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.
Statutory collateral attack on a past adjudication under the auspices of Clear and Unmistakable Error looks to the law of the time and asks whether the error was undebatable and would manifestly have changed the outcome at the time.
Novel judicial constructions of statutes generally are law for all cases pending on direct review.
No standing for a minority percentage owner of a television station seeking to undo multiple sales of the business, because even if every administrative decision was reversed and every deal unwound, the business would be back in the hands of the majority percentage owner who would then have the power to sell the station again.
Even absent testimony from cooperating witnesses that the deft had entered into the trade secret conspiracy, there was sufficient substantial evidence for the finder of fact to conclude from the circumstances that such a tacit conspiracy existed, and that the deft had agreed to join it.
Sufficient evidence to indicate that at least two conspirators believed that the appropriated information contained trade secrets.
CONCURRENCE:
The government didn't misrepresent the evidence.
CONCURRENCE:
The government misrepresented the evidence.
Agreement on taxation of ceded land is subject to the court's plain meaning reading; the member of the tribe that is party to the accord has no power to define a contrary reasonable reading.
Casino revenues did not arise from the land in question.
In the absence of a formal lease, the tax court determination that the lands were not leased by the tribe is supported by substantial evidence. Tribe has not identified any statutory basis for the claimed exemption for profits from leased lands.
The required return of federal funds was not a penalty or a disgorgement, and therefore was not subject to the statutes of limitations on sanctions by the agency and administrative penalties generally. Instead, the funds were monies due the United States under the federal debt collection act, since the improper use had been discovered by an audit by the agency's inspector general, a predicate of the debt collection act.
Although the regulations were complex, there was sufficient notice of the regulation for due process purposes, given the common understanding of the relevant group -- here the specialized knowledge of a telecommunications carrier.
Although the hearing must be held at a time when the deprivation can be prevented, that does not necessarily mean that it must happen before the agency has reached its decision to deprive. Agency collection proceedings during the pendency of the litigation did not raise constitutional concerns.
Agency's interpretations of the regulations were not arbitrary and capricious.
Incomplete record provided in the current litigation did not prejudice the plaintiff, and the incomplete record offers sufficient grounds for the agency's decision.
The proposed social group of people who might testify against certain criminal organizations is, unlike in some other countries, not independently socially recognizable and distinct.
As the IJ referred to the irregular evidence offered in support of the argument suggesting future torture, the exhibit was admitted by judicial notice, and the Board needed to account for its claims in their decision.
DISSENT:
The irregular evidence isn't in the appellate record, so the Board can't account for it on remand, and the evidence itself is mixed as to the claim.
Agency did not abuse its discretion in refusing to reopen an immigration proceeding on the basis of changed country conditions, as the petitioner did not produce evidence of a material change in the conditions within the country; while a change in personal circumstances can make the changed conditions more relevant to the petition, even such a hybrid claim would require a showing of changed conditions to reopen the proceeding.
As the comparison of duties between privately funded and federally funded research academics is fraught with judgment, not law, their equivalence is a genuine issue of material fact for trial.
The standard under the state law is broader than the federal standard, reasoning from the greater, there is an issue for trial on the state claims as well.
As plaintiff in disparate impact claim wasn't challenging thempe practice of retention raises, but additionally suggesting that the salaries of the cohort be raised as well, it is an attack on a specific process, not general one. The existence of an alternative undercuts the claim of business necessity.
Although statistics derived from small sample size have less probative value, disagreement among experts as to the validity of the numbers can suggests a triable issue.
As the plaintiff never engaged in retention raise negotiations, there is no issue for trial on state and federal disparate treatment claims or Title IX. Insufficient evidence of intentional discrimination for state ERA claim.
DISSENT:
Equal Pay Act requires a case-specific examination of the actual job performance and content.
Full Professors are like professional athletes. Significant differences in all of the jobs for the members of the plaintiff's department.
State claim only requires a common core of tasks, which presents an issue for trial.
Retention negotiations are elective -- each professor chooses to engage or not. Small sample size. The practice is a business necessity.
Notice and a hearing on the landowners' applications for variances from a zoning regulation sufficed for procedural due process. The zoning regulation requiring a right of way wasn't irrational, given the public interest in road construction. Claim of unfair exaction improperly attempts to recast a takings claim as a procedural due process claim.
No plain error in sentencing court's omission of the finding that the possession of the firearm facilitated the possession of the drugs, since the court determined that the firearm was used for protection during drug-related activity, rather than simply assuming a connection from physical proximity.
Refusal to vary downward not unsupported by the record; within-Guidelines sentence not unreasonable.
Substantial evidence for Board finding that neither policies nor the CBA established a progressive system of employee discipline; the supervisors' actions were appropriately characterized as reports without any inherent enforcement power. The reports also are considered insufficiently authoritative to be considered recommendations. A one-time distribution of gift cards was insufficient to establish manager status. Although employees could temporarily remove other employees from driving, their efficacy at this was determined by their own performance, not the employee's performance, as precedent compels for a finding of manager status.
Commonsense argument that there must be a significant proportion of managers among the employee would inappropriately mix the lay standard with the legal standard required by statute and precedent.
