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

Southern-Owners filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment absolving it of the duty to indemnify or defend Easdon Rhodes, or the other defendants, in an underlying negligence suit. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment, holding that the vehicle driven by Joshua Rhodes, one of Easdon Rhodes' members, did not qualify for coverage under the terms of the Endorsement, and, even if the vehicle had qualified, the existence of a separate insurance policy also covering the accident triggered the Endorsement's exclusion clause absolving Southern-Owners of its duties under the policy. View "Southern-Owners Insurance Co. v. Moore" on Justia Law

In light of the Eleventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Vail-Bailon, 868 F.3d 1293 (11th Cir. 2017), the court vacated its prior panel opinion and substituted this opinion, which has been revised only in Section II.D.The court denied defendant's motion for panel rehearing as moot. The court held that because the district court correctly counted defendant's felony battery conviction under Florida Statute 784.04 as a violent felony, defendant therefore had at least three prior violent felony convictions and the imposition of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) enhancement was required. The court affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Green" on Justia Law

After the Florida Supreme Court rejected petitioner's appeal from the denial of his guilt stage ineffective assistance claim on remand, he filed in federal district court a 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for writ of habeas corpus. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's grant of relief, holding that the district court relied on evidence that had not even been before the Florida Supreme Court in the first appeal from the denial of state collateral relief. In this case, petitioner did not raise a cumulative error claim, but the district court granted relief based on the cumulative effect or combined impact, of defense counsel's errors at the penalty phase and sentencing phase. The court held that the Florida Supreme Court did not unreasonably deny petitioner relief and the district court erred in granting habeas relief. View "Reaves v. Secretary, Florida DOC" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim involving the failure to challenge the quantity of methamphetamine attributed to petitioner. Because there was nothing in the trial record to contradict petitioner's allegations, at this stage of the proceedings, the court must accept that unusable liquids were counted in calculating the drug quantities that determined his mandatory minimum sentence and his advisory guidelines base offense level. The court also must accept that the liquids could not have produced any more than 2.4 grams of methamphetamine. The court held that counsel's failure to challenge the weight calculations amounted to deficient performance, particularly because the drug quantities were the basis of petitioner's mandatory minimum sentence and higher guidelines range. Furthermore, counsel's deficient performance prejudiced petitioner. View "Griffith v. United States" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's denial of KeyBank's motion to compel arbitration on grounds of unconscionability. The court looked to Ohio law to determine where plaintiff consented to arbitrate; plaintiff consented to the 1997 Agreement and its arbitration provision; plaintiff's argument that he did not assent to the revised version of the arbitration provision that appearred in the 2009 Agreement failed; and summary judgment was warranted in this case. The court also held that the district court erred in finding the 2009 Arbitration Provision unenforceable under applicable state law. The court remanded to the district court to compel arbitration. View "Johnson v. Keybank National Assoc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against five ADOC officials. Plaintiff alleged that the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act (ASORCNA) and the ADOC classification manual violated his procedural due process, substantive due process, and ex post facto rights. The court held that the district court did not err in dismissing the procedural due process claim because he was convicted of a crime that constituted a sex offense under Alabama law at the time of his conviction and thus was not entitled to any additional process before being classified as a sex offender by prison officials. Furthermore, plaintiff failed to raise a cognizable substantive due process claim and ex post facto claim. View "Waldman v. Alabama Prison Commissioner" on Justia Law

The money that a homosexual man paid to father children through in vitro fertilization—and in particular, to identify, retain, compensate, and care for the women who served as an egg donor and a gestational surrogate—was not spent "for the purpose of affecting" his body's reproductive "function" within the meaning of I.R.C. 213. In this case, the Eleventh Circuit held that it was constrained by I.R.C. 213's plain language where taxpayer's own function within the human reproductive process was to produce and provide healthy sperm, and because taxpayer was and remained capable of performing that function without the aid of IVF-related treatments, those treatments did not affect any function of his body and did not qualify as deductible "medical care" within the meaning of Section 213(a). The court also held that the IRS's disallowance of taxpayer's claimed deduction neither violated any fundamental right nor discriminated on the basis of any suspect (or quasi-suspect) characteristic. View "Morrissey v. United States" on Justia Law

A voicemail can, and will, be considered a communication under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692, if the voicemail reveals that the call was from a debt collection company and provides instructions and information to return the call. Meaningful disclosure is provided as long as the caller reveals the nature of the debt collection company's business, which can be satisfied by disclosing that the call is on behalf of a debt collection company, and the name of the debt collection company. In this case, the Eleventh Circuit reversed in part and affirmed in part the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims against Credit Control, alleging that Credit Control violated the FDCPA not only by failing to provide the required disclosures for initial communications with consumers, but also by failing to provide meaningful disclosure. View "Hart v. Credit Control, LLC" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief in a capital case where petitioner was convicted of three murders. The court held that the Florida Supreme Court's decision to exclude evidence related to an alternative perpetrator was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established law and the district court correctly denied relief. In this case, petitioner sought to admit into evidence testimony from a death row inmate who claimed to have received and then destroyed a letter in which the lynchpin witness who put him on death row allegedly confessed to the triple homicide petitioner was accused of. The court explained that it was not hard to understand why the trial court was skeptical of this story. The court also rejected petitioner's claim that counsel was ineffective during the penalty phase of trial. View "Pittman v. Secretary, FL DOC" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate his 210-month sentence, arguing that he was entitled to resentencing pursuant to Johnson v. United States. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the portion of the district court's judgment determining that petitioner's section 2255 motion was untimely because it raised only a claim pursuant to Descamps v. United States. The court held, however, that the district court's conclusion that petitioner's section 2255 motion also did not assert a Johnson claim was erroneous. On the merits of the Johnson claim, the court held that petitioner failed to prove that but for the residual clause he would have received a different sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the motion. View "Beeman v. United States" on Justia Law