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

After discovering a number of defects in their home, plaintiffs Hugh and Katherine Carithers filed suit against their homebuilder, Cronk Duch, in state court. Cronk Duch’s insurance company, Mid-Continent Casualty Company, refused to defend the action on behalf of Cronk Duch. The Carithers and Cronk Duch then entered into a consent judgment in the underlying action for approximately $90,000, in favor of the Carithers. The consent judgment also assigned to the Carithers Cronk Duch’s right to collect the judgment amount from Mid-Continent. The Carithers then filed this action against Mid-Continent in state court to collect from Mid-Continent on the settlement. Mid-Continent removed the case to the Middle District of Florida. The Carithers are the Plaintiffs in this action due to Cronk Duch’s assignment of its rights to them. The Fifth Circuit, after careful consideration, affirmed in part, and reversed in part, addressing a number of coverage issues related to damage from the completed house caused by the defective work of subcontractors. View "Carithers v. Mid-Continent Casualty Company" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Emmanuel Asante pled guilty to two firearms offenses and the district court sentenced him at the bottom of the advisory sentencing guideline range to forty-six months in prison. Asante claimed on appeal of that sentence that the district court erred in calculating his sentencing range because the court enhanced his offense level for both trafficking and exporting firearms without sufficient evidence to support either enhancement. He further argued that, even if there was evidence to support each of those enhancements, to apply both in Asante's case impermissibly double-counted the same conduct. After review, the Eleventh Circuit rejected each of defendant's arguments and concluded that Asante's sentence at the bottom of the properly calculated sentencing range was not substantively unreasonable. Lastly, the Court rejected Asante's complaint that the district court should have redacted information in the presentence report regarding threats he made against the prosecutor and a magistrate judge who denied Asante's request for pretrial release on bond. View "United States v. Asante" on Justia Law

Pursuant to written plea agreements, defendants Yolanda Sosa and Adrian Velazquez pled guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. For a five month period in 2011, Defendants met with a "cooperating doctor" and paid the doctor for prescriptions that Defendants could use to fraudulently bill Medicare. Specifically, Defendants provided the cooperating doctor with Medicare beneficiary information and paid the doctor thousands of dollars to write prescriptions for expensive medications that were not actually given to any patients. The doctor never saw or evaluated the patients, and instead wrote the prescriptions for whatever medications Defendants requested. Defendants gave the fraudulent prescriptions to various pharmacies, which submitted false claims to Medicare based on the prescriptions. As a result, Medicare paid the pharmacies approximately $753,430 based on the false claims. The pharmacies paid Defendants over $60,000 for obtaining the fraudulent prescriptions. Defendants appealed two forfeiture orders entered by the district court after it imposed joint-and-several restitution against them, specifically challenging the restitution amount and the forfeiture of two cars. After careful review of the record and the parties' briefs, and with the benefit of oral argument, the Eleventh Circuit found no reversible error and affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Velazquez" on Justia Law

On June 26, 2013, an eighteen-wheeler tractor-trailer transporting a shipment of L'Oreal brand beauty products, including hair-color and makeup, was stolen from a truck stop in Antioch, Tennessee. The shipment was en route to a customer warehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee and had originated from a L'Oreal distribution facility in Streetsboro, Ohio. The driver reported he went inside the truck stop to take a shower and came back out to discover his tractor-trailer was gone. Defendant Aleksander Dimitrovski was convicted of the theft, and he appealed the sentence he received after entering a guilty plea to one count of receiving, possessing, and selling stolen goods. On appeal, Dimitrovski argued the district court erred in applying a two-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(14)(B), which applied "[i]f the offense involved an organized scheme to steal or to receive . . . goods or chattels that are part of a cargo shipment," because his offense involved only a single transaction of stolen cargo. Finding no reversible error, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Dimitrovski" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed a district court's order granting defendants judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claim. Plaintiff asserted the claim after being terminated from his position as Assistant Fire Chief of the City of Pembroke Pines. Plaintiff was terminated after the City eliminated the Assistant Fire Chief position for what the City said were budgetary reasons. Plaintiff contended he was terminated in retaliation for his speaking out about the City's handling of budget and pension issues. After a trial, the district court held that Plaintiff had failed to show that his speech was protected by the First Amendment or that his interest in the speech outweighed the City's interest in avoiding dissension within the fire department. Accordingly, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law. After a careful review of the record, and with the benefit of oral argument, the Eleventh Circuit found no reversible error and affirmed. View "Moss v. City of Pembroke Pines" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs in this case, Carlos Zelaya and George Glantz, were victims of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history: the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by R. Allen Stanford. Plaintiffs were taken by surprise, yet, according to Plaintiffs, the federal agency entrusted with the duty of trying to prevent, or at least reveal, Ponzi schemes was not all that surprised. To the contrary, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), had been alerted over a decade before that Stanford was likely running a Ponzi operation. According to Plaintiffs, notwithstanding its knowledge of Stanford’s likely nefarious dealings, the SEC dithered for twelve years, "content not to call out Stanford and protect future investors from his fraud." And though the SEC eventually took action in 2009, many people lost most of their investments. Pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act, Plaintiffs sued the United States in federal court, alleging that the SEC had acted negligently. The federal government moved to dismiss, arguing that it enjoyed sovereign immunity from the lawsuit. The district court agreed, and dismissed Plaintiffs’ case. Plaintiffs appealed that dismissal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In reviewing the district court’s dismissal, the Court reached no conclusions as to the SEC’s conduct, or whether the latter’s actions deserved Plaintiffs’ condemnation. The Court did, however, conclude that the United States was shielded from liability for the SEC’s alleged negligence in this case. The Court therefore affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Plaintiffs’ complaint. View "Zelaya v. United States" on Justia Law

