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

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for possessing an unregistered silencer in violation of 26 U.S.C. 5861(d) and 5871. The court rejected defendant's contention that the National Firearms Act is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress' power to tax and thus violates the Tenth Amendment. Rather, the court held that defendant's taxing power challenge is contrary to precedent and unsupported by the facts of this case. The court also rejected defendant's two unpreserved constitutional challenges under plain error review.The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's finding that defendant was not entrapped where a reasonable jury could have found that defendant was ready and willing to buy an unregistered silencer absent any contact with the government's officers or agents. The court further held that it need not decide whether the district court erred by imposing a four-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 2K2.1(b)(6)(B). In this case, the district court stated that it did not really matter because it would have varied upward from either range to impose a 60-month sentence. Finally, defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable where the district court expressly considered defendant's age and health, and defendant's 60-month sentence was reasonable in light of the need to protect the public and to deter defendant from committing future crimes. View "United States v. Bolatete" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, on behalf of himself and individually, filed a class action alleging that the Ritz-Carlton violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and Florida's tax regulations. Plaintiff's complaint stemmed from allegations that he and others paid illegal automatic gratuities and sales taxes at Ritz-Carlton’s forty-nine restaurants in Florida over the last four years. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based on lack of standing. The district court also dismissed the tax refund claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based on plaintiff's failure to exhaust his administrative remedies.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the tax refund claim based on exhaustion grounds. However, the court held that the district court erred in finding that plaintiff did not have standing to represent the class because he only paid the illegal automatic gratuity at three of Ritz-Carlton's restaurants. The court agreed with plaintiff that the class complaint alleged in good faith that the amount-in-controversy for the hundreds of thousands of Ritz-Carlton guests in Florida that unlawfully paid an automatic gratuity over the last four years exceeded $5 million. Accordingly, the court reversed in part and remanded for further proceedings. View "Fox v. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit certified three questions of insurance law to the Georgia Supreme Court: 1) When an insurer has no notice of a lawsuit against its insured, does O.C.G.A. 33-7-15 and a virtually identical insuring provision relieve the insurer of liability from a follow-on suit for bad faith? 2) If the notice provisions do not bar liability for a bad-faith claim, can an insured sue the insurer for bad faith when, after the insurer refused to settle but before judgment was entered against the insured, the insured lost coverage for failure to comply with a notice provision? 3) Does a party have the right to contest actual damages in a follow-on suit for bad faith if that party had no prior notice of or participation in the original suit? View "Whiteside v. GEICO Indemnity Co." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed defendant's appeal of the district court's order that he claims denied him qualified immunity. The court held that the order is not appealable because the district court did not enter an appealable order denying defendant qualified immunity, but instead dismissed the complaint and granted plaintiffs leave to amend it. Therefore, a different finality rule applies: an order dismissing a complaint for leave to amend within a specified time becomes a final judgment if the time allowed for amendment expires. In this case, defendant filed his notice of appeal two days before the order granting plaintiffs leave would become final and there is no later judgment that could have cured defendant's premature notice of appeal. Therefore, defendant did not appeal from a final order of the district court and the court lacked jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291 over the appeal. View "Fuller v. Carollo" on Justia Law

