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.
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.