Following a prolonged period of civil unrest in the Republic of Colombia, plaintiffs-appellants filed suit in the United States on behalf of over one hundred Colombian citizens killed by violent paramilitaries in the ensuing armed conflict. Plaintiffs, the legal heirs of the decedents, filed suit against numerous defendants-appellees, including a supranational coal mining company based in Alabama, its subsidiary, and several of its high-ranking corporate officers. Averring that defendants engaged the paramilitaries, known as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), to eliminate suspected guerilla groups from around the company's mining operations in Colombia, plaintiffs contended their innocent decedents were incidental casualties of defendants' arrangement with the AUC. Claiming that Defendants aided and abetted, conspired with, and entered into an agency relationship with the AUC, plaintiffs brought suit under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA); and Colombia's wrongful death laws. The district court found that the Supreme Court's decision in "Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.," (133 S. Ct. 1659 (2013)), required dismissal of plaintiffs' ATS claims, and the court entered summary judgment in defendants' favor on those claims. In a series of opinions, the district court also dismissed plaintiffs' TVPA claims on summary judgment. Further, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs' wrongful death claims under Colombian law and denied plaintiffs' motion to vacate the district court's grants of summary judgment, which plaintiffs sought in order to proceed with their Colombian wrongful death claims. Plaintiffs appealed each of the district court's opinions and the holdings therein. After careful consideration of the parties' briefs and those filed by the amici, the record on appeal, and the relevant legal authorities, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's rulings. View "Jane Doe, et al. v. Drummond Company, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Appellant Joseph Symington appealed his conviction and 15-year mandatory minimum sentence, imposed pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA"), after he pleaded guilty for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Symington argued on appeal that the district court lacked the authority to sentence him beyond the ten-year maximum sentence agreed to in his written plea agreement because it explicitly stated that he would not be subject to an enhanced sentence under the ACCA. The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court was required to sentence Symington under the ACCA; nevertheless, it vacated and remanded Symington's conviction and sentence because the district court failed to comply with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) by not permitting Symington to withdraw his guilty plea. View "United States v. Symington" on Justia Law

An interlocutory appeal before the Eleventh Circuit centered on an order granting motions to dismiss by two defendants in a securities class action against Jiangbo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., its principal officers, and its audit firm. Jiangbo came into existence as a U.S. corporation in 2007 when its Chinese operational arm, Laiyang Jiangbo, executed a reverse merger with a Florida shell company. Jiangbo's tenure as a public company "was short and fraught with suspicion of misconduct." Shares began trading on NASDAQ on June 8, 2010 and traded on that exchange for just under a year. Only six months after trading began, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated an informal, non-public investigation into Jiangbo. The company's fortunes unraveled quickly soon thereafter, and the SEC formalized its investigation, which remained non-public. Jiangbo made two significant disclosures in late May 2011 that marked the culmination of its decline: it publicly acknowledged the formal SEC investigation for the first time and reported that the company had defaulted on a relatively small principal payment toward debt from its initial financing. Trading ended days later on May 31, 2011, by which time the share price had fallen from a class-period high of $10.49 per share to $3.08. By November 2011, after Jiangbo had moved to another exchange, its shares were trading for just $0.14. The investors' consolidated amended complaint alleged, inter alia, that Elsa Sung (the former Chief Financial Officer) and Frazer LLP (the external auditor) misrepresented the company's cash balances and failed to disclose a material related-party transaction in statements within or appurtenant to those filings, in violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act. The district court found that the investors failed to sufficiently plead their allegations of fraud against defendants Sung and Frazer LLP ("Frazer"). Applying the heightened pleading standard imposed by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act ("PSLRA"), the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court. View "Brophy v. Jiangbo Pharmaceuticals, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Black Warrior Riverkeeper and Defenders of Wildlife appealed a district court’s grant of final summary judgment to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as to the Alabama Coal Association and several other intervenor mining companies. Riverkeeper challenges the 2012 version of Nationwide Permit 21 (“NWP 21”), a general permit that allowed surface coal mining operations to discharge dredged or fill materials into navigable waters. Riverkeeper argued that the Corps arbitrarily and capriciously found that NWP 21 would have no more than minimal environmental effects, in violation of both the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. After deciding Riverkeeper has standing to sue, the district court held that Riverkeeper’s lawsuit was, nonetheless, barred by the equitable doctrine of laches. After thorough review, however, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the intervenors have shown neither inexcusable delay on the part of Riverkeeper nor prejudice resulting from Riverkeeper’s alleged delay. To the extent that Riverkeeper lagged in filing suit, its delay was slight and excused by its need to adequately investigate and prepare its claims in this complex case. Moreover, the Intervenors’ modest showing of harm, stated only at the highest order of abstraction, does not outweigh the potential environmental benefits of allowing Riverkeeper to proceed. As for the merits of Riverkeeper’s environmental claims, the district court concluded, after thorough deliberation, that the Corps’ determinations that NWP 21 would have only “minimal cumulative adverse effect” on the environment, pursuant to the Clean Water Act, and “no significant impact” on the environment, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, were neither arbitrary nor capricious. However, literally on the eve of oral argument before the Eleventh Circuit, the Corps admitted that it had underestimated the acreage of waters that would be affected by the projects authorized under the permit. In the face of this change in facts, the Eleventh Circuit ordered the parties to provide supplemental briefing on the implications of the Corps’ error. The Corps then conceded that the district court’s decision must be reversed and the matter remanded to the Corps for further consideration based on a more accurate assessment of the potential impacts of NWP 21. The Eleventh Circuit agreed. View "Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc., et al v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, et al" on Justia Law