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

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition as untimely. Petitioner argues that the district court erred by taking judicial notice of the online state court dockets without providing him an opportunity to be heard. However, the court concluded that petitioner himself provided all the information needed to show that his filing was late, and he was given a chance to argue that the district court erred. In this case, when petitioner admitted untimeliness and provided the dates to prove it, he eliminated any need for the district court to look elsewhere before dismissing his petition. Furthermore, petitioner had an opportunity to be heard on the propriety of taking judicial notice here and simply did not take advantage of it. View "Turner v. Secretary, Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit 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 was sufficient to support defendant's convictions for the 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

These appeals arose from a Title VII action filed by four ultrasound technologists against the Secretary, alleging that their supervisors and coworkers retaliated against them and subjected them to a hostile work environment at the Tampa VA because they engaged in protected EEOC activity. One plaintiff also alleged that she was subjected to a hostile work environment based on her sex. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary.The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court's entry of summary judgment was proper as to plaintiffs' discrete retaliation claims. Likewise, the court reached the same conclusion about the one employee's sex-based hostile work environment claim. However, after summary judgment was entered in this case, Monaghan v. Worldpay U.S. Inc., 955 F.3d 855, 862 (11th Cir. 2020), clarified that retaliatory hostile work environment claims are not governed by the "severe or pervasive" standard applied by the district court here. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order as to that claim and directed the district court to analyze the claim in light of Monaghan. View "Tonkyro v. Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the tax court's denial of taxpayer's request to sever her liability for unpaid tax liabilities from joint tax returns for the 2008, 2009, and 2010 tax years based on the innocent spouse doctrine. The court concluded that the tax court did not abuse its discretion in balancing the factors for determining equitable relief and concluding that the knowledge or reason-to-know factor weighed strongly against relief. In this case, taxpayer signed the couple's returns, was aware of their shared financial troubles, and knew of their prior problems with the IRS. Furthermore, the tax court did not abuse its discretion by placing too much weight on this factor. View "Sleeth v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Tugalo, his cousin and Tugalo President Thomas Gilmer, and Tugalo's directors in a 17-count complaint, alleging that Gilmer misappropriated corporate funds and that the company's board let it happen. The district court rejected plaintiff's substantive claims and declined to adjudicate three equitable claims.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's decisions to grant summary judgment to Tugalo on plaintiff's fraud claim for lack of evidence of justifiable reliance (and, separately, to deny plaintiff's motion to defer ruling on the fraud claim). The court also affirmed the district court's decision to deny plaintiff's request to amend his complaint after the pleading-amendment deadline. However, the court reversed the district court's decision to abstain under the Burford abstention doctrine from adjudicating plaintiff's judicial-dissolution count. In this case, there was, and is, no ongoing state administrative proceeding or, for that matter, even any preexisting action by a Georgia state court or executive official to dissolve Tugalo. The court remanded for consideration of that count along with his other two equitable counts. View "Deal v. Tugalo Gas Company, Inc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that evidence that an employee makes three to five phone calls per week to out-of-state customers and vendors provides a legally sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to find that the employee falls within the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court vacated the district court's judgment concluding otherwise and remanded for further proceedings. In this case, there is no contention that plaintiff produced goods for commerce and a rational jury could have found that plaintiff was engaged in commerce. Therefore, plaintiff was covered under the FLSA. View "St. Elien v. All County Environmental Services, Inc." on Justia Law

