US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions

Graham v. BP Exploration & Production, Inc.

Docket: 18-30008
Opinion Date: April 29, 2019
Judge: Allyson Kay Duncan
Areas of Law: Civil Procedure, Energy, Oil & Gas Law

More than eight hundred appellants, who assert various contract and tort claims arising out of the Deepwater Horizon oil clean-up, are divided into two groups: the Lindsay Appellants and the D'Amico Appellants. Both groups of appellants appealed their dismissals with prejudice for failure to follow the district court's order requiring they file individual complaints. The Fifth Circuit held that the district court had authority to issue the order as a sensible means of managing multi-district litigation and to dismiss the parties' claims with prejudice for disobeying docket management orders. However, the court did not find the clear record of delay or contumacious conduct by the D'Amico Appellants required to justify a dismissal-with-prejudice sanction. In this case, the D'Amico Appellants had a flawed understanding of PTO 63 and showed an absence of willful conduct. Accordingly, the court reversed as to the D'Amico Appellants and affirmed as to the Lindsay Appellants. The court remanded for further proceedings.

Read Opinion

United States v. Baker

Docket: 17-51034
Opinion Date: April 26, 2019
Judge: Jacques Loeb Wiener, Jr.
Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fifth Circuit treated the petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel rehearing and denied the petition for rehearing en banc. The court substituted the following opinion in place of its prior opinion. The court affirmed defendant's conviction of wire fraud, securities fraud, making false statements to the SEC, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud. The court held that the district court committed harmless error by admitting the testimony of an FBI case agent; the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the deposition testimony of ArthroCare's former controller who invoked the Fifth Amendment and did not testify at defendant's trial; the district court did not erroneously instruct the jury on the "obtain money or property" element of the wire fraud offense; and the jury was properly instructed on accomplice liability. The court rejected defendant's remaining arguments as meritless.

Read Opinion

​
US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
Pate v. Tow

Docket: 18-20518
Opinion Date: April 23, 2019
Judge: Per Curiam
Areas of Law: Bankruptcy, Family Law

Appellants asserted claims for child support arrearages against debtor. Although debtor filed for bankruptcy, appellants claimed that they never received notice of debtor's bankruptcy case. Therefore, appellants argued that they were denied the opportunity to timely file proofs of claim. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision affirming the bankruptcy court's finding that the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, from which appellants had sought child support enforcement services, had received timely notice and ultimately afforded their claims distribution status under 11 U.S.C. 726(a)(2). In this case, the Department was properly the creditor for the purposes of debtor's child support obligations and the Department's proofs of claim were untimely.

Read Opinion

US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
O'Daniel v. Industrial Service Solutions

Docket: 18-30136
Opinion Date: April 19, 2019
Judge: Edith H. Jones
Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Labor & Employment Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's complaint against her former employers, alleging that she was fired because of her sexual orientation (heterosexual) and Defendant Huber's reaction to plaintiff's pro-heterosexual speech. Plaintiff, the manager of PNP's human resources department, made a Facebook post criticizing a man wearing a dress and noting his ability to use the women's bathroom and/or dressing room. The court held that plaintiff's Title VII retaliation claim failed because Title VII does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and, even if it did, the district court did not err in finding that plaintiff could not have reasonably believed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was a prohibited practice. The court also held that the district court correctly dismissed the state claim because none of defendants were state actors and were therefore not covered by the the restrictions of Article 1, section 7 of the Louisiana constitution.

Read Opinion

US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
Moore v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board

Docket: 18-30115
Opinion Date: April 18, 2019
Judge: Costa
Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Education Law

This appeal arose from the district court's 2017 decision to grant "provisional" unitary status to the school system in the area of facilities. The district court set a two-year year probationary period, during which it would retain jurisdiction over that aspect of the desegregation order and the school district would face semiannual compliance reviews. At the end of the two years, the district court would then consider an "unconditional" grant of unitary status in facilities. The school board appealed. The court held that the Youngblood procedure, requiring a probationary period before final dismissal of a desegregation case, is a longstanding practice in this circuit. The court rejected the school board's legal challenge to the Youngblood procedure and held that a district court has long had discretion to impose a Youngblood period, and the school board cited nothing that would allow the court to depart from this settled law. The court also held that the district court did not clearly err by determining that the school board came up a bit short of demonstrating good faith compliance and that a two year probationary period was necessary in this case.

