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

Plaintiff filed suit against Royal Caribbean for maritime negligence after her elderly father fell and hit his head while on one of Royal Caribbean's cruise vessels. Plaintiff's father died a week after the injury. Plaintiff alleged that Royal Caribbean is vicariously liable for the negligence of two of its employees, the onboard nurse and doctor, under an actual agency or apparent agency theory. The court concluded that the allegations in plaintiff's complaint plausibly support holding Royal Caribbean vicariously liable for the medical negligence of its onboard nurse and doctor. The court declined to adopt the Barbetta rule, which immunizes a shipowner from respondent superior liability whenever a ship's employees render negligent medical care to its passengers. The court found that the complaint in this cause plausibly establishes a claim against Royal Caribbean under the doctrine of actual agency, as well as the principles of apparent agency. Because plaintiff adequately pled all the elements of both actual and apparent agency, the court held that plaintiff may press her claims under either or both theories. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Franza v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd." on Justia Law

Jose Morabito, an Argentinian national, filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, alleging that RCCL violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112, when RCCL refused to renew his employment contract after he was diagnosed with HIV and Kaposi Sarcoma, even though he had been declared fit for duty. In this appeal, the EEOC challenged the district court's denial of its application for enforcement of an administrative subpoena issued to RCCL. The court concluded that the disputed portions of the subpoena are aimed at discovering members of a potential class of employees or applicants who suffered from a pattern or practice of discrimination, rather than fleshing out Mr. Morabito's charge. Even if the information sought has some tenuous relevance to the charge filed by Mr. Morabito, the court found no error in the district court's holding that compliance with the subpoena would be unduly burdensome to RCCL. The district court's weighing of the burden to RCCL and the likely irrelevance of the information to Mr. Morabito's charge was not an abuse of discretion, especially in light of the jurisdictional issues raised by RCCL. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD." on Justia Law

In consolidated appeals, the Jefferson County Board of Education and the Madison City Board of Education ask the court to recede from its opinion in Stewart v. Baldwin Cnty. Bd. of Educ., which held that school boards in Alabama are not arms of the state and therefore not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. The court declined to read Versiglio II in a way which violates the court's prior panel precedent rule and creates interpretive problems for panels in the future; although the court recognized the principle of state sovereign immunity law in Stewart, the court did not find it determinative, and held that Alabama school boards could not assert Eleventh Amendment immunity; the court's precedent does not provide a basis for it to conclude that Stewart has been abrogated; the court noted that the Alabama courts do not view state sovereign immunity and Eleventh Amendment immunity as one and the same; and the Alabama Supreme Court's Ex Parte Madison Cnty. Bd. of Educ. decision agrees with Stewart. The court concluded that both cases before it concern employment-related decisions and under Stewart, local school boards in Alabama are not arms of the state with respect to such decisions. Consequently, the Jefferson County Board of Education and the Madison City Board of Education are not immune under the Eleventh Amendment from suits challenging those decisions under federal law; the district court's dismissal of the complaint in Walker (Case Nos. 13-14182 and 13-14927) is reversed; and the district court's denial of the motion of dismiss in Weaver (Case No. 13-14624) is affirmed. View "Walker, et al. v. Jefferson Cnty. Bd. of Educ., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendant, a Florida dental practice, under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3) and common law conversion, after receiving an unsolicited one-page fax advertisement from defendant. On interlocutory appeal, the district court entered a final judgment for defendant. The court concluded that this case is justiciable and that plaintiff has Article III standing; on the merits, because In re DISH Network, LLC did not address the TCPA's junk-fax-ban provision, the district court's reliance on it, to hold that a plaintiff must establish vicarious liability in order to recover under the statute when a third party sends unsolicited fax advertisements on behalf of the advertiser, was misplaced; because the FCC's construction of the statute is a reasonable interpretation of Congressional intent under the TCPA and does not conflict with the statute's underlying legislative history, the court must defer to the Agency's construction of the statute; in this case, the record contains sufficient evidence for a jury to find that the fax at issue was sent on behalf of defendant; and therefore, the court reversed the district court's judgment on the TCPA claim and remanded for further proceedings. The court also concluded that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant on the conversion claim. The court reversed and remanded as to that claim. View "Palm Beach Golf Center-Boca, Inc. v. John G. Sarris, D.D.S., P.A." on Justia Law

