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US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions Joiner v. United States Docket: 19-10202 Opinion Date: March 27, 2020 Judge: James C. Ho Areas of Law: Government & Administrative Law, Personal Injury The Fifth Circuit withdrew its prior opinion and substituted the following opinion. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal, based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction, of plaintiff's action under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). Plaintiff, a security guard, was shot in the leg while on duty by a pair of Islamic terrorists. The court held that plaintiff failed to establish that the discretionary function exception does not apply under the FTCA, and thus sovereign immunity has not been waived. Although the district court erred in stating the standard for construing exceptions to the FTCA, the error was harmless because plaintiff's contentions failed either way. The court held that the district court correctly declined jurisdiction under a two-step framework. First, plaintiff failed to identify a nondiscretionary duty violated by an agency or employee of the United States. Furthermore, the government did not violate any directives prohibiting agents from engaging in acts of violence. Second, the court held that the discretion at issue here is precisely the kind that the exception was designed to shield. The court held that plaintiff's remaining arguments were unavailing. The court declined to forge new circuit precedent and adopt the state-created danger doctrine in such uncharted territory; the district court properly dismissed the ATA claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by barring additional discovery. Read Opinion
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Florida expands quarantine to visitors from Louisiana www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/03/27/florida-expands-quarantine-to-visitors-from-louisiana-9422247 United States v. Barnes Docket: 18-60497 Opinion Date: March 23, 2020 Judge: Jerry E. Smith Areas of Law: Criminal Law Defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and waived his right to challenge his conviction and sentence. After defendant was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), the Supreme Court held in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), that the ACCA's residual clause was unconstitutional. Defendant filed a 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate his sentence, which the district court dismissed. The Fifth Circuit dismissed defendant's appeal and held that defendant's section 2255 motion was barred by his collateral-review waiver in his plea agreement. The court held that precedent foreclosed defendant's contention that a defendant cannot waive a right that is unknown at the time that the waiver provision is executed, and that he cannot waive his right to challenge an illegal or unconstitutional sentence. Read Opinion US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions Bradley v. Ackal Docket: 18-31052 Opinion Date: March 23, 2020 Judge: James Earl Graves, Jr. Areas of Law: Civil Procedure, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law The Fifth Circuit reversed and vacated the district court's order denying vacatur of sealing orders. The court held that the decision denying vacatur of the sealing orders is appealable under the collateral order doctrine, because the decision is conclusive; the decision addresses important and unsettled questions of law concerning the Louisiana Public Records Law and appellants' First Amendment and common law rights to access settlement agreement information contained in a sealed court recording and sealed minutes, particularly where a minor's privacy interests are involved; the subject of the decision is completely separable from the merits of the litigation; and the decision would be effectively unreviewable on appeal from final judgment. On the merits, the court held that the district court abused its discretion in denying appellants' motion for vacatur by relying on erroneous conclusions of law and misapplying the law to the facts. In this case, the settlement agreement involves public officials or parties of a public nature and matters of legitimate public concern, and it does not appear that the district court weighed as a factor in favor of disclosure the presumption of the public's right of access. Read Opinion US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions Dish Network Corp. v. NLRB Docket: 18-60522 Opinion Date: March 20, 2020 Judge: Oldham Areas of Law: Labor & Employment Law The Fifth Circuit held that the Board did not have substantial evidence to gainsay DISH's impasse determination and penalize the employer for refusing still more years of negotiation. In this case, the Board's decision rested on an unsound factual foundation from the ALJ. Furthermore, the court held that the Board lacked substantial evidence merely because it failed to grapple with countervailing portions of the record. Finally, the court held that some of the Board's counterarguments were not properly before the court and rejected all of the counterarguments. Read Opinion US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions United States v. Eustice Docket: 18-11519 Opinion Date: March 18, 2020 Judge: Stephen Andrew Higginson Areas of Law: Criminal Law The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's 84 month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty, without a plea agreement, to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute an unspecified amount of methamphetamine. