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

In a contract dispute related to the funding of the development of the Fountainebleau Resort in Las Vegas (the Project), Term Lenders appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Bank. The court concluded that under the Disbursement Agreement the Bank was permitted to rely on the Borrowers' certifications that the conditions precedent were satisfied unless it had actual knowledge to the contrary. The court also concluded that there remained genuine issues of material fact about whether the Bank had such knowledge and whether its actions amounted to gross negligence. The court affirmed the district court's denial of the Term Lenders' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and the district court's interpretation of the Bank's obligations under the Disbursement Agreement. The court reversed, however, the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Bank and the court remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Avenue CLO Fund, Ltd., et al. v. Bank of America, NA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, male inmates, filed suit under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq., challenging an ADOC policy that forbids them from wearing their hair unshorn in accordance with the dictates of their Native American religion. The United States intervened on plaintiffs' behalf. The court affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of the ADOC because the ADOC carried its burden of demonstrating that its hair-length policy was the least restrict means of furthering its compelling governmental interests of prevention of contraband, facilitation of inmate identification, maintenance of good hygiene and health, and facilitation of prison discipline through uniformity. View "Knight, et al. v. Thompson, et al." on Justia Law

Defendants were prosecuted for their involvement in health care fraud and violations of the Anti-Kickback laws regulating Alabama Medicaid. The prosecution involved "factor" medication, which was a special, expensive medication used to treat hemophilia, a blood clotting disease. The parties raised numerous challenges on appeal. The court affirmed the convictions of Jeff Vernon and Butch Brill after review of the extensive trial record and with the benefit of oral argument. The court vacated, however, the district court's Rule 29 acquittal of Chris Vernon on three counts and reversed the alternative award of a new trial, and remanded for reinstatement of the jury's guilty verdicts and sentencing on those counts. View "United States v. Vernon" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction for knowingly using a fraudulently altered travel document. Defendant, a Haitian national who speaks Creole but not English, argued that the erroneous admission of a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer's trial testimony of what the interpreter said to him violated her Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights. Under Crawford v. Washington, the court found that defendant had a Sixth Amendment right to confront the interpreter, who was the declarant of the out-of-court testimonial statements that the government sought to admit through the testimony of the CBP officer. The court concluded, however, that the error was not plain where there was no binding circuit precedent or Supreme Court precedent that clearly articulated that the declarant of the statements testified to by the CBP officer was the language interpreter. View "United States v. Charles" on Justia Law

ComTran petitioned for review of the Commission's final decision holding that ComTran violated standards under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), 29 U.S.C. 651 et seq., when one of its supervisors was caught digging in a six-feet deep trench with an unprotected five-feet high "spoil pile" at the edge of the excavation. The court concluded that it was not appropriate to impute a supervisor's knowledge of his own violative conduct to his employer under the Act, thereby relieving the Secretary of her burden to prove the "knowledge" element of her prima facie case. Therefore, the Commission acted arbitrarily, capriciously, and otherwise not in accordance with the law. Accordingly, the court granted the petition, reversed the decision, and remanded for further proceedings. View "ComTran Group, Inc. v. U.S. Dept. of Labor" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued her employer, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, originally alleging federal civil rights and state age discrimination claims. The Board then removed the case to federal court, invoking the district court's subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1331. After removal, plaintiff amended her complaint alleging various federal and state law claims. The district court dismissed all of plaintiff's federal claims other than the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 621-634, claim for failure to state a claim. The court concluded that the Board waived its defense of immunity from litigation in federal court when it removed to federal court, but the Board did not waive its immunity from ADEA liability. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Stroud v. McIntosh, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted by a jury of three counts of attempted armed robbery. One of the jurors was allowed to deliberate and vote on the verdict after missing the second of the three days of trial and all of the testimony presented on that second day. Petitioner's counsel did not object because he did not notice that the juror participated in the jury deliberations. The court concluded that there was no actual prejudice where there was no reasonable probability that if all six jurors, instead of just five, had heard the five prosecution witnesses testify during the second day of trial, petitioner would have been acquitted. Because petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel did not fit within the narrow bounds of United States v. Cronic or Roe v. Flores-Ortega, and she has failed to demonstrate actual prejudice under Strickland v. Washington, she was not entitled to federal habeas relief on her claim. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of the writ and remanded. View "Castillo v. State of Florida" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's order on summary judgment holding that they were "independent contractors," instead of "employees," and were not entitled to overtime and minimum wage protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. The court concluded that, viewing the facts most favorably towards plaintiffs and with all justifiable inferences drawn in their favor, plaintiffs were "employees" under the FLSA. Because there were genuine issues of material fact, and because plaintiffs were "employees," the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Knight. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's summary judgment order and remanded for further proceedings. The court affirmed, however, the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motions to reopen the opt-in period, for protective order, for corrective notice, and for sanctions. View "Scantland, et al. v. Knight, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

In this antitrust case, GSRG challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Nucor. The court affirmed, concluding that GSRG's definition of the product market was too restrictive, for it refused to acknowledge that pickled and oiled steel manufacturers could enter the fray in order to enrich themselves on the inflated prices of black hot rolled coil steel. That would, in turn, increase the supply, and lower the price, of black hot rolled coil steel. It would also sap Nucor's potential monopoly over power. GSRG ignored this "actual or potential" economic construct, and its failure to account for cross-elasticity of supply was fatal to the attempted monopolization claim under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 2. View "Gulf States Reorganization Group, Inc. v. Nucor Corp." on Justia Law

Defendant, the founder and former CEO of HealthSouth, was found guilty of federal funds bribery, honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit the latter offenses. Defendant subsequently appealed the district court's denial of his motion for a new trial filed while Siegelman I was before the Supreme Court on certiorari, and the denial of his motion to recuse the trial judge. The court concluded that there was no abuse of discretion in Judge Henkle's denial of the motion to recuse under 28 U.S.C. 455(b) where the judge's ex parte meeting with the Marshals regarding a disputed factual issue did not lead an objective disinterested lay observer to entertain significant doubt about the judge's impartiality and the judge did not have personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding, nor was he likely to be a material witness. Addressing five of the six grounds defendant relied on in seeking a new trial, the court also concluded that there was no abuse of discretion in Judge Fuller's handling of the motion for new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33(b)(1). Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Scrushy" on Justia Law