DC Circuit: Gerald Hawkins v. Debra Haaland

 

Concurrent procedural regulation of waters reserved to the Tribe in a treaty with the Federal Government isn't an unlawful delegation constituting a procedural injury to those holding inferior rights to take the water, since the Tribe's treaty right to ensure sufficient water levels requires no concurrence from the Federal Government.  Even absent the concurrent regulation procedures, the Tribe's right to the water would remain, leaving the plaintiffs without a possibility for redress sufficient to justify Article III standing.

Gerald Hawkins v. Debra Haaland

DC Circuit: Christiana Tah v. Global Witness Publishing, Inc.

 

Although the district has recently clarified that the special motion to dismiss statute imposes a burden equivalent to summary judgment in the federal courts, the statute can't be applied in federal court, because the movant under the statute has no burden to make any showing on the merits and the statute limits the discovery process.

Nothing in the denials by the targets of the investigative reporting constituted readily verifiable evidence needed to support a plausible case that the publisher had a degree of awareness of probable falsity sufficient to establish reckless disregard for the truth.

DISSENT:

Even absent contradictory evidence, a story might be inherently implausible, and a publisher has an affirmative duty to reasonably dispel their own doubts.  First consider the inherent plausibility, then consider counterarguments.

The concession that there was no evidence that the counterparty to the transaction alleged to be the motive for the bribery knew of the payments, and the lack of motive for self-dealing bribery in the bonuses awarded make the story sufficiently inherently improbable.

The facts cited in the denials were sufficient to cast doubt on the story.

Circuit split suggested.

NYT v. Sullivan should be overruled.

Christiana Tah v. Global Witness Publishing, Inc.

Ninth Circuit: James O'Doan v. Joshua Sanford

 

Office entitled to qualified immunity for tripping body-throw maneuver used on naked gentleman making threatening gestures.

Given the ordinary and reasonable inference that people know what they are doing, the police offices had sufficient probable cause for the arrest, given the illegal conduct that they had witnessed, despite the claim by others at the scene that the plaintiff was experiencing a medical episode; the probable cause was not dissipated by the time the plaintiff was released from the hospital, since from the police officers' perspective, the conduct seems inconsistent with the asserted condition.

While the explanation for the plaintiff's actions was ambiguous, this did not mean that it was obvious that the story offered by the plaintiff and others at the scene.

Omission of claimed medical condition from report's supporting affidavit wasn't a deliberate fabrication, as precedent requires that the officer either knew or had cause to know of actual innocence, or used coercive and abusive investigatory techniques.

DISSENT:

Given the exculpatory asserted medical condition, the determination of probable cause required an assessment of the credibility of the varying claims, and reconstructing and judging the reasonableness of these determinations is a matter for the jury.  

(Samples of questions that the plaintiff's lawyer might ask on cross.)

James O'Doan v. Joshua Sanford 

Ninth Circuit: Rodney Green, Sr. v. Mercy Housing Inc.

 

Plaintiff bringing suit under the statute should not be assessed fees or costs unless the court makes a specific finding that the claim was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless.

Rodney Green, Sr. v. Mercy Housing Inc. 

Eighth Circuit: United States v. John Fortenberry

 

Statute's description of judgment on the merits looks to actual adjudication of the substantive issues of the claim rather than looking to the procedural rules' definition of judgment on the merits.  A dismissal of a claim against an agent due to a limitations period does not require the dismissal of the claim against the alleged principal under the statute, or under normal principles of vicarious liability.

Abuse of discretion to admit evidence of past bad acts that were time-barred from the suit, as they were more prejudicial than probative.  As it became a theme of the case, limiting instruction was insufficient.

Evidence of retaliation and harassment by non-defendant agents of the municipality was also more prejudicial than probative, as it translated into the theme that the municipality was a bad actor.

Implying that the municipality had indemnified the defendant officers for punitive damages when in fact only compensatory damages were to be covered was an abuse of discretion.

Cumulative evidentiary errors and misleading jury instructions suffice for vacatur and new trial.

United States  v.  John Fortenberry

Eighth Circuit: United States v. Jay Gifford

 

420 Month below-guidelines sentence not unreasonable.  Seriousness of the offense outweighed the mitigating factors.

Absent a showing of reasonable probability that the sentence would have been different otherwise, no plain error in imposition of lifetime supervised release despite three year limit in statute, given imposition of lifetime supervised release under separate count.

