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.
Three to five phone calls per week to out of state customers and vendors establishes sufficient interstate commerce for the jurisdiction of the federal labor standards statute, since the statute explicitly includes communication within its definition of commerce.
Wendy St. Elien v. All County Environmental Services, Inc., et al
Assume without deciding that the District Court erred in holding that the document was not sufficiently authenticated in liminal proceedings because three of the signatures were not authenticated.
Foreign state's law treats champerty as an affirmative defense to formation; since the champerty claim implicated the merits determination, summary judgment standard would likely be appropriate, even in the context of a motion to dismiss.
Appeal of champerty finding that doesn't mention the procedural posture of the determination below forfeits any challenge to the standard of review.
Since the litigation trust created by the injured party as both grantor and beneficiary and to which the claim was assigned in an exchange for value would retain a fixed percentage of any recovery, the agreement was void for champerty under the state's law, and the litigation trust therefore did not have sufficient Article III standing.
PDVSA US Litigation Trust v. Lukoil Pan Americas, LLC, et al
High school coach's demonstrative religious actions at the center of the field immediately following the game were performed as a public employee in the course of performing the responsibilities of the job.
The actions cannot be considered personal and private because of the coach's prior attempts to publicize them. The collective nature of the activity on almost every occasion establishes that an objective observer would conclude that the practice, coupled with the exclusion of others who might seek access, was an endorsement of a particular religion.
Regulation of coach's conduct was sufficiently narrowly tailored to survive strict scrutiny, given the need to avoid a violation of the Establishment Clause.
School district had no obligation under Title VII to rehire, given the violation of policies. Plaintiff can't establish a Title VII disparate treatment claim, as there were no comparators engaged in perceptible prayer. As the coach's only request was public prayer at midfield after the game, school district was not compelled to accept it as a reasonable accommodation of a practice of bona fide religious belief conflicting with job responsibilities, and it was a sufficient basis for the adverse employment action.
CONCURRENCE:
Fact-driven holding. (Analysis tracks majority opinion.)
The right of a student in a school setting to be free of an unlawful seizure at the behest of police consisting of a brief detention and interrogation was not clearly established in circuit precedent, set forth in a robust consensus, or obviously clear, at least as asserted against a deft with a minor and ministerial role in the seizure.
Permit scheme for city street fair staged by development commission is a content-neutral means of regulating competing use of the public forum; the permit allows for the permitted speech and allows the restriction of disruptions to the permitted speech.
Declared intent to, in the future, speak in public areas is insufficient to establish irreparable harm for an injunction affecting a specific street fair.
The statute is not a valid sentencing predicate, since it encompasses threats to property, and both the common law crime and the predicate option of extortion require threats against the person.
Since counsel had an obligation during plea negotiations to assess the potential sentence and communicate the potential sentence to the deft, impending challenges to sentencing practices, even if not generally being made at the time, can be sufficiently foreshadowed to require a hearing for a later Habeas petition for ineffective assistance.
Showing of prejudice not required, since the calculated sentence range serves as a lodestar for its subsequent modification.
Since a sentence was pronounced and the state court record indicates that the deft was credited for time served, rather than simply released, a challenge to the duration of sentence for purposes of subsequent sentencing factors is determined by the state court record of judgment, which can only be altered by a collateral challenge to the earlier conviction.
Since the dictionary definition quoted in an earlier holding to exemplify the plain meaning of a term isn't itself binding in its terms, the activity proscribed under the state statute that reached beyond the bounds of the federal law before the term in the federal law was interpreted to merely have the plain meaning is still within the plain meaning of federal law, despite possibly being outside the dictionary definition quoted.
Objection to the disclosure of the deft's past occupation was waived when deft raised it several times during the trial.
Deft affirmatively agreed to the admission of the draft email at trial, waiving any subsequent objection.
Appellant carries burden on plain error review to show why forfeited objection at trial meets the standard for plain error.
Sufficient evidence to establish that deft had the requisite intent to defraud and was an active and knowing participant, since deft knew that the funds were illicit, and continued to spend them.
