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

Four liver-transplant candidates and more than a dozen transplant hospitals challenged HHS's adoption of a new policy for allocating donated livers. The Eleventh Circuit held that plaintiffs have not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their first claim—their allegation that the Secretary failed to follow legally required procedures under 42 C.F.R. 121.4(b) during the new liver-allocation policy's development. The court held that section 121.4(b) does not require the Secretary to take two procedural steps that all agree he did not: (1) referral of the new liver allocation policy to an entity called the Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation and (2) publication of the new policy in the Federal Register for public comment. The court remanded for the district court to consider plaintiffs' remaining Administrative Procedure Act and Fifth Amendment claims that it failed to address in the first instance. View "Callahan v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services" on Justia Law

Defendant, a probation officer, appealed the district court's conclusion that she was not entitled to quasi-judicial immunity, qualified immunity, and Georgia official immunity from plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state law claims. The Eleventh Circuit held that the conduct at issue here—a Georgia probation officer applying for an arrest warrant—is not the kind of conduct entitled to absolute, quasi-judicial immunity. The court also held that defendant was not entitled to Georgia statutory immunity because defendant was an employee of the county.However, the court held that defendant's actions did not violate plaintiff's clearly established rights and a reasonable officer in defendant's position could have believed that her actions were lawful. In this case, the complaint did not allege that defendant intentionally disregarded pertinent exculpatory information about plaintiff. Because defendant never received a phone call indicating that plaintiff had paid his fine, she already possessed evidence that he had not paid. Therefore, defendant was entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Washington v. Rivera" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions and sentence for numerous offenses related to his operation of a Hindu temple. In this case, the evidence at trial showed that defendant used the Hindu Temple as part of a criminal scheme to defraud his followers and commit bank fraud.The Eleventh Circuit reversed defendant's convictions for bankruptcy fraud, conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud, money laundering (which were based on the underlying specified unlawful activity of bankruptcy fraud), and conspiracy to harbor a fugitive. The court also held that the government established by a preponderance of the evidence that the loss resulting from defendant's bank fraud scheme was just over $100,000, but did not prove that it exceeded $400,000. The court affirmed in all other respects and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Annamalai" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its considerable discretion in holding Velex and its officers in contempt or in awarding PlayNation's attorneys' fees and costs. In this case, the court had previously upheld the entry of a permanent injunction preventing Velex from infringing on PlayNation's mark. PlayNation later discovered that Velex continued to sell and distribute goods using the infringing mark. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "PlayNation Play Systems, Inc. v. Velex Corp." on Justia Law

This appeal involved two requests for documents by Broward Bulldog under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking documents reviewed by the 9/11 Review Commission. The government disclosed hundreds of documents, bur redacted some information.The Eleventh Circuit held that the FBI established that it performed an adequate search; the district court had an adequate factual basis to render a decision; Broward Bulldog has abandoned its challenge of the denial of its request to depose an agent; the district court did not err in most of its rulings on the applicable exemptions, with the exception of its rulings regarding redactions under Exemptions 7(C), 7(D), and 7(E); the district court did not err when it failed to make express findings of segregability; and the district court did not err when it refused to entertain a request for documents that were already the subject of a separate, nearly identical lawsuit. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Broward Bulldog, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court order was final and its retention of jurisdiction to review the arbitrator's decision did not destroy the finality of the district court's ruling pertaining to the enforcement of the arbitral summonses. The court also held that the district court's determination that it had ancillary jurisdiction was appropriate. However, the magistrate judge improperly found jurisdiction on two additional grounds: (1) the district court appointed the arbitrator; and (2) the parties agreed to jurisdiction of the district court in their arbitration agreement.The court interpreted the plain meaning of Section 7 as (1) requiring summonsed non-parties to appear in the physical presence of the arbitrator as opposed to a video conference or teleconference; and (2) prohibiting pre-hearing discovery. In this case, the district court abused its discretion in enforcing the arbitral summonses because the court lacked power under Section 7 to order the witnesses to appear at the video conference and provide pre-hearing discovery. The court also held that the district court's order denying CIGNA's motion to enforce the Settlement Agreement and compel an accounting constitutes a post-judgment order that is final and appealable. The district court abused its discretion here by allowing the arbitrator to review the claims that have already been paid. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Managed Care Advisory Group, LLC v. Cigna Healthcare, Inc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit joined its sister circuits and held that the prison mailbox rule applies to a civilly committed person. The court remanded, sua sponte, to the district court to determine when plaintiff delivered his pro se notice of appeal to authorities at the Florida Civil Containment Center (FCCC) for mailing. In this case, plaintiff's notice of appeal was filed in the district court on April 25, 2019—beyond the 30-day deadline to appeal the district court's March 20, 2019 judgment. However, if the prison mailbox rule applies to plaintiff, his appeal may still be timely. View "Boatman v. Berreto" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Habitat for Humanity under the Fair Housing Amendments Act, which prohibits an entity from discriminating against a disabled individual by failing to make reasonable accommodations in policies and practices that are necessary to afford the individual an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. Plaintiff also alleged that Habitat's minimum-income requirement has a disparate impact on disabled individuals receiving social-security-disability income.The Eleventh Circuit held that a court must first consider whether a plaintiff has shown that a requested accommodation is facially reasonable and then whether a defendant has demonstrated that the accommodation would result in an undue burden or fundamental alteration to its program or policy; a plaintiff's financial state in any particular case could be unrelated, correlated, or causally related to his disability and that, in some cases, an accommodation with a financial aspect—even one that appears to provide a preference—could be necessary to afford an equal opportunity to use or enjoy a dwelling within the meaning of the Act; and plaintiff failed to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Habitat's minimum-income requirement disproportionately excludes SSDI recipients. Accordingly, the court affirmed the disparate-impact claim, but vacated the failure-to-accommodate claim and remanded for further proceedings. View "Schaw v. Habitat for Humanity of Citrus County, Inc." on Justia Law

The Department of Justice filed suit against the State of Florida, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and 28 C.F.R. 35.130(d). The Department alleged that Florida was failing to meet its obligations under Title II by unnecessarily institutionalizing hundreds of children with disabilities in nursing facilities. The Department also alleged that Florida's Medicaid policies and practices placed other children who have "medically complex" conditions, or who are "medically fragile," at risk of unnecessary institutionalization.The Eleventh Circuit held that the Attorney General has a cause of action to enforce Title II of the ADA. The court held that when Congress chose to designate the "remedies, procedures, and rights" in section 505 of the Rehabilitation Act, which in turn adopted Title VI, as the enforcement provision for Title II of the ADA, Congress created a system of federal enforcement. The court also held that the express statutory language in Title II adopts federal statutes that use a remedial structure based on investigation of complaints, compliance reviews, negotiation to achieve voluntary compliance, and ultimately enforcement through "any other means authorized by law" in the event of noncompliance. Therefore, courts have routinely concluded that Congress's decision to utilize the same enforcement mechanism for Title II as the Rehabilitation Act, and therefore Title VI, demonstrates that the Attorney General has the authority to act "by any other means authorized by law" to enforce Title II, including initiating a civil action. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment and remanded. View "United States v. State of Florida" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's 1440 month sentence after he was convicted of five counts relating to the production and possession of child pornography. The court held that the district court did not procedurally err when it calculated defendant's guidelines sentence as close to indefinite incarceration as the law allowed. The court also held that defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable, because the district court thoroughly discussed defendant's particularly heinous conduct and direct participation in the creation of child pornography, his breach of public trust as a police officer, and his total failure to take responsibility for his actions. View "United States v. Kirby" on Justia Law