. v. Hartford Cas. Ins. Co., 435 F.3d 729, 733 (7th Cir. 2006);
• concept of "Psycho Chihuahua" obsessed with Taco Bell food to advertise business, Taco Bell Corp. v. Continental Cas. Co., 388 F.3d 1069, 1072 (7th Cir. 2004);
• word "NISSAN" to promote vehicles to public, constituting "quintessential example of trademark functioning to advertise a company's products," State Auto Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. The Travelers Indem. Co. of Am., 343 F.3d 249, 258 (4th Cir. 2003);
• use of internet domain, CAT Internet Servs., Inc. v. Providence Wash. Ins. Co., 333 F.3d 138, 142 (3d Cir. 2003);
• artwork and product model numbers designed to promote products (claim for trade dress infringement), Hyman v. Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 304 F.3d 1179, 1189 (11th Cir. 2002);
• word "fullblood," connoting desirable quality, to advertise Simmental cattle breed, American Simmental Ass'n v. Coregis Ins. Co., 282 F.3d 582, 587 (8th Cir. 2002);
• agent misrepresenting himself as working for another company for purposes of inducing customers to make purchases, Gustafson v. American Family Mut. Ins. Co., 901 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 1301 (D. Colo. 2012); and
• patented technology used to market music for online sales, Amazon.com Int’l, Inc. v. American Dynasty Surplus Lines Ins. Co., 120 Wash. App. 610, 616-617, 619 (2004).

 "Advertising injury" is not "injury caused by other activities that are coincidentally advertised" (quoting Couch treatise).  "Otherwise stated, '[i]f the insured took an idea for soliciting business or an idea about advertising, then the claim is covered ... [b]ut if the allegation is that the insured wrongfully took a ... product and tried to sell that product, then coverage is not triggered'" (quoting Washington precedent and offering authorities in accord from other states).  Thus coverage is excluded in cases such as:

• use related to manufacture and not marketing, Winklevoss Consultants, Inc. v. Fed. Ins. Co., 991 F. Supp. 1024, 1034 (N.D. Ill. 1998);
• conspiracy to fix egg prices, Rose Acre Farms, Inc. v. Columbia Cas. Co., 662 F.3d 765, 768-769 (7th Cir. 2011);
• disparagement of competitor's pineapples to undermine their advertising, Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., Inc. v. Transp. Ins. Co., 500 F.3d 640, 643, 646 (7th Cir. 2007);
• advertising another's patented method for cutting concrete, Green Mach. Corp., v. Zurich-American Ins. Group, 313 F.3d 837, 839 (3d Cir. 2002);
• design of product, Ekco Group, Inc. v. Travelers Indemnity Co. of Ill., 273 F.3d 409, 413 (1st Cir. 2001);
• misappropriation of product design, Frog, Switch & Mfg. Co. v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
  193 F.3d 742, 749-750 (3d Cir. 1999);
• taking of customer list and solicitation of customers from it, Hameid v. National Fire Ins. of Hartford, 31 Cal. 4th 16, 19-20 (2003);
• manufacture and sale of patented product, Auto Sox USA Inc. v. Zurich N. Am., 121 Wash. App. 422, 427 (2004).

So memorize those, and let me know when you're ready for the exam.

The case is Holyoke Mutual Insurance Co. in Salem v. Vibram USA, Inc., No. SJC-12401 (Mass. Sept. 12, 2018).  Suffolk Law has the oral argument video of Feb. 6.  The case was heard by the full court upon granting direct appeal, and the unanimous opinion was authored by Associate Justice David A. Lowy, a Boston University law grad and former ADA and Goodwin Proctor litigator.