United States  v.  Jay Gifford

Seventh Circuit: Vaun Monroe v. Columbia College Chicago

 

As a claim of discrimination under the federal statute is an attempt to remedy a personal injury to civil rights, the appropriate statute of limitations is taken from the appropriate state's personal injury tort law.

Vaun Monroe v.  Columbia College Chicago

Sixth Circuit: United States v. Lazelle Maxwell

 

Court did not abuse its discretion in revisiting the petitioner's sentence under the statute by first deciding that the petitioner was eligible; second calculating the revised sentencing range using only the changes described in the statute; third, calculating the new sentencing range accounting for all intervening changes in the law; and fourth, considering the facts of the offense and equitable factors from conduct while incarcerated.

United States v. Lazelle Maxwell 

Sixth Circuit: United States v. Jeffery Wills

 

Where the statute allows for resentencing for extraordinary and compelling reasons, the court has discretion to consider each case individually, rather than considering the manner in which other courts have handled similar petitions.

United States v. Jeffery Wills

Fifth Circuit: Franco v. Mabe Trucking, et al

 

Plain text of a federal statute permitting the transfer of an action where the court has a want of jurisdiction allows transfers for lack of personal jurisdiction, lack of subject matter jurisdiction, or both.

The provisions of the statute are compulsory, so they apply whether or not the court cites it when transferring an action.

State statute prescribing any suit after one year from the accrual of the claim but tolled by either filing a claim in a court of sufficient jurisdiction and venue or service looks to the federal courts to determine the date of filing of suit, so the federal law relating back the transferred suit to the date of filing in the first venue.  The state statute looks to the federal relation-back because the Rules of Decision Act privileges federal statutes over state laws, so the Erie analysis looks first to the federal statutory law.  The federal statute controls under the Supremacy Clause; the case is within the statute, and Congress had sufficient authority to pass the statute to regulate the federal courts.

DISSENT:

Federal statute wasn't intended to regulate state statutes of limitations.  State law is an integrated regulation of statute of limitations and service of process.  Majority's view leads to unequal results between state and federal court, and in federal courts handling transferred claims and federal courts serving as the initial forum

Franco v. Mabe Trucking, et al

Third Circuit: In re: Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc.

 

Under the Code, sufficient mutuality for offset of pre-petition monies mutually owed cannot be created by contract in a triangular offset; the claim on the funds is a personal one, and one tied to the identity of the claimant.

The second party also can't transform the contract into a claim.

(Perhaps.  We don't know many things, but we especially don't know Patent and Bankruptcy.  Entertainment value only, folks.)

In re: Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc.

First Circuit: US v. McCullock

 

Contemporaneous objection to the substance of a sentence condition does not preserve a procedural objection against the explanation of the sentence, which is then reviewed for plain error.

On plain error review, deft carries the burden to establish that the error was dispositive.

Court did not commit plain error in imposing a release condition broadly banning types of obscene content, given the history and characteristics of the offenses, including uncharged acts.

US v. McCullock

First Circuit: US v. De Jesus-Gomez

 

In a civil forfeiture proceeding in Admiralty, discovery sanctions are slightly more severe than in the civil analogue.  The Court must weigh severity, repetition, and deliberateness of the violation must be considered.  No prejudice need be shown.  The court did not abuse its discretion in striking the late response and issuing default judgment against a vessel whose claimants asserted a Fifth Amendment exception to civil interrogatories, having previously asserted the exception in a motion to stay that was denied without prejudice.  Although one of the claimants was being held in solitary confinement during the discovery period, the other claimant was not so encumbered.

US v. De Jesus-Gomez

Eleventh Circuit: Wendy St. Elien v. All County Environmental Services, Inc., et al

 

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

Eleventh Circuit: PDVSA US Litigation Trust v. Lukoil Pan Americas, LLC, 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

Ninth Circuit: Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

 

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.)

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

Eighth Circuit: L.G. v. Keisha Edwards

 

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.

L.G.  v.  Keisha Edwards

Eighth Circuit: Cory Sessler v. City of Davenport, Iowa

 

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.

Cory Sessler  v.  City of Davenport, Iowa

Seventh Circuit: Jeffery Bridges v. USA

 

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.

Jeffery Bridges v.  USA

Seventh Circuit: USA v. Antoine Wallace

 

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.

USA v. Antoine Wallace