LOS ANGELES— A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has dismissed one of collector Clint Arthur's two class-action lawsuits filed last summer, the L.A. Times reports. Arthur has alleged that both the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Louis Vuitton North America violated the California Fine Prints Act when they sold him limited-edition prints during the museum's 2007–08 retrospective of Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami. Judge William Highberger threw out the charges against MOCA.

According to Highberger, Arthur has no grounds to sue the museum because he refused its offer of a refund for the three prints that he purchased, at a total of $2,655. The prints in question in the MOCA case came from the regular museum shop; in the Vuitton case, the prints concerned were sold at a special Louis Vuitton boutique in the midst of the Murakami exhibition and the museum.

"To allow a purchaser to both keep his allegedly defective purchase and to get his money back... rewards opportunistic litigation (of which this case is a prime example)," wrote Highberger in his ruling. He added that if MOCA did not follow through on its refund offer or did not provide Arthur with "a legally adequate certificate" (the museum gave Arthur a certificate for his prints last month), the collector could bring a suit again.

Highberger also denied MOCA's claim that it is exempt from the Fine Prints Act, which allows for triple damages when a dealer "willfully" fails to provide documentation of a print's authenticity, because it is a non-profit organization.

Arthur has announced that he will appeal the ruling: "I think there are other issues besides the money that are important," he said, such as what he calls MOCA's regular failure to provide customers with print certificates and accurate descriptions of their purchases. According to Arthur's lawyer, Daniel Engel, the problem with Highberger's ruling is that it allows dishonest dealers to disregard the Fine Prints Act and avoid punishment by simply refunding purchases from upset buyers.

Arthur filed an additional suit against Louis Vuitton last week, for fraud, accusing the designer of hiding the fact that Murakami's prints were made from the same materials as the handbags on sale in the museum boutique. A hearing on Vuitton's motion to dismiss the suit had been scheduled for Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles but was canceled.