Since 2011. An occasional commonplacing of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Neither an authoritative statement of the law nor legal advice. Quick work.
There are a few more cases in the DC/Federal Circuits, but I'm out of time for this, so what happens in the Beltway stays in the Beltway.
Similarly, as useful as this is in the multitasking rotation, some projects will have my exclusive attention in the coming days. Back in about a week, G-d willin' and the crick don't rise.
(There have been times when this commonplacing covered absolutely every slip in the circuits, and I might get back to that, but not in the coming weeks.)
-CB
Former prisoner on federal supervised release might have reasonably believed that he was compelled by the terms of the supervised release to unlock his phone and answer the questions truthfully, so while the information can be used to revoke the supervised release, the 5A right to silence was invoked by operation of law, meaning that the information cannot be used in a subsequent prosecution.
Remand for consideration of inevitable discovery exception.
Dissent:
Deft's invocation wasn't automatic, since his subjective belief wasn't reasonable in light of the prevailing law.
A registered holder of a compilation copyright holds copyright in the totality of the work, not merely as described in the registration.
The protectable expressionof a day-planner notebook consists of the arrangement of the graphic and literary elements that might themselves be protectable works of authorship.
The order, dimensions, and division of the elements, however, is an unprotectable idea -- the protectable expression is limited to the material protected under authorship and its actual layout on the page.
Evidence of actual copying and significant sales does not as a matter of law present a genuine issue of material fact on a Lanham Act claim of product design trade dress -- the question of secondary meaning requires an interpretationof the meaning of sales and the form of the dress.
Substantial evidence that pension contribution scehme was integrated into the CBA, the Board decision affirmed the ALJ, who drew a rate from an earlier form of the agreement, but the ALJ's determination was arguably not dispositive of the holding, and substantial evidence exists to the contrary.
Accepted appendix to CBA and a reference in the CBA incorporating an attachment were sufficient writings to permit the pension contributions under a stsatute requiring written agreements for such payements.
Employer practice consistent with the writings at the end of the CBA meant that those terms remained in force after the period of the CBA, so the diminution of contributions was an unfair labor practice.
Disssent:
Unsigned, undated standalone writing insufficient. ALJ implicitly made this determination in accepting the earlier rate.
Anticompetitive effects of a supplier's monopoly behaviour on downstream adjacent markets are beyond the reach of Sherman Act rule of reason analysis, as the relevant market is different.
Refusal to deal horizontally with another supplier is outside of S2 where there is no indication that the dealing was profitable for the deft, there was a valid business reason to end the dealing, and the refusal to deal wasn't targeted.
Absent intentional deception, breach of contract to deal horizontally with other suppliers doesn't create a monopoly harm unless a harm to competition - as opposed to competitors - is proved.
Patent royalty rates different than the current market value of the technology are not inherently anticompetitive under antitrust law.
As the products of the supplier's rivals inherently embody some of the packaged patents, the supplier's licensing of the downstream use of its terchnology within its rivals products is not an inherently anticompetitive surcharge on its rivals products. Subsequent low but non-predatory pricing of its own units is also not an inherently anticompetitive behaviour.
A supplier's requirement that a downstream manufacturer commit to a license for products both supplied by the supplier and its rivals does not distort the area of effective competition; any unfair pricing of the license sounds in patent law, not antitrust.
Even if the exclusive dealing contracts that the supplier claimed were merely volume contracts in fact substantially foreclosed competition in the relevant markets, past harms do not justify a prospective injunction. And there were no viable competitors at the time.
Substantial evidence for denial of alien's claim of persecution because of her family's access to money, since within the claimed group, access to money is a more important factor than the fact of the family relationship.
Female heads of household and vulnerable females are not cognizable groups subject to persecution within the foreign country.
Although the photographs of the mannequins in the possession of the deft wasn't inextricably interlinked with the crime, their admission was more probative than prejudicial.
Testimony on historical abuse was appropriately admitted to establish character or propensity to commit certain acts.
Hearsay evidence from prior police investigation appropriately cabined by limiting instruction.
CJ:
Denial of a motion to intervene as of right, or, in the alternative, permissively is sufficiently final for appellate review even when made without prejudice, and the court invites the potential intervenor to file a "standby" motion not formalized in the rules.
Risk of nullification of right held under permit to build lucrative electrical transmission line suffice for standing in case adjudicating the permit.
Where a regulatory agency is defending a permit that vests economic rights in a company, the shared interests are not sufficient for a higher threshhold of shared interests. For the intermediate threshhold, more is required than simply being in favor of the same outcome. As the company's rights of eminent domain and its interest in the pace of the project are outside the regulator's remit, the company is entitled to intervene as a matter of right under the intermediate standard.
Comparator evidence in Title VII claim was not legally insuffient for being descriptions of individual comparators rather than statistical analysis of the discovery data.
Manager who made the discriminatory adjudication decision need not have been involved in ending the employment of the plaintiff, or even the unwitting dupe of those who did. The sole question is whether the plaintiff lost his job due to his race.
Business judgment jury instruction distinguishing discrimination from business judgment calls was not required as a matter of law.
District court's exclusion of witnesses on a late-amended list did not have to be analyzed in terms of the rule for information otherwise available to the other party; the relevant information was that they were to testify, and the court could rule that the notice was too late.
No error in back pay, given mitigation; no error in punitive damages, even given the existece of written policies against discrimination; no error in denial of reinstatiment given facts.
No clear error in sentencing court's determination that, by a preponderance of the facts, a functioning gun was used in the commission of the robbery.
5A claim properly preserved despite not being raised below, since the theory was that the sentencing factor found by a preponderance took into consideration deft's lack of testimony about the possession of the firearm.
