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

In these consolidated appeals, plaintiffs, two immigrants who admit that they are subject to valid removal orders, filed suit alleging that the government cannot remove them because that would interfere with their "regulatory rights" to remain in the United States while they apply for waivers.The Eleventh Circuit concluded that plaintiffs' applications do not give the court subject matter jurisdiction to interfere with the execution of their removal orders. The court explained that plaintiffs' claims fall squarely within 8 U.S.C. 1252(g)'s jurisdictional bar where the action being challenged is the government's execution of plaintiffs' removal orders. In this case, section 1252(g) strips the court of jurisdiction to hear the claims brought by plaintiffs, and the statute does not offer any discretion-versus-authority distinction of the sort they claim. Because Congress stripped federal courts of jurisdiction over such claims, the court affirmed the district court's dismissals. View "Camarena v. Director, Immigration and Customs Enforcement" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed suit alleging that, after she filed for bankruptcy, Wells Fargo violated the automatic bankruptcy stay by continuing with foreclosure proceedings against her in the Florida state courts. Furthermore, Wells Fargo and the state courts acted contrary to federal law governing removal by continuing with the same state court proceedings after petitioner sought to remove the state case to the bankruptcy court. Petitioner filed a petition for a writ under the All Writs Act in the district court, seeking an order declaring that certain actions of the state courts were void and granting her damages against Wells Fargo and its counsel.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint, finding that this case is not the kind of case in which an order under the Act could properly be issued because there is no underlying proceeding over which the district court has jurisdiction and the integrity of which the district court would be in an appropriate position to protect by making such an order. In this case, dismissal was proper because the Act does not empower the district court to issue the order sought by the petition. View "Rohe v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit vacated its previous opinion and replaced it with the following opinion.Relators filed a qui tam action against MIC under the False Claims Act (FCA), seeking to recover the money the VA had paid when borrowers defaulted on MIC-originated loans. Relators then amended the complaint, adding a state law fraudulent transfer claim against MIC executive William L. Edwards, as well as a corporate veil-piercing theory of liability, which made Edwards a defendant to the FCA claim. The district court granted Edwards's motion to dismiss the fraudulent transfer claim based on lack of standing and granted MIC's motion for summary judgment on the FCA claim.The court concluded that summary judgment was improper on relators' FCA claim because genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether MIC's alleged false certifications were material. The court agreed with the district court that relators' claim is not barred by previous public disclosure. The court held that the district court has personal jurisdiction over Edwards. Finally, the court held that relators lack standing on the fraudulent transfer claim because their pre-judgment interest in preventing a fraudulent transfer is a mere byproduct of their FCA claim and cannot give rise to an Article III injury in fact. View "Bibby v. Mortgage Investors Corp." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for use of a fraudulent immigration document. The court held that defendant's conduct, as charged in the indictment, constitutes a criminal offense under 18 U.S.C. 1546(a); the jury was not misled or confused by the "or employment" language in the district court's instruction; the jury convicted defendant of possessing and using an order of supervision "as evidence of authorized stay" as charged in the indictment; even if defendant's claim was not barred as invited error, he is unable to show prejudice; and neither the government's closing statements nor its statements regarding a police officer amount to prosecutorial misconduct where the government did not improperly bolster the officer's testimony. View "United States v. Contreras Maradiaga" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 motion for habeas relief. Petitioner argued that his attorneys violated his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel by failing to adequately investigate and present mitigating evidence in the sentencing phase of his capital murder trial. The court concluded that the Georgia Supreme Court's determination that petitioner failed to show that the allegedly deficient performance prejudiced him, as required under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), was not an unreasonable application of federal law. In this case, it was not unreasonable for the Georgia Supreme Court to conclude that there is no reasonable probability of a different result if petitioner's trial attorneys had collected and presented the mitigating evidence proffered to the state habeas court. View "Lee v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

Two groups of patients who deposited tissue in a stem-cell bank appealed the district court's denial of their respective motions to intervene under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24 in an action between the corporation running the bank and the FDA. The district court concluded that the motions were premature and denied them without prejudice. The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court's order was not a final decision within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 1291, and thus the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the patients' appeal. View "Aitken v. US Stem Cell Clinic, LLC" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's decision affirming the ALJ's denial of social security disability benefits, holding that substantial evidence supports the ALJ's decision that plaintiff is not disabled. In this case, the ALJ assigned little weight to the opinions of a physician and a vocational rehabilitation specialist where the ALJ correctly understood that their statements were not dispositive. Furthermore, a vocational rehabilitation specialist is not a treating physician, and thus his opinion is not entitled to substantial or considerable weight, and the physician's opinion that plaintiff would be "permanently and totally disabled" conflicted with his own examinations of plaintiff, which showed no significant abnormalities. Finally, the court rejected plaintiff's argument under Bjornson v. Astrue, 671 F.3d 640, 647–48 (7th Cir. 2012). View "Walker v. Social Security Administration" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged in a two-count superseding indictment with violating 18 U.S.C 1546(a) by allegedly using a fraudulent order of supervision to obtain a driver's license from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (Florida DHSMV). Defendant moved to dismiss the superseding indictment for failing to state an offense under section 1546(a), arguing that the term "authorized stay" means "lawful presence" in the United States and that no federal statute or regulation expressly identifies an order of supervision as "evidence of authorized stay in the United States." The district court dismissed the superseding indictment after concluding that an order of supervision does not qualify as a document "prescribed by statute or regulation . . . as evidence of authorized stay . . . in the United States" as required by section 1546(a).Based on a review of the statutes and regulations, the Eleventh Circuit held that an order of supervision falls within the plain and ordinary meaning of section 1546(a)'s "other document" clause. The court explained that the Form I-220B, Order of Supervision, itself is a document prescribed by the federal immigration statutes and regulations as showing that an alien has legal permission to stay in the United States. Furthermore, separate and apart from the immigration statutes and regulations, an order of supervision is a document prescribed by certain federal entitlement regulations as evidence of legal permission to stay in the United States. The court also held that defendant's proposed statutory interpretations are not supported by section 1546's language and structure. The court explained that "authorize stay" as used in section 1546(a) is not defined by terms of art for immigration laws governing alien admissibility. Furthermore, section 1546(a)'s "other document" provision does not require an order of supervision to be expressly listed or otherwise identified as evidencing authorized stay in the United States. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's order dismissing the superseding indictment and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Ardon Chinchilla" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, two prolife sidewalk counselors, filed a civil rights action against the City and Police Chief, alleging that defendants violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion through their application of the City's permit ordinance and the inclusion of a noise provision in their special-event permit.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a claim because the complaint failed to allege critical facts necessary to establish a violation of plaintiffs' constitutional rights. The court concluded that plaintiffs failed to plead necessary facts to support an inference that the noise provision violates their right to freedom of speech; the noise provision is not unconstitutionally vague; and the district court did not err by refusing to apply strict scrutiny to plaintiffs' free exercise claim. View "Henderson v. McMurray" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for two counts of producing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. The court held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress evidence found on defendant's cell phone. The court also held that defendant's sentence was not procedurally unreasonable where the district court did not err in applying three sentencing enhancements under USSG 2G2.1(b)(5), 2G2.2(b)(5), and 4B1.5(b)(1). Furthermore, defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable where the district court considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) sentencing factors. View "United States v. Isaac" on Justia Law