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

Plaintiffs filed a class action in state court claiming that the City of Montgomery's red-light program and fines violated state law. City and Traffic Solutions removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), but the district court remanded to state court. After determining that it had jurisdiction over the appeal, the Eleventh Circuit held that the home state exception to CAFA jurisdiction was applicable in this case where the only primary defendant was a citizen of the state in which the action was originally filed and other requirements under the statute were met. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Hunter v. City of Montgomery, Alabama" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence of 120 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to receiving and possessing child pornography. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to justify giving defendant a longer sentence because of the "pattern of activity" defined under USSG 2G2.2(b)(5); defendant's argument regarding the temporal proximity of his sexual acts with his younger relatives when he was a teenager 30 years ago was foreclosed by United States v. Turner; minor-on-minor conduct could be used to support a "pattern of activity" enhancement; and defendant's below-guidelines sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Alberts" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against his former employers, alleging that the cars that he parks in his job as a valet parker are the interstate "materials" that bring his employer within the definition of an enterprise engaged in commerce such as to provide Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) coverage. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants and subsequently denied plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. The Eleventh Circuit held that because the cars plaintiff parks are "goods," not "materials," the ultimate consumer exception operates to exclude from the category of covered "goods" the handling of the cars at issue here. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Rodriguez v. Gold Star, Inc." on Justia Law

At issue was whether an order form faxed to a doctor by a company that supplies a medical product purchased by that doctor's patient constitutes an "unsolicited advertisement" within the meaning of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227(a)(5). The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint, agreeing with the district court that faxes were not "unsolicited advertisements." The court held that the faxes in this case did not promote the sale of Arriva products and thus they were not unsolicited advertisements. In this case, each fax related to a specific order already placed by a patient of the clinic and requested only that the doctor of the patient fill out an order form to facilitate a purchase made by the patient. View "The Florence Endocrine Clinic v. Arriva Medical" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed an application under 28 U.S.C. 2255(h) and 2244(b)(3)(A) seeking an order authorizing the district court to consider a second or successive motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his federal sentence. The Eleventh Circuit denied the application, holding that petitioner raised the same arguments under Johnson v. United States in his application that the court previously denied on the merits. View "In Re: Orestes Hernandez" on Justia Law

Relators filed a qui tam action under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729-3733, alleging that defendants submitted claims to Medicare without adequate authorization from the relevant Medicare beneficiaries and claims that were the product of unsolicited telemarketing calls to Medicare beneficiaries. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants with one modification. The court explained that, although the district court applied an erroneous scienter standard, the evidence proffered by relators as to defendants' state of mind with respect to the assignment of benefits forms was insufficient to survive summary judgment under the proper standard. The district court did not err in granting summary judgment as to relators' claims that defendants violated Medicare's unsolicited telephone contact rules. View "Phalp v. Lincare, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Georgia district attorney and others under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that defendants conspired to violate his First Amendment rights. Plaintiff, employed as the director of the police department's crime lab, was terminated from his position after the district attorney contacted the police chief to express his concerns that plaintiff had written an expert report for and planned to testify on behalf of the defense in a criminal case. The Eleventh Circuit held that prosecutors were not entitled to absolute immunity for their alleged actions in this case because those actions were not taken in their role as advocates. However, the prosecutors were entitled to qualified immunity because they were acting within the outer perimeter of their discretionary skills in expressing concerns about plaintiff's outside work, and the law was not clearly established at the time. Accordingly, the court reversed the denial of the prosecutors' motion for judgment on the pleadings based on qualified immunity and remanded. View "Mikko v. Howard" on Justia Law

When a defendant has attempted to persuade a minor to engage in sexual activity that could potentially violate multiple criminal statutes, the jury is not required to unanimously agree as to which statute the defendant's completed conduct would have violated so long as the jury unanimously agrees that the sexual activity being encouraged would violate one of these statutes. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction in this case, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion by rejecting defendant's proposed jury instruction that the jury must unanimously agree as to which sex acts defendant would have attempted to persuade the minor girl to perform, had he not been interrupted by arresting officers and had there been a real girl. In this case, the jurors were necessarily unanimous that defendant could have been charged with second-degree sexual abuse. View "United States v. Jockisch" on Justia Law

The low-end exception to a presumption of prejudice no longer applies in the post-Booker, advisory guidelines era where a sentence outside the guidelines range is not the extraordinary event that it once was. In this case, the district court's failure to address defendant personally about whether he wished to make a statement to the court was error; defendant was entitled to a presumption of prejudice; the district court could have varied downward from the sentence it imposed if convinced by defendant during allocation to do so; and thus the court vacated and remanded for resentencing so that defendant may have an opportunity to allocute. View "United States v. Doyle" on Justia Law

Georgia law by its terms does not provide for negligence actions directly against dogs. In this case, plaintiff filed suit against a police canine, Draco, and others after Draco inflicted serious damage to plaintiff when Draco refused to release his bite. The Eleventh Circuit held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because no binding precedent clearly established that their actions in allowing Draco to apprehend plaintiff violated defendant's Fourth Amendment rights; the County and Chief Ayers in his official capacity have sovereign immunity; and Defendants Fransen, Towler, Ross, and Ayers were entitled to official immunity for the claims against them in their individual capacities View "Jones v. Officer S. Fransen" on Justia Law