Vocational expert was present during recitals of sufficient evidence to support their later findings, and the determinations were reached by appropriate hypothetical questions from the ALJ made without contemporaneous objection.
As the writings found in the defendant's car supported the theory of the crime and established a potential future danger to the community, consideration in sentencing was not a violation of the First Amendment.
As the deft requested the change late in the trial, the claim of prosecutorial misconduct due to the use of gender-specific pronouns was waived; alternatively, pronouns are not dispositive. Misgendering is insufficient basis for a claim of judicial bias; no error in denial of motion to recuse.
Plea deal identifying one act as applicable for restitution did not preclude the seeking or award of restitution under an additional act.
Interstate stalking statute does not unconstitutionally co-opt state authorities.
State law provides the rule of decision on some S1983 substantive legal questions related to the defense raised, so the assertion of the state statutory evidentiary privilege defense, although defeated by the federal rule on the privilege in question, doesn't mean that all substantive defenses have been presently waived.
Lack of notes from a deceased physician and a delay in the referral to a specialist deft present an issue for trial, as they might show either not receiving a prisoner's claim or a deliberate indifference to the claim.
An institution-level medical director within a larger corporation is not a unilateral setter of standards for purposes of Monell liability.
Sentence imposed pursuant to a plea agreement that had incorrectly calculated the mandatory fees payable by the deft but in practice imposed the higher fee required by law was insufficient plain error to revisit the sentence, despite the deft's inability to withdraw from the agreement at sentencing.
Federal collateral review can look past individual state court opinion to determine if the state judicial proceedings were consistent with the federal standard.
Judge's disqualification of criminal counsel unknowingly appointed to defend another defendant charged for the same occurrence, given deft's refusal to waive conflicts was a reasonable application of the Supreme Court's caselaw requiring a serious risk of conflict. The subsequent appearance of the other defendant on the trial's witness list was independently sufficient, regardless of the probability that the witness would actually be called.
Consent decree that provides for the award of fees if there has been a violation of the agreement by one party does not require an ongoing violation to trigger the possibility of an award.
Courts order that the state party to the agreement ensures treatment of the incarcerated parties to the agreement within a certain timeframe was not a reasonable inference of the parties' agreement, which called for the incarcerated parties to be referred for treatment within that timeframe.
Manifest disregard of the law is not a freestanding grounds for vacatur of an arbitration decision under the federal statute.
Sufficient jurisdiction to review a denial of legislature members' immunity under the collateral order doctrine, since otherwise the legislators would have to participate in pretrial and discovery matters, and the question is one purely of law.
State legislators' common law federal immunity and immunity from state claims under the state constitution protect actions and speech regardless of subjective discriminatory intent.
Unlike municipal legislators who have both administrative and legislative functions, the actions of a state legislator that are legislative in nature do not have to be proven to be substantively legislative in intent and effect. Correspondence and telephone calls relating to legislation are protected as factfinding.
Qualified immunity for political errands not within the scope of legislative immunity, as there was not any clear teaching of the courts that the allegedly discriminatory campaigning in the community was against the law.
Post-petition missed merger states a subsequent claim by the missed bidder for administrative expenses under the Code, despite the fact that the missed bidder filed multiple post-attempt judicial challenges, forcing the estate initially to pay the agreed penalty for the missed transaction.
Benefit to the estate should be considered broadly, and the missed bidder's due diligence in setting up the deal, clarifying the issues and setting a roadmap for the subsequent lesser bid plausibly conferred sufficient benefit on the estate to justify statutory priority for the administrative expenses claim. Finder of fact will need to determine if this benefit was offset by the costs that were forced by prolonging the missed deal.
Holding a substantive RICO conviction -- in which the underlying offense ple(a)d(ed) to or proven involved as an element the use of force -- to be a crime of violence is, under de facto modified categorical review, not plain error. Prior circuit precedent requiring two of the three underlying offenses to involve the use of force is dicta as to convictions with only one offense involving the use of force.
Sentence was not substantively unreasonable.
When imposing sanctions under the courts inherent powers, the court must first consider not the actual disruptive effect in the proceedings, but the intent of the offending party; a single filing offers sufficient grounds for sanctions.
Since the only record of the telephone interview was the investigator's notes, although the report of the investigator is entitled to a presumption of regularity, the discrepancies between the conversation as recorded in the notes and the other interviews of the petitioner do not offer sufficient evidence for the agency's determination.
Re-sentencing under the statute is not a plenary re-sentencing is not a plenary review of all intervening changes in the law, but an imposition of a sentence incorporating the specific changes mandated by the statute. The judge is then free to weigh the intervening changes in the law in the subsequent discretionary resentencing. Affording plenary sentencing would unfairly reward those who had been convicted of the predicate offense.
Tenfold, almost equally divided circuit split flagged.
DISSENT:
No need to bifurcate the process; once the court determines the eligibility for resentencing according to the law at the time of the original sentencing, before making the gating decision, the court is then free to consider subsequent legal and factual developments before deciding on whether to grant the motion to revisit the sentence.