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

Yellow Pages Group (YPG) appealed from a $123,000 judgment against it in favor of Yellow Pages Photos (YPPI) following a jury verdict in a copyright infringement trial. YPPI cross appealed, raising several claims of error. The court concluded that YPG meets the requirement that it possess standing to litigate this controversy, as it has a concrete and actual interest in avoiding a judgment being entered against it on YPPI’s copyright infringement claim, an interest that will be directly affected by the outcome of this appeal; YPG can nonetheless assert its defense even though it was not in privity of contract with YPPI; the evidence supports the jury’s conclusion that Ziplocal breached its contract with YPPI by transferring YPPI’s photos to YPG; the court found no merit in any of YPG’s contentions that it was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law because the End User License Agreement (EULA) was an invalid contract; and there were sufficient facts at trial to support a finding of willful infringement based on YPG’s reckless disregard for the possibility that it might be infringing on YPPI’s copyrights. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court’s denial of YPG’s renewed motion for a judgment as a matter of law. In regards to the cross-appeal, the court concluded that YPPI’s arguments lack merit and thus do not warrant a new trial on damages. View "Yellow Pages Photos, Inc. v. Yellow Pages Group, LLC" on Justia Law

The court sua sponte vacated and reconsidered its original opinion on this matter and substituted in its place the following opinion. The State appealed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment and an injunction in favor of a plaintiffs, a group of physicians and physician advocacy groups, enjoining enforcement of Florida’s Firearm Owners Privacy Act, Fla. Stat. 381.026, 456.072, 790.338, on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. The Act seeks to protect patient privacy by restricting irrelevant inquiry and record-keeping by physicians on the sensitive issue of firearm ownership. The court concluded that the Act codifies the commonsense conclusion that good medical care does not require inquiry or record-keeping regarding firearms when unnecessary to a patient’s care - especially not when that inquiry or record-keeping constitutes such a substantial intrusion upon patient privacy. Given this understanding of the Act, and in light of the longstanding authority of States to define the boundaries of good medical practice, the court held that the Act is, on its face, a permissible restriction of physician speech. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs, and vacated the injunction against enforcement of the Act. View "Wollschlaeger v. Governor of the State of Florida" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Georgia death row inmate, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that her federal due process rights were violated when the warden of the prison where she was housed ordered the prison staff not to speak with her legal team as they were gathering evidence in support of her application for clemency. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of her complaint. The court concluded that plaintiff's argument is foreclosed by Wellons v. Comm'r, Ga. Dep't of Corr. Even if Wellons were distinguishable, the court rejected plaintiff's reading of the Supreme Court's decision in Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, where nothing in Justice O’Connor’s concurring opinion suggests that a clemency board’s compliance with state laws or procedures is part of the “minimal procedural safeguards” protected by the Due Process Clause. View "Gissendaner v. Commissioner, GA DOC" on Justia Law

Green Tree appealed the district court's judgment concerning an adversary proceeding that debtors filed against Green Tree in the bankruptcy court. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court’s ruling that Green Tree violated the discharge injunction under 11 U.S.C. 524(a)(2) by filing a proof of claim in debtors’ instant bankruptcy proceeding to collect a debt that was discharged in their previous bankruptcy proceeding. The order also affirmed the bankruptcy court’s award of both compensatory and non-compensatory sanctions to debtors. Determining that it has jurisdiction over the appeal, the court held that section 524(a)(2) prohibits filing a proof of claim for a discharged debt where the objective effect of the claim is to pressure the debtor to repay the debt. In this case, the bankruptcy court correctly concluded that Green Tree violated the discharge injunction. The court vacated both monetary awards and remanded to the district court with instructions to vacate and remand to the district court. The court concluded that the non-compensatory sanctions were punitive and must be vacated because there is no indication on the record that the bankruptcy court employed the procedural protections owed to an alleged criminal contemnor. The court vacated the compensatory sanctions and directed the district court to instruct the bankruptcy court, upon remand, to reconsider debtors' request for compensatory relief in light of Lodge v. Kondaur Capital Corp. View "Green Point Credit v. McLean" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted of terrorism-related charges for his involvement in the transfer of money to members of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, a foreign terrorist organization. The jury convicted defendant of conspiring to provide (Count 1), and providing or attempting to provide (Count 3), material support to terrorists; and conspiring to provide (Count 2), and providing or attempting to provide (Count 4), material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Defendant appealed his convictions.The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in permitting the government translator to add bracketed words when translating defendant’s conversations; the district court did not abuse its discretion in several rulings it made during the direct and cross-examination of the Government's lead witness; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant a continuance or a mistrial after the Internet connection supporting live video teleconferencing from Pakistan failed midtrial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions. View "United States v. Khan" on Justia Law

