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.
Court did not clearly err in holding that involuntary antipsychotic medication was medically appropriate, given physician testimony. While it was possible that the illness is of a type that will not be affected in matters relating to the trial, the long-term benefits of the medication make it medically appropriate despite the risk of side effects.
Jury's award of punitive damages without compensatory damages in a suit seeking return of a 400K investment necessarily found that while there had been an injury, no compensatory damages were warranted. A lack of compensatory damages when awarding punitive damages does not offend the state's law, as establishment of damages is different than award of damages. Additur in this situation would be unconstitutional.
Criminal fines for correlative conduct cannot be used to establish disproportionality of award.
Court did not abuse discretion in holding that the claim at law precluded equitable redress for the lost funds.
Court's reduction of requested fees was valid under governing state law; similar reduction in costs was valid under governing federal law.
Court erred by applying federal law to claim preclusion; the appropriate law is the law of the forum in which the first decision was made.
Economic loss doctrine, under the law of the state, would not bar claims for fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation.
The airline deregulation act preempts the state's restriction on air-ambulance billing, and the law is not saved under the insurance statute, as it does not have the effect of assigning or transferring risk, and the air ambulance subscription plan does not guarantee treatment or act as an intermediary.
In assessing the credibility and reliability of the tip of illegal activity in the apartment parking lot, the tipster's familiarity with the physical environs was insufficient validation; as the tip wasn't contemporaneous with an emergency situation, it is held to a higher standard. The tip was sufficiently specific in its physical description of the suspect.
Given the lack of corroboration, the police had no reasonable suspicion that the criminal activity was afoot. The search was conducted after verification of entirely innocent information.
The tip's claim of ongoing drug sales meant that the search at the end of the day wasn't on stale information.
DISSENT:
This means that police must personally witness a crime.
Tipster's assertion of being employed by the apartment complex and subsequent specific description of the details corroborated the information sufficiently for reasonable suspicion. Would suffice for probable cause under Gates.
Navarette wasn't based on emergency situations, but rather stands for the proposition that a tipster who tells the truth about innocent details will tend to tell the truth when asserting criminality.
Circuit split flagged.
S1983 False arrest claim was immunized by an intervening indictment from the grand jury and the lack of a specific claim that the officers involved had deliberately or recklessly provided false information to the magistrate or the grand jury.
Circuit precedent does not recognize a freestanding malicious prosecution complaint under S1983.
Equal protection claim dismissed for lack of comparators or discriminatory intent.
A claim against the municipality for inadequate training that relies on a single incident must demonstrate the complete lack of training.
No abuse of discretion in denying leave to amend the fourth amended complaint.
Sua sponte dismissal of claims upheld, since magistrate had recommended it and plaintiff briefed the issue -- so long as the plaintiff has a fair opportunity to plead their best case.
Since the debt collection letter said that calling the company would cause collection efforts to stop, and not that it would legally compel the collection efforts to stop, under the least sophisticated debtor standard, the letter was not misleading.
Proximity to the legally required information about how to question the claim by mail would not cause undue confusion about which mechanism to use to preserve their rights against the claim.
Federal equal credit law's prohibition on discrimination according to marital status doesn't preempt the state's common law doctrine of necessities, which holds a medical bill to be valid against a spouse; the medical debt is an incidental credit, distant from the traditional credit-provision intent of the law.
Spouse's action against the medical entity for not fulfilling the common law requirement of demand doesn't state a claim, even in the absence of the facility's having made a demand on the estate of the patient, since public records indicate the lack of an estate.
Court did not abuse discretion in denying leave to amend, since there was no showing of claims falling outside the entitlement under the doctrine of necessities.
Employer's contract claim against potential trustee of employee stock benefit plan is remote from the usual ERISA concerns, and therefore not preempted by the statute.
Implied spoken promise subsequent to execution of written contract can be the basis for a promissory estoppel claim.
Integration clause refers only to the time of formation -- when subsequent parties to the contract were substituted in, the integration clause still looked back to the time of initial formation.
A lie about a side issue in the course of a contractual breach is separately actionable as fraud where the lie implicates a broader social duty owed to all individuals.
By conceding valid substitution into the contract for the purposes of the breach claim, the plaintiff is estopped from arguing that the indemnification agreement compelling the payment of legal fees doesn't apply to the defendant. Plain meaning of indemnify encompasses first party claims. Under state law, it wouldn't be specific enough to cover any damages award.
The notice of appeal properly identified the party taking the appeal, the orders that were the subject of the appeal, and the court to which the appeal was being taken; the jurisdictional element of the rules of appeal were satisfied, and since notice was given of intent to appeal all orders, the description of the appellant in the caption as successor in interest to an entity that only accounted for some of the claims was excusable.
As assignment of claim doesn't undo an injury, the claim filed by an entity that had already assigned the interest had sufficient Article III standing; assignment of claim is distinct from grant of power of attorney, which would trigger a prudential limitation on standing.
While choice of law for corporations usually looks to the location of the business, choice of law for partnerships looks to the law of the forum. Questions of state law can be dispositive in the federal standing inquiry.
Although legal capacity of parties isn't a jurisdictional element in standing, existence of the entity is, and since the jurisdiction provided for no wind-up time, the non-existent parties did not have standing at the time the suit was filed.
A suit filed by a non-existent entity is not a nullity; so long as there is a real party in interest willing to join the suit at the time the suit is filed and the real party in interest ratifies, is substituted, or is joined within a reasonable time, there is sufficient subject matter jurisdiction for the action at the time of filing. Since procedural reforms have allowed for nominal parties, this doesn't offend the Constitution. Court retains the right under the rules to deny joinder for equitable reasons. Circuit split flagged on the nullity doctrine.
Equitable tolling is available for new plaintiffs joined to existing class actions.