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

Relators filed a qui tam suit against Keiser University under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729-3733, alleging that the University falsely certified compliance with a federal law banning incentive payments to university admissions counselors. After relators appealed a limited trial victory, the United States stepped in and settled the case with Keiser, securing a larger monetary recovery than relators did at trial. On appeal, relators challenged the district court's ruling as to the United States and the district court's subsequent award of reduced attorneys' fees and costs. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment, holding that the United States did not need to satisfy the good-cause intervention requirement for qui tam actions under 31 U.S.C. 3730(c)(3) because that subsection applies only when the government intervenes for the purpose of actually proceeding with the litigation—not when it is stepping in only for the purpose of settling and ending the case; the proposed settlement was fair, adequate, and reasonable; the district court did not err in declining to compel discovery in this case; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees and costs. View "United States v. Everglades College" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the dismissal of a federal habeas petition and remanded for further proceedings, holding that petitioner's motion under Rule 3.800(c), Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, tolled the limitations period for a federal habeas petition. The Eleventh Circuit explained that a Rule 3.800(c) motion is an application for collateral review that tolls the time a petitioner could petition for federal habeas relief because it is an application for judicial reexamination of a judgment or claim in a proceeding outside of the direct review process. View "Rogers v. Secretary, Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a motion to compel post-judgment discovery over ten years after a money judgment was entered against defendant in a suit filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. The Eleventh Circuit certified the following question to the Florida Supreme Court: What limitations period, if any, applies to a request for post-judgment discovery brought in federal district court in Florida on a judgment entered by that same federal district court? View "Salinas v. Ramsey" on Justia Law

The court affirmed the denial of a motion for special appearance of counsel to seek the dismissal of an indictment on the ground that defendant was a fugitive from justice, because the motion was not an immediately appealable collateral order. Defendant was indicted on one count of international parental kidnapping and subsequently moved to have his attorneys specially appear to seek dismissal of the indictment. The district court denied the motion based on the fugitive disentitlement doctrine. The court dismissed defendant's interlocutory appeal for lack of jurisdiction because denial of defendant's motion for counsel to appear specially implicates neither "a right not to be tried," nor a right like that against excessive bail. The court distinguished this case from that of the Seventh Circuit's in United States v. Bokhari. The court also denied defendant's petition for writ of mandamus because he had an adequate means to obtain relief -- appearance in the district court -- and could not establish that his right to mandamus was clear and indisputable. View "United States v. Shalhoub" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2710, alleging that the CNN App, without a user's knowledge, both tracks the user's views of news articles and videos and also collects a record of this viewing activity. CNN sends the collected record of viewing activity to Bango, a third party company. Bango is able to compile personal information, including the user's name, location, phone number, email address, and payment information, and it can attribute this information to a single user across different devices and platforms. The district court dismissed the amended complaint. The court held that a plaintiff, such as the one in this case, satisfied the concreteness requirement of Article III standing where the plaintiff alleges a violation of the VPPA for wrongful disclosure. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiff is not a "subscriber" as defined by the VPPA such that CNN may be held liable. The court noted that it need not address whether CNN provided plaintiff's "personally identifiable information" to a third party. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Perry v. Cable News Network, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her restitution order after pleading guilty to conspiracy to accept gratuities with the intent to be influenced or rewarded in connection with a bank transaction. The district court ordered her to pay $251,860.31 to her former employer, Wells Fargo, pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. 3663A, finding that her conviction qualified as an "offense against property." The court affirmed the judgment, concluding that defendant facilitated bank transactions that proximately caused Wells Fargo's losses, and she intended to derive an unlawful benefit from the property that was the subject of these transactions. Therefore, the court concluded that defendant committed an "offense against property" as that phrase was understood in its ordinary and contemporary sense. View "United States v. Collins" on Justia Law

Barbara Bobo's husband, who worked for the TVA for more than 22 years, was diagnosed with asbestos-induced lung cancer and in 1997 died from a heart attack. Mrs. Bobo was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma in 2011 and died from mesothelioma in 2013. Before her death, Mrs. Bobo filed suit claiming that the TVA's negligence resulted in her being exposed to "take-home" asbestos when she washed her husband's work clothes over the years. The district court entered judgment against the TVA. The court concluded that, assuming that the district court erred in considering the state court deposition testimony of Mr. Bobo to support its finding that he had been exposed to asbestos while employed by TVA, the error was harmless because there was plenty of other evidence proving the same fact; the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony of plaintiff's expert; under Alabama law, TVA owed a duty to Mrs. Bobo to prevent take-home asbestos exposure and TVA violated that duty; the court rejected TVA's argument that the district court applied the wrong exposure standard, concluding that which standard applies does not matter because the evidence of exposure was enough to satisfy either tests at issue; and TVA is not shielded from liability under the discretionary function exception. The court affirmed as to these issues. The court vacated the award of damages, remanding to the district court for it to recalculate the damages award in order to exclude from it any amounts that were written off by Mrs. Bobo's providers and to correct any other errors that may appear to the court when the parties have a chance to focus exclusively on the medical expenses component of the damages award. View "Bobo v. Tennessee Valley Authority" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of five sex-related crimes involving minors. When defense counsel returned a few minutes late from a lunch break on the third day of defendant's six-day trial, he missed a small part of the testimony of the 12th of 13 government witnesses. Counsel had missed 7 minutes of a trial that lasted 31.4 hours. In this case, the parties agreed that it was Sixth Amendment error for inculpatory testimony to be taken in the absence of defense counsel. The court held that the harmless error rule was applicable to this brief absence of counsel from the courtroom. The court explained that the error that occurred when the trial resumed before counsel returned from lunch was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because overwhelming evidence offered while counsel was present went to and proved the charges in Counts 2–5, which were the only counts relevant to the testimony given during counsel's absence; the same questions were repeated and not objected-to after counsel returned to the courtroom; and there was no reasonable doubt that counsel's brief absence was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Roy" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted under 18 U.S.C. 666 of embezzlement from an organization receiving federal funds. In this case, defendant, a professor in the College of Business, was embezzling from Florida State University (FSU). Defendant was also a director and officer of the Student Investment Fund (SIF), a non-profit corporation established by FSU for charitable and educational purposes, and had signatory authority over the SIF's bank account. On appeal, defendant argued, among other things, that any embezzlement was not from FSU and that the Government did not prove that the victimized organization under the statute was a recipient of federal benefits. The court concluded that its decision in United States v. McLean was dispositive. The court reasoned that the SIF received no federal funding, directly or indirectly. Therefore, there were no federal funds owned by, or under the care, custody, or control of the SIF. The court explained that defendant was a director and officer and thus an agent of the SIF, and his employment as a professor at FSU was irrelevant inasmuch as he did not embezzle any FSU funds. Therefore, because the Government failed to prove that the relevant local organization, the SIF, received any federal benefits, the court reversed the judgment and directed the district court to enter a judgment of acquittal. View "United States v. Doran" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of violating the Driver's Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. 2721(a), 2725(3), because she provided email addresses of residents in Mobile County from a License Commission database. Defendant, the former License Commissioner, provided the emails to a mayoral campaign. The court held that the term "personal information" in the Act, includes email addresses, and that the government presented sufficient evidence in this case for the jury to find that the License Commissioner was an "officer, employee, or contractor" of a "State department of motor vehicles." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Hastie" on Justia Law