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

This case involved claims brought by cabin stewards against their employer, Celebrity Cruises, and against the Union (FIT) that represented them. Because the stewards were foreign employees involved in an internal wage dispute with a foreign ship, neither the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 185, nor the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. 159, applied to the stewards' challenges. Since their claims were dependent upon the protections of those acts, the district court properly dismissed their claims against Celebrity and FIT. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court in Appeal No. 10-13623. Because the stewards could have raised their Seaman's Wage Act, 46 U.S.C. 10313, claim in Lobo II but did not, the court affirmed the district court's order in Gomez as barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court in Appeal No. 10-10406 View "Lobo, et al v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of the People's Republic of China, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision denying him asylum and ordering him removed. At issue was whether the BIA erred when it overturned the IJ's factual findings that petitioner would likely be forcibly sterilized upon returning to China. The court concluded that the BIA committed legal error by making its own de novo factual findings and therefore, the court vacated the BIA's decision and remanded for the BIA to review the IJ's decision under the proper clear error standard. View "Zhu v. U.S. Attorney General" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 188 months' imprisonment. At issue was whether defendant's prior conviction for intentional vehicular flight from an authorized law enforcement patrol care was a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). The court held that defendant's prior conviction did qualify as a violent felony where the offense of simple vehicle flight from a flashing patrol car presented a serious potential risk of physical injury comparable to the ACCA's enumerated crimes of burglary and arson. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Petite" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawful reentry to the United States and was sentenced to 87 months of imprisonment. Defendant contended that the district court erred when it accepted his guilty plea and enhanced his sentence for having been removed following a conviction for an aggravated felony; the district court erred when it increased his offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines for having been convicted of a "crime of violence" before his removal; and the district court erred when it increased his criminal history score by counting a prior conviction for disorderly intoxication. The court held that defendant waived his first argument when he pleaded guilty; a prior panel precedent, United States v. Romo-Villalobos, foreclosed his second argument; and defendant's third argument failed because his conviction was more similar to a conviction for disorderly conduct than to a conviction for public intoxication. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Garcia-Sandobal" on Justia Law

This appeal involved a county ordinance for permitting stevedores at the Port of Miami in Miami-Dade County. FTS filed suit against the County, which owns and operates the Port. FTS alleged that the County's Port Director did not follow the ordinance's requirements at all but instead protected incumbent stevedores and kept out new entrants and competition, like FTS, by rubber-stamping and automatically renewing permits for all existing stevedore permit holders at the Port and automatically denying permits to all new applicants in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause. The court held that the ordinance as applied violated the dormant Commerce Clause and the market-participant exception was not applicable. The court also held that the evidence provided a sufficient legal basis for the jury's damages award. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Florida Transportation Service v. Miami-Dade County" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the dismissal of his federal habeas corpus petition brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the habeas petition as untimely because it was not filed within the one-year statute of limitations. The court also concluded that petitioner failed to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances sufficient for equitable tolling of the filing deadline. View "Smith v. Commissioner, Alabama DOC" on Justia Law

Miller's is a restaurant with a location in Boynton Beach, Florida, and Boynton Carolina is its competitor. At issue was whether Miller's has common law trademark rights in the term "ale house" and trade dress rights in the interior decoration of its restaurant, and if so, whether Boynton Carolina violated Section 43 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act), 15 U.S.C. 1125(a), and the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 106, when it adopted a name, decor, and a floor plan similar to Miller's own. The court held that the district court did not err in finding Miller's trademark infringement claim barred by issue preclusion, in finding Miller's trade dress not to be inherently distinctive, and in finding Miller's and Boynton Carolina's floor plans not to be substantially similar. View "Miller's Ale House, Inc. v. Boynton Carolina Ale House" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought suit against her former employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 621 et seq., after she was terminated. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer because plaintiff did not present sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude that the employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reason for the termination - that plaintiff violated (or appeared to violate) the company's conduct policies - was pretextual. In this case, the corporate executive who terminated plaintiff later said that she was an exceptional employee who had done nothing wrong, had done everything right, and should not have been fired. The court held that such evidence, when combined with a prima facie case, created a jury question as to discrimination. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Kragor v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals America" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit alleging, inter alia, that Liberty, a management company, was a "debt collector" under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692 et seq., and was civilly liable for violating several of the FDCPA's provisions. The exemption at issue on appeal, section 1692a(6)(F)(i), provided that the Act did not apply to persons or entities "collecting or attempting to collect any debt owed... another to the extent such activity is incidental to a bona fide fiduciary obligation." The court held that this exemption applied to Liberty, which collected unpaid assessments on behalf of a homeowners association, as long as the collection of such assessments was not central to the management of the company's fiduciary obligations. Accordingly, Liberty was not a debt collector under the Act and its actions did not violate state law. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Liberty. View "Harris, et al v. Liberty Community Mgmnt." on Justia Law

Appellant, a death row inmate, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. On appeal, appellant argued that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in the penalty phase of his murder trial. The Florida state courts denied appellant's ineffective assistance of counsel claims based on counsel's failure to discover that certain information appellant had told counsel about his background was false and counsel's reliance on court-appointed competency experts to testify instead of retaining defense experts to investigate mitigation evidence specifically. The court concluded, as did the district court, that the state court's judgment was not contrary to, or based on an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the petition. View "Pooler v. Secretary, FL DOC, et al" on Justia Law