Background
Amy Weissbrod Gurvey claimed to own several patents generally describing a ticketing and sports-betting management system. Since at least 2006, she had brought federal and state actions alleging that various combinations of the defendants infringed her patents, conspired to infringe them, or conspired to deny her access to the courts.
Gurvey filed this action in the Central District of California in June 2023. The defendants moved to dismiss, but Gurvey did not file timely oppositions and still did not respond after the district court extended her deadline. The court dismissed the claims against most defendants in September 2024 and later denied reconsideration. In March 2025, it dismissed the claims against Baker Botts, concluding on the merits that they were barred by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine.
The Court’s Holding
The Federal Circuit affirmed in a nonprecedential per curiam opinion. It rejected Gurvey’s assertion that the district court had dismissed her complaint sua sponte: the defendants had filed motions to dismiss, and the district court granted those unopposed motions under its local rules after giving Gurvey additional time to respond.
Because Gurvey had not presented her substantive arguments to the district court, the Federal Circuit held that she waived them on appeal. The court noted that Gurvey was a California attorney in good standing with extensive litigation experience, so her failure to respond could not be attributed to the inexperience of an ordinary pro se litigant. As to Baker Botts, she also waived review by failing to challenge the district court’s Noerr-Pennington ruling.
Key Takeaways
- A dismissal entered on defendants’ motions is not sua sponte merely because the plaintiff failed to oppose those motions.
- Arguments not raised—or raised only in skeletal or undeveloped form—in the trial court may be treated as waived on appeal.
- An appellant must directly challenge each independently relevant basis for dismissal, including a dispositive Noerr-Pennington ruling.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that appellate review generally cannot rescue claims a litigant failed to defend in the district court. Missing an opposition deadline, even after an extension, may forfeit substantive arguments, and an appellant who does not address the actual ground for dismissal risks waiver regardless of the underlying claims’ asserted merits.