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

Plaintiff and her husband filed suit against Ethicon and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, in the Southern District of Florida for failure to warn of the adverse health consequences of an Artisyn YMesh implant. After defendants successfully moved for summary judgment, plaintiff and her husband appealed, asking the court to create a "financial bias" exception to the learned intermediary doctrine.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed and concluded that it was Erie bound to follow the decisions of the Florida courts. Without any indication from Florida's appellate courts that they would create a "financial bias" exception to the learned intermediary doctrine insofar as it applies to physicians, the court held that the learned intermediary doctrine is available and that, under the facts of this case, it plainly entitles defendants to summary judgment on the failure-to-warn claim. In this case, the treating physician was both aware of the risks surrounding the mesh implant and stood by his decision to use it to treat plaintiff's prolapse. The court explained that, under Florida law, an inadequate warning could not be the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries and, therefore, the learned intermediary doctrine bars a failure-to-warn claim. View "Salinero v. Johnson & Johnson" on Justia Law

Appellants Lee, Bennett, and the law firm challenge the district court's orders requiring the firm to pay $15,000 into the court's registry and directing that $7,000 of those funds be paid to the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) fund to cover the fees and expenses of defendants' court-appointed counsel. In this case, shortly after defendants were arraigned, the district court disqualified the attorneys and the law firm from representing any of the defendants based upon an actual or potential conflict of interest. The law firm had already collected a total of $21,000 from defendants.The Eleventh Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction appellants' challenge to the district court's determination that funds were available to defendants. The court explained that this argument does not fit within the narrow exception that permits the court to review a district court's compliance with 18 U.S.C. 3006A's procedures. The court affirmed in all other respects. The court concluded that there was no error in the district court sua sponte raising the question of whether a portion of the fees paid to appellants were available for payment from or on behalf of defendants; the district court performed a thoroughly appropriate inquiry before entering its order directing the payment of $15,000 into the court's registry; and appellants were able to seek further review in the district court when they filed objections to the magistrate judge's order. Even if the court assumed that the district court failed to afford appellants adequate notice and opportunity to be heard before directing them to pay money into the court's registry, the error was harmless. Finally, the district court committed no procedural error based on the timing of its order directing appellants to pay funds into the court's registry. View "United States v. Pacheo-Romero" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's 70 month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court concluded that, even if it accepted defendant's contention that the district court focused almost exclusively on his criminal history when crafting his sentence, the court cannot conclude that the district court gave that history an unreasonable amount of weight. In this case, when defendant was sentenced as a felon in possession of a firearm, he had already been convicted of at least five separate violent crimes. Furthermore, defendant's current conviction for a firearm offense came coupled with an admission that he had committed another firearm offense less than a year earlier. Therefore, defendant's sentence was not unreasonable. View "United States v. Riley" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Experian, alleging that the credit reporting agency violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act's (FCRA) requirements. The district court concluded that Experian did not violate the FCRA and granted summary judgment in favor of the agency.After determining that plaintiff had Article III standing, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that plaintiff's claims that Experian negligently violated 15 U.S.C. 1681e and 1681i by failing to undertake reasonable procedures to ensure maximal accuracy in its credit reports, and to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation of disputed information, survive summary judgment. However, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to establish that Experian acted willfully where the agency's interpretation could reasonably have found support in the courts. Accordingly, the court vacated in part, affirmed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Losch v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the Tax Court's decision upholding the Commissioner's determination that petitioner owes an income tax deficiency for 2011. The court concluded that the Tax Court did not clearly err in finding that petitioner failed to substantiate his claimed net operating loss (NOL) deduction in 2011. The court also concluded that the Tax Court did not abuse its discretion by overruling petitioner's objections to the Commissioner's deficiency computations under Rule 155, which included the income, but not the deductions, from petitioner's late-filed 2011 tax return. Finally, the court could not say that the Tax Court abused its discretion in refusing to reopen the case to litigate an issue that petitioner never attempted to raise. View "Barker v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that a Florida statute, Fla. Stat. 375.251(2)(a), which speaks in broad and unqualified terms, means exactly what it says—that an owner incurs no ordinary duty of care to, and no duty to warn, any entrant, regardless of his common-law status or reason for entry.In this case, plaintiff and his wife filed suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) after plaintiff slipped and fell at a public shower at Tables Beach. The federal government operates Patrick Air Force Base on a large parcel of land in Brevard County, and that land encompasses Tables Beach, which fronts the Atlantic Ocean and which the government has opened to the public. The United States claimed that it was immune from suit because the FTCA, which waives sovereign immunity in specified instances, authorizes only those tort actions that can be brought against private persons under state law. The district court granted the motion to dismiss, holding that Florida's recreational-use statute eliminated the government's ordinary duty of care and duty to warn as to plaintiff and his wife.The court affirmed the district court's dismissal, holding that because the recreational-use statute protects a qualifying landowner against a suit alleging a breach of its ordinary duty of care and duty to warn as to all entrants, regardless of their reason for entry, the government has not waived its sovereign immunity under the FTCA. Therefore, the court cannot exercise jurisdiction over this action against the United States. View "Fisher v. United States" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition in a case where petitioner was convicted of two murders and sentenced to death.The court concluded that petitioner's trial attorneys were not prejudicially ineffective by failing to further investigate and present to the jury evidence of his mental illness, cognitive deficits, and brain damage, and by failing to investigate and present evidence of additional mitigating family background and social history. The court concluded that the state court's rejection of these claims was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law, nor was it based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. The court was similarly unpersuaded regarding petitioner's procedural and substantive claims of incompetency to stand trial. Furthermore, petitioner's due process rights were not violated when he was required to wear a stun belt at trial. The court rejected petitioner's several claims of prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, the court concluded that it was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established law for the Georgia Supreme Court to have concluded, on direct review, that the prosecutor's violation of petitioner's Fifth Amendment rights by commenting on his failure to testify was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. View "Raheem v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