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in calculating the quantity of meth attributable to defendant; the district court did not err by applying a two-level sentencing enhancement for maintaining a drug premises under USSG 2D1.1(b)(12); and the district court properly assigned two criminal history points. Read Opinion US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions United States v. Rodriguez-Leos Docket: 19-40161 Opinion Date: March 16, 2020 Judge: James L. Dennis Areas of Law: Criminal Law The Fifth Circuit vacated defendant's sentence for unlawful possession of ammunition by a person admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa. After determining that defendant's challenge was properly preserved, the court held that defendant was entitled to a three-level sentencing reduction for attempt under USSG 2X1.1(b)(1) because when he was arrested, he was not about to complete all the acts necessary for the separate offense of exportation of ammunition. In this case, all defendant had done was buy ammunition and, at the time of his arrest, he was not en route to deliver the ammunition. Furthermore, there was no definitive evidence of a temporal timeframe here. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing. Read Opinion US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions United States v. Jiminez-Garcia Docket: 19-10625 Opinion Date: March 13, 2020 Judge: Stephen Andrew Higginson Areas of Law: Criminal Law Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4) motion for relief from the 2010 judgment convicting him of, and sentencing him for, bank robbery. The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment and remanded for the district court to determine in the first instance whether it has jurisdiction to consider defendant's Rule 60(b) motion and whether it should issue a certificate of appealability (COA). Because the district court has not ruled on whether defendant should be granted a COA to challenge the denial of his Rule 60(b) motion, the court held that it lacked appellate jurisdiction to consider the district court's denial of defendant's Rule 60(b) motion. Read Opinion United States v. Smith Docket: 19-60340 Opinion Date: March 12, 2020 Judge: Stuart Kyle Duncan Areas of Law: Criminal Law The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress evidence, holding that law enforcement officers conducted a reasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment by extending a routine traffic stop. During the ten minute interval at issue, the record showed that the officer was waiting for in-depth background checks and was trying to secure consent to search the vehicle. Therefore, the officer did not act unreasonably by waiting to deploy his K-9 unit for the drug sweep. Read Opinion Block v. Texas Board of Law Examiners Docket: 19-50286 Opinion Date: March 10, 2020 Judge: W. Eugene Davis Areas of Law: Legal Ethics, Professional Malpractice & Ethics Plaintiff filed suit against the Board for its refusal to waive the active practice requirement to accommodate his disability. The district court dismissed plaintiff's claim as barred by sovereign immunity. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims under the first prong of United States v. Georgia, because plaintiff did not allege any conduct that violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court explained that the active practice requirement ensures that applicants have both achieved and maintained the skill and knowledge required to practice law in Texas. By waiving this requirement to admit a lawyer who has neither passed the Texas bar exam nor practiced law for thirteen years would not inform the Board of whether plaintiff currently has the necessary knowledge and skill to practice law. Therefore, the modification plaintiff sought was not reasonable. The court did not reach the issue relied on by the district court. However, plaintiff's claims should have been dismissed without prejudice and thus the court modified the district court's dismissal. Read Opinion Governor confirms first presumptive case of Coronavirus www.houmatimes.com/news/governor-confirms-first-presumptive-case-of-coronavirus/ Proposed Louisiana bill would allow local governments to call election on marijuana use www.myarklamiss.com/news/proposed-louisiana-bill-would-allow-local-governments-to-call-election-on-marijuana-use/ US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. All American Check Cashing, Inc. Docket: 18-60302 Opinion Date: March 3, 2020 Judge: Stephen Andrew Higginson Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Government & Administrative Law Judge Higginson concluded that the restrictions on the President's removal authority under the Consumer Financial Protection Act are valid and constitutional. Judge Higginson found that neither the text of the United States Constitution nor the Supreme Court's previous decisions support appellants' arguments that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutionally structured, and thus he affirmed the district court's judgment. Read Opinion Justice Department: Should Louisiana lose grant money over fees against abuse victims? www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_e68d1bce-5a4c-11ea-b092-e772d88301d2.html US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions Kitchen v. BASF Docket: 18-41119 Opinion Date: February 28, 2020 Judge: Leslie H. Southwick Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment in an action alleging that his former employer, BASF, discriminated against him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The court held that plaintiff's ADA claim was properly dismissed, because plaintiff failed to offer any evidence of a causal connection between his discharge and his alcoholism. Furthermore, plaintiff failed to show that BASF's legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for discharging him, the apparent positive results of his alcohol test and violation of company policy, was pretextual. Even if the court were to consider plaintiff's failure-to-accommodate argument, it would fail because the ADA does not provide a right to an employee's preferred accommodation but only to a reasonable accommodation. The court also held that plaintiff produced no evidence to support his ADEA claim and there was no abuse of discretion in the district court's decision not to mandate the requested production of his discovery request. The court rejected plaintiff's remaining procedural and evidentiary challenges. Read Opinion |
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