Seventh Circuit: USA v. Crystal Lundberg

 

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.

USA v. Crystal Lundberg

Seventh Circuit: USA v. Anthony Jordan

 

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.

USA v. Anthony Jordan

Fourth Circuit: US v. Daniel Harris

 

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.

US v. Daniel Harris

Fourth Circuit: US v. Bijan Rafiekian

 

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.

US v. Bijan Rafiekian 

Third Circuit: Paul O'Hanlon v. Uber Technologies Inc

 

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.

Paul O'Hanlon v. Uber Technologies Inc

Second Circuit: Tardif v. City of New York

 

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.

Tardif v. City of New York

First Circuit: In Re: Da Graca

 

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.

 In Re: Da Graca

Eighth Circuit: United States v. Matthew Coy

 

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. 

United States  v.  Matthew Coy

Eighth Circuit: Tom Dunne, Jr. v. Resource Converting, LLC

 

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. 

Tom Dunne, Jr.  v.  Resource Converting, LLC

Eighth Circuit: Guardian Flight LLC v. Jon Godfread

 

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.

Guardian Flight LLC  v.  Jon Godfread

Fifth Circuit: USA v. Norbert

 

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.

USA v. Norbert

Fifth Circuit: Anokwuru v. City of Houston

 

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.

Anokwuru v. City of Houston

Third Circuit: Candace Moyer v. Patenaude & Felix

 

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.

Candace Moyer v. Patenaude & Felix

Third Circuit: Terry Klotz v. Celentano Stadtmauer and Wale

 

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.

Terry Klotz v. Celentano Stadtmauer and Wale

Third Circuit: Dansko Holdings Inc v. Benefit Trust Co

 

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.

Dansko Holdings Inc v. Benefit Trust Co

Second Circuit: Fund Liquidation Holdings LLC v. Bank of America Corp.

 

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.

Fund Liquidation Holdings LLC v. Bank of America Corp.

Federal Circuit: George v. McDonough

 

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.

George v. McDonough

DC Circuit: Nalini Kapur v. FCC

 

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.

Nalini Kapur v. FCC

DC Circuit: USA v. Shan Shi

 

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.

USA v. Shan Shi

Eleventh Circuit: James Clay, et al. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

 

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.

James Clay, et al. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue