Justia U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellants appealed the district court's order denying their Rule 60(b) motion for the district court to reconsider its previous order remanding the case to state court. In support of their motion, appellants claimed that, in light of a recent opinion issued by this court clarifying the method for calculating the amount-in-controversy requirement for subject matter jurisdiction, the district court had jurisdiction over the case. The district court denied the motion to reconsider because the case had been remanded to state court and was no longer pending in federal court. The court agreed and affirmed the denial of appellants' Rule 60(b) motion.

Plaintiff brought a diversity action against the operator of a vessel to recover for her injuries from a slip and fall on the vessel, claiming, inter alia, that defendant negligently caused the accident by failing to provide an adequate flooring surface for the area where she fell. Plaintiff subsequently appealed from the district court's orders granting defendant's motion to preclude plaintiff's expert testimony and denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial. The court held that because the jury was not allowed to consider evidence about whether the slip resistance of the flooring posed a danger to passengers aboard the vessel, it could not have found in plaintiff's favor with regard to her main negligence theory; matters of slip resistance and surface friction were "beyond the understanding and experience of the average lay citizen." Therefore, the court held that the district court erred by granting defendant's motion to preclude the expert proposed testimony. Accordingly, the court held that the new trial was warranted and plaintiff was entitled to submit expert testimony regarding the adequacy of defendant's choice of flooring surface.

Plaintiffs, citizens and residents of Bolivia, brought suit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. 1350, against the former President and Defense Minister of Bolivia (defendants) for decisions these leaders allegedly made while in high office. Plaintiffs asserted that defendants violated international law by committing extrajudicial killings; by perpetrating crimes against humanity; and by violating rights to life, liberty, security of person, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. The court held that because the pertinent international law was not already clear, definite, or universal enough to reach the alleged conduct (especially after the pleadings were stripped of conclusory statements), the court declined to expand the kinds of circumstances that could be actionable under the ATS to cover the facts alleged in this case. Accordingly, the court held that the denial of the motion to dismiss these claims was reversed.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's enforcement of the arbitration agreement in his employment contract with defendant. Plaintiff sued defendant on a single count of Jones Act negligence, pursuant to 46 U.S.C. 30104, claiming that defendant breached its duty to supply him with a safe place to work. The court held that, given the United Nations Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) and governing Supreme Court and Circuit Court precedent, the court must enforce the arbitration clause in plaintiff's employment contract, at least at this initial arbitration-enforcement stage. Therefore, after review and oral argument, the court affirmed the district court's order compelling arbitration of plaintiff's Jones Act negligence claim.

This negligence suit under Georgia law stemmed from an injury plaintiff suffered as he unloaded freight from a railcar in July 2005. On appeal, plaintiff asserted that the district court erred by granting summary judgment to defendants because there were triable issues as to whether defendants were negligent in failing to regularly inspect or maintain the bulkhead door. The court held that the district court was correct in granting defendants summary judgment where plaintiff presented no evidence from which a jury could infer that defendants' omissions, even if negligent, were a proximate cause of his injury, an essential element of his negligence claim under Georgia law. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Defendant and her husband (Duckworths) purchased two automobile policies and one motorcycle insurance policy from plaintiff (State Farm) where all three insurance contracts contained "anti-stacking" provisions that precluded recovery of uninsured motorist benefits under any policy other than that covering the damaged vehicles. The Duckworths subsequently moved to Florida, where the husband was struck and killed by an uninsured motorist while driving the motorcycle covered under the Maryland policy. State Farm consequently brought this action in the district court, seeking a declaratory judgment that it had satisfied its contractual obligations to the husband's estate. At issue before the district court was the applicability of the public policy exception to Florida's choice of law rule in disputes over contract terms. The district court declared that State Farm had satisfied its contractual obligations to the husband's estate and dismissed defendant's counterclaims. Taking into account all of the undisputed facts, and assuming that defendant informed a State Farm representative that the Duckworths' move from Maryland to Florida would be "permanent," the court held that State Farm still did not receive reasonable notice sufficient to trigger the public policy exception. The court held that, even if defendant informed the representative as alleged, her later actions overwhelmingly indicated to State Farm that the Duckworths' move was not necessarily permanent and that, consequently Maryland law would continue to govern the Duckworths' policies. Therefore, the issue of fact upon which defendant's appeal rested was immaterial and, as State Farm was deprived of reasonable notice, judgment as a matter of law was proper.

This case arose when plaintiffs filed a nationwide consumer class action against Life of the South Insurance Company (Life of the South). At issue was whether Life of the South had a right to enforce against plaintiffs the arbitration clause in the loan agreement, between plaintiffs and the car dealership where they purchased their vehicle, where the loan agreement lead plaintiffs to enter into a separate credit life insurance contract with Life of the South. The court held that the loan agreement did not show, on its face or elsewhere, an intent to allow anyone other than plaintiffs, the car dealership, and Chase Manhattan, and the assignees of the dealership of Chase Manhattan, to compel arbitration of a dispute and Life of the South was none of those. The court also held that because the only claims plaintiffs asserted were based on the terms of their credit life insurance policy with Life of the South, which did not contain an arbitration clause, equitable estoppel did not allow Life of the South to compel plaintiffs to arbitrate. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of Life of the South's motion to compel arbitration.

Plaintiff was employed full time with Able Body Temporary Services, Inc. (Able Body), a labor broker in the business of furnishing its day-laborer employees to clients on a temporary basis. Able Body supplied its client, Federal Marine Terminals, Inc. (FMT), with day-laborers, including plaintiff, for longshore services. Plaintiff was subsequently injured on the job and received benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901 et seq. Plaintiff, seeking to supplement his workers' compensation benefits, brought this negligence action against FMT, claiming that the negligence of FMT's employees caused his injury. At issue was whether the district court erred in holding that FMT was plaintiff's employer and that section 905(a) of the LHWCA precluded his negligence claim. The court held that because all the elements necessary for a borrowed-employment relationship were satisfied in light of the undisputed evidence, FMT was plaintiff's borrowing employer for purposes of the LHWCA and consequently, plaintiff's negligence claim was barred by section 905(a). Therefore, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Plaintiff was injured in a single-car accident when driving a vehicle manufactured by defendant and subsequently filed an action against defendant, alleging claims for failure to warn, strict liability, and negligence arising from the defective design of the car. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendant with respect to all of plaintiff's claims. The district court held that plaintiff's failure to warn claim failed because it was undisputed that she had not read the warnings and therefore, the content of the warnings could not constitute a proximate cause of the accident. Consequently, the court held that plaintiff's failure to warn claim failed because plaintiff did not challenge that aspect of the district court's ruling and therefore, waived the issue. In light of plaintiff's commencement of the suit more than ten years from the date of the first sale of the vehicle, the court did not think that a reasonable trier of fact could find that defendant exhibited willful and wanton conduct when the vehicle in question performed safely according to reputable mainstream sources. Accordingly, the court held that there was no error in the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendant on either the failure to warn claim or the negligent design claim.

This case stemmed from defendant's Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding where he sought to discharge a personal injury judgment debt that he had owed plaintiff since 1985. Plaintiff filed a complaint objecting to the discharge of defendant's debt to him on the ground that defendant had fraudulently avoided satisfying that debt since the judgment underlying it was entered 22 years before. Plaintiff subsequently appealed the district court's order affirming the bankruptcy court's order overruling plaintiff's objections and discharging plaintiff's debt to him. Plaintiff also appealed the district court's order affirming the bankruptcy court's award of attorney's fees to plaintiff as a sanction against defendant for filing the objections. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the district court's judgment affirming the bankruptcy court's order denying plaintiff's objections on the merits where plaintiff's notice of appeal was time-barred. The court held, however, that it must remand the case to the bankruptcy court so that it could either flesh out its reasons for sanctioning plaintiff or decide that he was not to be sanctioned where that court did not make specific factual findings as to what constituted bad faith on plaintiff's part. The court also held that plaintiff's appeal to the district court of the denial of his objections to the discharge was colorable, non-frivolous enough, to prevent the district court's denial of sanctions against plaintiff from being an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding for further proceedings.