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.
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.
Seventh Circuit: Delores Henry v. Melody Hulett
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.
Sixth Circuit: A. K. v. Durham Sch. Servs., L.P.
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.
Fifth Circuit: Michelle Cochran v. SEC, et al
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.
Fourth Circuit: US v. James Cobb
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.
Fourth Circuit: Howard County, Maryland v. FAA
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.
Fourth Circuit: Jeffrey Quatrone v. Gannett Company, Inc.
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.]
Fourth Circuit: Colette Wilcox v. Nathan Lyons
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.
Fourth Circuit: US v. Mohamad Khweis
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.
Third Circuit: USA v. Julious Bullock
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.
Second Circuit: Metzler Investment GmbH and Construction Laborers Pension Trust
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
Second Circuit: Perkins v. Commissioner
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.
First CIrcuit: US v. Mejia Romero
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.
First Circuit: Feliciano-Munoz v. Rebarber-Ocasio
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.
Federal Circuit: The Boeing Company v. US
Government contractor did not waive statutorily mandated offsetting payments in contract terms that elected the governing administrative regulation that prohibited such offsets, since the government counterparty to the contract was required to follow the regulation that was contrary to law.
Government would have to at minimum identify a viable avenue of judicial redress available to contractor at formation.
Tucker Act jurisdiction for an illegal exaction claim requires nonfrivolous claim that the government, in obtaining the money, has violated federal constitution, statute, or regulation -- establishing that the claim is "money mandating" is not a jurisdictional threshhold.
DC Circuit: Committee on the Judiciary v. Donald McGahn, II
Administration official's noncompliance with unchallenged legislative subpoena in furtherance of an enumerated power of the congress is sufficient concrete injury for Article III standing.
As the rules of the House delegate the subpoena power to the committee plaintiff, the harm is sufficiently particularized.
Appearance with sought documents would redress the harm.
Absent questions of individual particularized harm, separation of powers concerns do not inherently implicate standing.
Judicial enforcement of legislative subpoenas is the longstanding practice, doesn't disrupt balancing between legislative and executive since challenges to the subpoenas can be disputed, and much of the relevant precedent deals with the standing of individual legislators.
Dissent:
Judicial interference has only been the norm for about 40 years, other mechanisms exist.
Dissent:
Justiciability implicates injury-in-fact, as the analogy between harming a person and harming a branch of government is imprecise; separation of powers is inherently a consideration proper to standing analysis; denial of enumerated prerogative opens the door too widely; would permanently entangle the DC Circuit in the oversight process; Scotus has never resolved an interbranch dispute; unlike the Senate, the House has no legislative authority to seek judicial enforcement of subpoenas; even assuming standing arguendo, House plaintiff has no statutory or equitable cause of action; judicial enforcement diminishes the threat of impeachment.
DC Circuit: United States House of Representatives v. Steven Mnuchin (ORDER)
(Denial of en banc with remand to consider intervening precedent.)
Dissent from remand:
Parties did not necessarily agree with the implied QP of the consolidated cases. Gathering for en banc and then punting wastes resources.
Dissent from remand:
Nonjusticiable. Especially when only raised by one chamber. Granting en banc sua sponte prior to panel holding was rare, and presumably done to cabin the holding with respect to the facts of the companion case.
United States House of Representatives v. Steven Mnuchin (ORDER)
Eleventh Circuit: SMILEDIRECTCLUB, LLC v. Tanja D. Battle, et al.
Ruling on state-action immunity is sufficiently similar to one on qualified immunity to be the subject of interlocutory appeal as a collateral order. (This is a "binding alternative holding.")
Pro forma acceptance of Dental Board's rulemaking by the state's executive is insufficient active supervision by the government to shield the Board from antitrust claims under the state action doctrine; similarly, such acceptance of the rulemaking does not make the change an act of the sovereign, which would be shielded from suit ipso facto.
Concur / Joined in full:
Denial of state action immunity is a question of the interpretation of the Sherman Act, not one of constitutional right, and can be addressed after final judgment, especially in cases involving private parties. Circuit split flagged.
Dissent:
As the lower court reserved judgment on the state action immunity claim for summary judgment, when the record would be more fully developed, the denial is insufficiently final, and the order risks contradiction by subsequent development of the record prior to summary judgment.
Ninth Circuit: Arconic, Inc. v. APC Investment Co.
Where a statute creates a right to seek contribution to an environmental settlement or judgment but provides that such contribution must be sought within three years of the entry of judgment, seeking contributions from de minimis co-polluters that indemnify them against any future claims does not start the clock to seek other contributions within a prospective limitations period triggered by a subsequent claim against the same site. A right to contribution can't arise until the judgment creating the liability is entered, and this division of eligible costs serves the purposes of the law
Judicial estoppel similarly does not preclude seeking a second round of contributions for a second judgment, as there's no inconsistency.
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