In a case involving an alleged multi-billion-dollar conspiracy to defraud the Venezuelan state-owned oil company known as PDVSA, the Trust filed suit alleging that it had authority to do so as an assignee of PDVSA pursuant to a trust agreement which, through a choice-of-law clause, is governed by New York law. The district court adopted in part the report and recommendation of the magistrate judge and dismissed the action without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of Article III standing. The district court determined that the Trust did not properly authenticate the trust agreement and, even if the trust agreement were authenticated and admissible, it was void as champertous under New York law.The Eleventh Circuit assumed without deciding that the Trust made out a prima facie case of authenticity for the trust agreement at the Rule 12(b)(1) proceedings and that the district court erred by ruling that the trust agreement was inadmissible. The court concluded that, based on its review of the record, the district court may have erred procedurally in definitively resolving the question of champerty at the Rule 12(b)(1) stage because that question likely implicated the merits of the Trust's claims. However, the court concluded that the Trust does not make this procedural argument on appeal and therefore has abandoned any procedural obligations to the champerty ruling. On the merits, the court applied the champerty bar to the trust agreement under New York law in light of Justinian Capital SPC v. WestLB AG, 65 N.E.3d 1253, 1255 (N.Y. 2016), and concluded that the Trust's primary purpose in acquiring PDVSA's claims was to bring this action. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. View "PDVSA US Litigation Trust v. Lukoil Pan Americas, LLC" on Justia Law

Defendants Mayweather, Fluelllen, Williams, and Tucker appealed their convictions for Hobbs Act extortion and attempted distribution of cocaine and methamphetamine. Defendants were corrections officers caught in an FBI sting operation for accepting bribes to smuggle contraband into prison.The Eleventh Circuit concluded that Williams and Fluellen were entitled to an entrapment defense jury instruction, the omission of which was reversible error. Therefore, the court reversed Williams and Fluellen's convictions and remanded for a new trial. The court also concluded that Tucker and Mayweather were not entitled to an entrapment instruction, and thus affirmed their respective attempted drug distribution convictions. Finally, the court concluded that it was reversible error not to provide the jury with any definition of "official act" for purposes of the Hobbs Act extortion counts. Accordingly, the court reversed the Hobbs Act extortion convictions as to all four defendants and remand for a new trial as to those counts. View "United States v. Mayweather" on Justia Law

After taxpayers filed suit challenging the IRS's deficiency findings and penalties, the tax court sustained the deficiency determinations but rejected the accuracy-related penalties. In this case, the Miccosukee Tribe shared profits from its casino with Tribe members and encouraged its members to hide their payments from the IRS. The taxpayers here followed the Tribe's advice, and they are now subject to hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax deficiencies.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the tax court's judgment and rejected taxpayers' assertion that any taxes are barred by the Miccosukee Settlement Act that exempted an earlier land transfer from taxation. Even if the court interpreted the Act as providing an indefinite tax exemption for the "lands" conveyed under it or the agreement, the casino revenues still do not fit the bill because the casino's land was not conveyed under either the Act or the agreement. Furthermore, an exemption for "lands" only exempts income "derived directly" from those lands, and this court has already held that casino revenues do "not derive directly from the land." The court also rejected taxpayers' assertion that the payments are merely nontaxable lease payments from the casino, citing factual and legal problems. Rather, the court concluded that the payments are taxable income. View "Clay v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue" on Justia Law

Three plaintiffs, seeking to represent a putative class of 3,000 nursing facility residents, filed a class action complaint against (MMI) and its president in Florida state court. After defendants removed to the district court, the district court removed back to state court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA).The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings, concluding that the district court erred in finding that the evidence was sufficient to establish that two-thirds of the putative class were Florida citizens. The court explained that the studies, surveys, and census data that plaintiffs provided, which do not directly involve plaintiffs in this case, are not sufficient to establish that a certain percentage of the plaintiff class are citizens of Florida. The court agreed with the district court's conclusion that plaintiffs satisfied the "significant defendant" requirement in 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(4)(A)(i)(II)(aa). Because the court found that plaintiffs failed to meet the local controversy exception's state citizenship requirement, however, the district court erred in remanding this matter to state court. Finally, to the extent that the remand order was based on the discretionary exception, the district court erred in failing to find that MMI is a primary defendant and not a Florida citizen. View "Smith v. Bokor" on Justia Law