Read Opinion

​US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions

​Bourne v. Gunnels

Docket: 17-20418
Opinion Date: April 16, 2019
Judge: Jerry E. Smith
Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to prison officials in his 42 U.S.C. 1983 action for excessive force, failure to intervene, deliberate indifference, and retaliation claims arising from use of force during his confinement. Liberally construing plaintiff's appellate contentions and reviewing de novo, the Fifth Circuit held that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and its progeny did not bar plaintiff's excessive force claims. In this case, plaintiffs excessive force claims implicated neither the validity of his underlying conviction nor the duration of his sentence. In regard to whether defendants were entitled to qualified immunity, the court held that there was a genuine dispute of material fact concerning what occurred during the use of force. Therefore, the court remanded for further consideration.

Read Opinion

US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
Jones v. Davis

Docket: 16-70003
Opinion Date: April 15, 2019
Judge: Higginbotham
Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's federal application for post-conviction relief where he was sentenced to death for killing his great aunt. The court held that the Director did not waive her statute of limitations defense; the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining whether to equitably toll the limitations period; the state court did not abuse its discretion by holding that petitioner's confession was taken in contravention of Miranda v. Arizona, but that its admission was harmless error under the Supreme Court's decision in Chapman v. California; and the district court did not improperly deny petitioner investigative funding under 18 U.S.C. 3599(f).

Read Opinion

US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
Okorie v. Crawford

Docket: 18-60335
Opinion Date: April 12, 2019
Judge: Costa
Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims against Investigator Dalton. At issue was whether the government may detain the owner of a business that is being searched not because of suspected criminal activity but instead for possible civil violations. In this case, during the search of a medical clinic that resulted in plaintiff being detained for a few hours, the investigator pushed plaintiff down, drew his gun multiple times, and limited plaintiff's movement and access to facilities such as the restroom. The court held that plaintiff's allegations established a Fourth Amendment violation based on the intrusiveness of the detention, but that the sparse caselaw in this area had not clearly established the unlawfulness of this type of detention. Therefore, the investigator was entitled to qualified immunity.

Read Opinion

United States v. Burris

Docket: 17-10478
Opinion Date: April 10, 2019
Judge: Jacques Loeb Wiener, Jr.
Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fifth Circuit withdrew its previous opinion pending the en banc court's decision in United States v. Reyes-Contreras. After the en banc court decided Reyes-Contreras, the Supreme Court decided Stokeling v. United States, which held that Florida robbery qualified as a crime of violence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The court held that these cases applied to defendant's sentence and governed the outcome of this case. Therefore, the court held that Texas robbery under Texas Penal Code 29.02(a) requires the "use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force" and affirmed defendant's increased sentence under the ACCA.

Read Opinion

US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
Claimant ID 100081155 v. BP Exploration & Production, Inc.

Docket: 18-30268
Opinion Date: April 9, 2019
Judge: Jennifer Walker Elrod
Areas of Law: Business Law, Energy, Oil & Gas Law

After JME filed five claims for compensation with the Settlement Program, the Settlement Program determined that JME was a "failed business" under the meaning of the Settlement Agreement and calculated JME's compensation according to the Failed Business Economic Loss framework. The district court then granted discretionary review and agreed that JME was a failed business under the Settlement Agreement. Applying de novo review, the Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded, holding that the district court misinterpreted the Settlement Agreement's first and third definition of a "failed business" and erroneously concluded that the Settlement Program correctly classified JME as a failed business because JME ceased operations and wound down, or otherwise initiated or completed a liquidation of substantially all of its assets.

Read Opinion

US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Opinions
United States v. Dinh

Docket: 18-10099
Opinion Date: April 4, 2019
Judge: Jennifer Walker Elrod
Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after she pleaded guilty to distributing a large volume of pills containing Fentanyl analogues. The district court used the total weight of all the pills as the attributable drug quantity. The court held, under the 2016 Sentencing Guidelines, the default rule for calculating the weight of a controlled substance is its mixture weight. Because Fentanyl analogues were not otherwise specified, it was subject to the mixture rule. Furthermore, mixture weight calculations did not violate Due Process when, as here, the drug could not be easily separated from the mixture and was intended for sale and consumption in the mixture. The court rejected defendant's argument that the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause right, as enunciated by the Supreme Court in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), should be extended to the sentencing phase. Finally, the court held that the findings of the lab reports provided an adequate evidentiary basis with sufficient indicia of reliability for the presentencing report to conclude that all of the pills contained Fentanyl analogues, and defendant failed to offer competent rebuttal evidence.

Read Opinion