Deft's misrepresentations waived 5A protections.
As the proffered evidence would merely have established that the foreign country had high levels of crime and violence, the agency did not abuse its discretion in declining to reopen a previously adjudicated immigration claim.
During visual inspections of the bodies of convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees, the Fouth Amendment protects some right of bodily privacy.
Where such a search is used as punishment, the 8th Amendment is implicated.
In the absece of evidence that administrators have exaggerated the justification for the search, wide-ranging deference to the administrator.
Reasonableness hinges on scope, manner, justication, and place.
Claim for qualified immunity not raised in motion for summary judgment is waived for present appeal, but can be asserted on remand. Waived defenses cannot be raised on appeal, forfeited defenses can be reviewed for plain error.
Remedy of decertification of class would require a cross-appeal.
As during the trial the appellant didn't argue the relevance of the excluded evidence to comparative negligence factors (including risk avoidance), and the jury wasn't instructed on these factors, no material harm from the exclusion of employee handbook, given that the verdict found negligence, but less than a preponderance, barring any recovery under comparative negligence.
Similarly, appellant didn't argue below that the excluded expert testimony would be useful in allocating fault, so no material hamr from exclusion.
Dissent:
As comparative negligence is simply the degree of negligence, arguing negligence below suffices to consider the harm. Per precedent, court should have a fair assurance of the error not being dispositive.
Given the intent of the statute and the possibility of resolving the question against the agency on non-constitutional grounds, the statutory post-enforcement judicial review provision strips subjects of agency civil procedings of general federal question right of intelocutory Article III review challenging the constitutionality of the appointment and removal scheme of the ALJ.
Dissent in part:
Case distinguished from precedent and from the type contemplated by the jurisdiction-strip statute; challenge to the ALJ appointment scheme doesn't implicate constitutional avoidance, outside agency expertise.
Warrant was sufficiently particular, as it specified the device to be searched and the offense for which the search was seeking evidence.
It would not have been reasonable to require the warrant affiant to explain where in the computer file structure the evidence was to be found.
Catch-all provision in warrant authorizing seizure of evidence of any and all other crimes was overbroad, but the remedy is to sever it from the otherwise sufficiently particular warrant.
Circuit precedent compels admissibility of evidence from plain view exception in a computer search.
Dissent:
Police had a sufficient theory of the case to explain the type of thing that they were looking for in the search.
If the warrant was flawed, plain view is out, since police could only seize the device.
No good faith exception for facially flawed warrant.
Administrative procedural challenge untimely, as the publication of the rule and subsequent change in policy started the clock, not the reply to the letter seeking administrative redress.
As the complaints to the agency were delayed and the agency offered little accommodations, there are no extraordinary circumstances justifying waiver of the time limit.
Plan's retention of substantial amounts of spun-off business' stock in a single stock fund states a claim against the Administrator's common law duty of prudence.
While allowing the participants to select funds can satisfy the statutory duty of diversification, it does not address common-law prudence.
Liability is possible where a frozen defined contribution plan does not timely divest the single-stock fund.
Dissent:
Participants could allocate their investments. The fact that prudence and diversification are codified separately means that they shouldn't be merged in common-law analysis.
[Again, folks, just my scribbling. This is never legal advice.]
Generic claim of retaliation actionable as gender discrimination under Title VII does not sound as a cause of action under S1983; Section VII explicitly includes retaliation as an actionable harm, and this would be surplussage if inherent in the right.
Circuit split flagged.
Sufficient attenuation in time, place, and interrogators between un-Mirandized US law enforcement intelligence questioning of US citizen in the custory of a foreign state and subsequent Mirandized admissions. Belief that admission of guilt to a US crime was a necessary condition of being released to US custody did not make the Mirandized statements involuntary.
Conspiracy to provide support to enemy force does not involve use of force sufficient to qualify as a crime of violence.
Concur/dissent: given duration of initial interrogation, attenuation in time and place within a deliberate two-step was insufficient, deft should have been told of inadmissibility of earlier statements.
Categorically, division of statute that criminalizes assualting, resisting, or impeding certain federal employees or officers is a crime of violence for purposes of the sentencing bump. As the element requires a display of physical aggression, it necessarily involves a use or threatened use of force.
The District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying a motion for relief from the judgment as antecedent to leave to amend the complaint, as the complaint had already been amended once, the court explained the deficiencies, and the plaintiffs chose instead to wait for discovery to vindicate the claim. The court's requirement of newly discovered evidence was appropriate, as movant identified no other extraordinary circumstances justifying relief.
Metzler Investment GmbH and Construction Laborers Pension Trust
Treaty with Indian nation guaranteeing free use and enjoyment of land did not create a presumption of immunity from tax as an analogue to the general exemption in later private allotment Act.
Treaty with Indian nation guaranteeing freedom from taxes and assessments on the land, construed as the nation would have understood it, does not except usage and extraction by members of the tribe from taxation -- it merely addresses the possessory interest.
Given reasonable inferences to be drawn from the warrant application according to the deft's behoof, sufficient nexus between the property, the deft, and the alleged crime, as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Offense proscibed knowing crimal activity involving a certain type and quantity of drug, not necessarily the known involvement of a certain type and quantity of drug.
While there is authority for the idea that a motion to dismiss can be converted to a motion for summary judgment, there is no authority for the opposite, as the cour would be sua sponte lowering the threshold requirements for the movant -- the fact that a cucumber can be made into a pickle doesn't necessarily mean that a pickle can be turned into a cucumber.
District court correctly construed the allegation of misrepresentations in the amended complaint to be a claim for fraud in the inducement (dolo), and correctly applied the sophisticated purchaser defense to determine that the purchaser's reliance was not reasonable.