Alteration of another person's tax forms and pay records in order to secure a lease is sufficient for the sophisticated means sentencing bump.
Considering the situation under the supervisory powers of the appellate court over the proceedings in the District Court, rather than under Due Process: the District Court did not evaluate the defendant's defense, make a finding as to the willfulness of the violation, or sufficiently explain the sentence in light of the parsimony principle and the sentencing statute.
Physical presence in the courtroom is sufficient to give a criminal court jurisdiction over a deft.
Habeas grounds not raised at trial or on direct appeal and then raised for the first time on a collateral challenge are subject to de novo review on matters of law if the government doesn't argue the procedural default at the District Court.
If the conduct relative to the statute's focus, the object of the statute's solicitude, occurred in the US, it is a permissible domestic application of the statute, even if related conduct occurred abroad. Since the protected victim was in the US while being coerced into the activity by means of the Internet, the present case is a permissible domestic application of the statute, even though the deft was abroad.
Under the statute, an agent of a foreign government operates under foreign direction and control in something more than a one-sided agreement, but one that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of control suggested by employment.
The exclusion of foreign legal transactions from the statute's reach is an affirmative defense, not an element. Affirmative defenses are not necessarily smaller in scope, and can be used to define the statute's scope.
Circumstantial evidence and rational inference may be used to establish that a person was acting as an agent of a foreign government.
Court erred in granting acquittal, since a rational juror might have determined that the organizational structure and contacts sufficiently established the possibility of foreign direction and control.
Court erred in granting acquittal on Conspiracy, given the agreements, intent to fly below the radar, and decision not to file a notification with the AG.
One-sentence explanation for the granting of a new trial due to the weight of the evidence was categorically insufficient.
Court abused its discretion in holding that the jurors would not honor the limiting instruction on hearsay materials, given the volume of the materials; the ability of the jury to respect their instructions is an almost invariable assumption of the law.
Restricting the reasons for granting a new trial to the ones recited in the motion, including noting the cumulative error, is a jurisdictional limit.
In an interlocutory appeal over an arbitration provision, the court to which the appeal is taken must only assure itself of the appellant's right to appeal and the fact that the court from which the appeal comes would have subject matter jurisdiction over a suit arising from the conflict between the parties.
As answering the question of whether a non-customer plaintiff is equitably estopped from avoiding a mandatory arbitration clause within a terms of service necessary for the use of the service is neither necessary for nor inextricably interwined with the question of whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue, the latter can't be answered under pendent jurisdiction on an interlocutory appeal as to whether the non-signatory is equitably bound to the agreement.
Since the plaintiff's are complaining of discrimination that keeps them from using the service, they are not equitably bound to agreement that they have neither embraced nor benefitted from.
Not providing timely and adequate medical services to detained individual prior to arraignment doesn't violate the disability act, since the disability requiring medication is the reason for the service, not the obstacle for which a reasonable accomodation would have to be provided. Plaintiff was not denied medical services because of the disability.
At summary judgment, the defendant was not required to provide a nondiscriminatory theory for not providing the medication.
Limiting the testimony rebutting a claim of pecuniary motivation to the social justice motivations for participating in the protest rather than allowing testimony about past work for social justice was not an abuse of discretion.
State law permits a police officer to use an objectively reasonable amount of justifiable force in any non-arrest situation; the contact does not in itself give rise to a claim for assault, and the justification is not limited to the circumstances enumerated in state law.
Since the question of objective reasonableness of force looks to the Fourth Amendment, it was error to instruct the jury that the subjective mental state was at issue; where subjective mental state was potentially dispositive, the error is not harmless.
In a Habeas class action seeking relief for immigration detainees in the current pandemic, supervisory Mandamus doesn't run because the lower court has not palpably erred; it has reduced the detainee population significantly. Advisory Mandamus doesn't run, since the determination of pandemic severity is a factual question, not a legal question, and since the population has been lowered, the balance between extraordinary circumstances and likely success doesn't need to be corrected.