The Government filed suit to enforce the IRS assessment of a penalty against defendant for failing for the year 2007 to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 5321. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Government and enforced the IRS assessment of a penalty for a willful violation.The Eleventh Circuit agreed with the district court that there are no genuine issues of material fact regarding defendant's willfulness or recklessness where the evidence was overwhelming that defendant sought to hide his overseas accounts from the United States government. The court joined its sister circuits and held that the maximum penalty is established by the 2004 amendment to 31 U.S.C. 5321, not by the regulation in 31 C.F.R. 1010.820(g)(2). The court also concluded that defendant's several arguments that the IRS factfinding proceedings were so insufficient as to warrant de novo review—in departure from the usual arbitrary and capricious review—are wholly without merit; the IRS's actions were not arbitrary and capricious; and defendant's arguments regarding the imposition of interest and late fees are without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Rum" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit vacated its previous opinion and substituted it with the following opinion.The court affirmed defendant's conviction for five counts of armed robbery and carrying a firearm in furtherance of the robberies. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendant's motion to continue the trial date; the district court did not err or abuse its discretion in declining to dismiss Juror 20 for cause based on her employment with the Department of Community Supervision because she did not qualify as a member of a police department; even assuming without deciding that the Google geo-location data should have been excluded as "fruit of the poisonous tree," any error in admitting that evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; the evidence sufficiently supported defendant's convictions on all five robberies; the special agent's testimony does not warrant vacatur of the convictions; and, even assuming error, cumulative error does not warrant vacatur of the convictions. View "United States v. Pendergrass" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Intuitive for injuries following a surgical procedure, seeking money damages. After a two-day Daubert hearing, the district court agreed with Intuitive's position and excluded the testimony of plaintiff's expert.The Eleventh Circuit reversed, concluding that the district court erred in its application of the Daubert test and thus improperly entered summary judgment in favor of Intuitive. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in finding that perceived deficiencies in the expert's testimony rendered him unqualified to provide expert testimony in this case. In light of Quiet Tech. DC-8, Inc. v. Hurel-Dubois UK Ltd., 326 F.3d 1333, 1342 (11th Cir. 2003), the court concluded that the expert is qualified to perform a differential etiology on a patient who suffered a thermal injury during a hysterectomy performed with a da Vinci robot not because of his familiarity with the robot, but because of his familiarity with differential etiologies in the context of gynecological procedures. As such, the district court applied the incorrect legal standard, and thus abused its discretion.Even if the court were to ignore the district court's manifestly erroneous ruling that conflated the reliability and qualifications prongs, the court would still be obliged to reverse, as the district court imposed an admissibility standard on expert qualifications that was "too high." The court concluded that the district court improperly based its evidentiary determinations on the weight and persuasiveness of the evidence, and that Federal Rule of Evidence 702 does not impose any such requirements. Therefore, the expert was qualified to testify regarding the standard of care in hysterectomy procedures and the cause of plaintiff's injuries. On remand, the court directed that the case be assigned to a different judge. View "Moore v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc." on Justia Law