When a defendant could not pay fines imposed by Gardendale, Alabama's municipal court immediately, she was placed on probation. A for-profit company, PPS, supervised probationers until they fully paid their fines, fees, and costs. PPS was compensated for its services, “not by the City, but by [the] sentenced offenders.” PPS collected $40 fees from its supervisees for every month that they remained on probation. The judge gave pre-signed, blank Sentence of Probation forms to PPS, which filled in the blanks to enhance probationers’ sentences by extending the duration of probation, increasing the fines, or adding conditions of probation. No judge ever reviewed those enhancements. Until a probationer satisfied all obligations imposed by PPS, she remained in probationary status, subject to jail-time for noncompliance.The plaintiffs committed misdemeanor offenses and were placed on probation. PPS enhanced each of their sentences: doubling one probationary term, increasing a fine by $100, and imposing additional conditions. The district court dismissed their claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The contract was subsequently terminated. PPS no longer operates in Gardendale.The Eleventh Circuit reversed. The Due Process Clause forbids adjudication by a judge who has a financial interest in the outcome of his decisions, provided that the interest—personal or otherwise—is substantial enough to give him a “possible temptation” to forsake impartiality. PPS performed a judicial function, acting in a “quasi-judicial capacity,” when it imposed binding sentence enhancements that were final and were consistently treated as binding. View "Harper v. Professional Probation Services Inc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed bankruptcy appeals filed by attorney Breuer of Moffa & Breuer, who purported to represent the Trust. The bankruptcy court disqualified attorney Moffa and Moffa & Breuer from representing the Trust. Because the Trust was a 50 percent shareholder of the debtor created to ensure that Moffa & Breuer would collect its legal fees, the bankruptcy court concluded that Moffa & Breuer’s representation of a shareholder in which it had a business interest conflicted with its simultaneous representation of the debtor. Moffa & Breuer repeatedly ignored the disqualification order. Moffa, purportedly pro se in his capacity as trustee of the Trust and as an attorney for related entities, filed a competing plan of reorganization that would have released the debtor’s claims against his firm and made him president of the reorganized debtor.There has been no indication of an intent to appeal from any qualified agent of the Trust, only from disqualified attorneys. Moffa had no authority to act pro se in the bankruptcy court, so his filings do not suggest that the Trust intended to appeal. There is no justification for excusing these defective notices of appeal. When an appeal is taken on behalf of an artificial entity by someone without legal authority to do so, the appeal should be dismissed. View "J.J. Rissell, Allentown PA, Trust v. Kapila" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution against a county sheriff's deputy. Plaintiff alleged that the deputy, or one of her law enforcement colleagues, planted the marijuana they found on his property. The district court denied the deputy's motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The deputy then sought an interlocutory appeal of the district court's qualified immunity ruling.The Eleventh Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the deputy's appeal challenging the factual sufficiency of the district court's determination that there is a genuine dispute as to whether the marijuana evidence was planted. In this case, the deputy does not present a legal question but simply asks the court to review the factual sufficiency of the district court's determination. View "Hall v. Flournoy" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court, in approving the class action settlement underlying this appeal, repeated several errors that have become commonplace in everyday class action practice. First, the district court violated the plain terms of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(h) by setting a schedule that required class members to file any objection to the settlement—including any objection pertaining to attorneys' fees—more than two weeks before class counsel had filed their fee petition. However, on the record, the district court's error was harmless. Second, the district court ignored on-point Supreme Court precedent by awarding the class representative a $6,000 incentive payment as acknowledgement of his role in prosecuting the case on behalf of the class members.Finally, in approving class counsel's fee request, overruling objections, and approving the parties' settlement, the district court made no findings or conclusions that might facilitate appellate review. Rather, the district court offered only rote, boilerplate pronouncements ("approved," "overturned," etc.). Therefore, the district court violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the court's precedents requiring courts to explain their class-related decisions. Accordingly, the court reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for the district court to adequately explain its fee award to class counsel, its denial of the interested party's objections, and its approval of the settlement. View "Johnson v. NPAS Solutions, LLC" on Justia Law

After plaintiff won a substantial arbitration award against his former employer, the employer sought vacatur in federal court. The district court agreed with the employer, Citi, that plaintiff had been an at-will employee and thus the arbitrators exceeded their powers by finding that he had been wrongfully terminated.The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's vacatur of the arbitration award, holding that plaintiff and Citi agreed to arbitrate all disputes about plaintiff's employment. The court stated that, under the Federal Arbitration Act, the merits of plaintiff's dispute were committed to the arbitrators and Citi does not get to start over in federal court because it identifies a possible legal error in arbitration. Therefore, the district court erred by substituting its own legal judgment for that of the arbitrators. View "Gherardi v. Citigroup Global Markets, Inc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254 to petitioner, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping, forcible rape, and malice murder of two little girls. At issue was whether the lawyers who represented petitioner at the 1999 retrial deprived him of his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel in failing to attain and present mitigation evidence.The court held that, on this record, it would be hard put to say that the district court erred in rejecting petitioner's Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder claim. Furthermore, petitioner failed to demonstrate that defense counsel's conduct in connection with the retrial of the penalty phase fell below Strickland v. Washington's performance standard. As for its prejudice standard, the court held that a retrial of the penalty phase would result in the same verdict, a death sentence. View "Presnell v. Warden" on Justia Law