This appeal stems from a dispute between Cox and PBGC over the now-defunct newspaper publisher, NJC. Florida's election-to purchase statute affords a corporation faced with a derivative suit the option to purchase the shares of the complaining shareholder in order to cause dismissal of the suit. The distributions-to-shareholders statute generally forbids a corporation from reacquiring shares by distribution if such distribution would render the corporation insolvent. A prior panel of this court instructed the district court to determine whether distribution of NJC corporate assets to Cox, a shareholder, would render NJC insolvent and, if so, to direct NJC to pay PBGC, a creditor, before distributing any assets to Cox. On remand, the district court heeded this court’s instruction. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and valued PBGC’s claim at $13,887,822.00. The district court also found that “payment to Cox would violate the insolvency test” as assessed at the time of payment and, concluding that this court’s mandate so required, ordered that PBGC’s claim be paid in full first, before any distribution to Cox. The court affirmed the district court’s order and judgment. View "Cox Enter. v. News-Journal Corp." on Justia Law

Defendant signed a plea agreement and pled guilty to narcotics and money laundering conspiracies. Defendant subsequently appealed, alleging the ineffective assistance of counsel, that the district court violated Rule 11, and that the government breached the plea agreement. In this case, the plea agreement contained a "limited" appeal waiver which prohibited defendant from appealing or collaterally attacking his conviction and sentence "on any ground," unless the government appealed or the sentence was based on an upward departure, or variance. The court joined its sister circuits and held that defendant's claims are not barred by the appeal waiver. However, on the merits, the court concluded that defendant is not entitled to relief. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions and sentence. View "United States v. Puentes-Hurtado" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a death row inmate, appealed the denial of his petitions for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court could not say that the Florida Supreme Court was unreasonable when it determined that its confidence in the sentence imposed was not undermined by any alleged deficient performance by petitioner's counsel based upon the events and facts of this case, the fact that the aggravating circumstances would have still greatly outweighed any mitigating circumstances, and a unanimous jury recommendation. The court further concluded that to the extent a state witness's testimony constituted nonstatutory aggravation, there is no reasonable probability that its omission would have changed the outcome of the penalty phase given the unanimous jury verdict for death, five valid and weighty aggravating circumstances, and minimal mitigating evidence supporting the sentence. Accordingly, the court could not say that the Florida Supreme Court unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington’s prejudice prong when it determined that counsel’s failure to cross-examine the witness did not prejudice petitioner. The court also rejected petitioner's claims under Giglio v. United States; petitioner's claim of childhood abuse as a mitigating factor; and petitioner's claim that he was mentally a minor at the time he committed the murder. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Barwick v. Secretary, FL DOC" on Justia Law

The court previously affirmed the district court’s affirmance of the bankruptcy court’s order granting debtor’s motion to strip Bank of America’s junior mortgage lien. The Supreme Court vacated the opinion and remanded the case for consideration in light of Bank of America, N.A. v. Caulkett. In Caulkett, the Supreme Court held “a debtor in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding may not void a junior mortgage lien under 11 U.S.C. 506(d) when the debt owed on a senior mortgage lien exceeds the current value of the collateral.” Consequently, in light of Caulkett, the court's own holding in In re McNeal and Folendore v. United States Small Business Administration are overruled. Accordingly, the district court erred in affirming the bankruptcy court’s grant of debtor’s motion to strip off Bank of America’s junior lien. The court denied Bank of America’s motion for summary reversal, vacated the district court’s judgment affirming the bankruptcy court, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Bank of America v. Waits" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a death row inmate, filed a motion for a certificate of appealability (COA), arguing that jurists of reason could debate whether the district court properly denied the motions he filed under Rules 60(b) and 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Petitioner contended that, based on intervening decisions by the Supreme Court and this court, petitioner should be able to revive the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim that he procedurally defaulted in his state post-conviction proceedings. The court rejected petitioner's arguments that no COA is required and concluded that petitioner has not made the required showing for an issuance of a COA on any of petitioner's issues. The court concluded that Martinez v. Ryan did not permit him to raise his procedurally defaulted ineffective-assistance claims where Arthur v. Thomas foreclosed such an argument. Because any relief for petitioner is ultimately predicated on his ability to raise his admittedly defaulted ineffective-assistance claims, and Arthur squarely forecloses that possibility, his allegations cannot entitle him to relief. So the correctness of the denial of an evidentiary hearing is not debatable among reasonable jurists. Finally, the denial of that Rule 59(e) motion is not debatable among reasonable jurists. Accordingly, the court denied the application for a COA. View "Hamilton v. Secretary, FL DOC" on Justia Law