Valensa filed suit against Cyanotech for tortious interference with contract and breach of a confidentiality agreement. Cyanotech then moved to compel arbitration based on two contracts between the parties. The district court denied the motion. The court reversed and remanded where the district court erred when it refused to allow an arbitrator to decide whether their dispute is arbitrable under one of the parties' contracts because the parties clearly and unmistakably incorporated the rules of the American Arbitration Association into their arbitration provisions. View "U.S. Nutraceuticals, LLC v. Cyanotech Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671-2680, against the United States, alleging that they experienced various health problems after being exposed to toxic substances in the drinking water while living at Camp Lejeune, a military base in North Carolina. The United States argued that the North Carolina statute of repose, N.C. Gen. Stat. 1-52(16), precluded plaintiffs from bringing the case. The district court disagreed and certified two questions for interlocutory appeal. The court held that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. 9568, does not preempt North Carolina's statute of repose. The court also held that North Carolina's statute of repose applies to plaintiffs' claims and does not contain an exception for latent diseases. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Bryant, et al. v. United States" on Justia Law

Following a jury verdict awarding compensatory damages to plaintiff, Reynolds appealed the final judgment. Plaintiff was awarded compensatory damages based on the loss of support and services, loss of companionship and protection, and her mental pain and suffering, as a result of her husband's lung cancer and death, the legal cause of which was attributed to his addiction to smoking cigarettes manufactured by Reynolds. The court concluded that the district court erred in granting plaintiff's motion in limine to exclude evidence of the deceased's alcohol abuse as it related to his death under Rule 403 where the evidence was highly probative and did not cause a high amount of unfair prejudice. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for a new trial. View "Aycock v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co." on Justia Law

After victims of a terrorist kidnapping in Colombia (plaintiffs) received a nine-figure default judgment against their captor (FARC), they attempted to collect through a series of ex parte garnishments and executions against third parties with purported illicit ties to the captor. Third-party claimants appealed the various orders granting plaintiffs' motions seeking to collect on their judgment using claimants' assets and denying the motions filed by claimants seeking relief. The court concluded that plaintiffs should have provided formal notice of the garnishment and execution proceedings to the owners of the property, as Florida law provides; the district court incorrectly concluded that no process was due to the owners of the property here; ultimately, claimants bear their share of the blame for either sitting on their rights to challenge the allegations against them or simply failing to rebut the changes; and, therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court with the exception of the turnover judgment against Brunello Ltd.'s account. View "Stansell, et al. v. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, (FARC), et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, three publishing houses, alleged that members of the Board of Regents at GSU infringed their copyrights by maintaining a policy which allows GSU professors to make digital copies of excerpts of plaintiffs' books available to students without paying plaintiffs. The district court found that plaintiffs failed to establish a prima facie case of infringement in twenty-six instances, that the fair use defense applied in forty-three instances, and that defendants had infringed plaintiffs' copyrights in the remaining five instances. The district court found that defendants were the prevailing party and awarded them costs and attorneys' fees. The court declined to address defendants' Eleventh Amendment argument; the court held that the district court did not err in performing a work-by-work analysis of individual instances of alleged infringement in order to determine the need for injunctive relief; however, the district court did err by giving each of the four fair use factors equal weight, and by treating the four factors mechanistically; the district court should have undertaken a holistic analysis which carefully balanced the four factors; the court found that the district court abused its discretion in granting the injunction and the related declaratory relief; the district court erred in designating defendants as the prevailing party and awarding fees and costs to defendants; and therefore, the court reversed the judgment, vacated the injunction, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cambridge University Press, et al. v. Albert, et al." on Justia Law

In this case involving interpretation of an insurance policy under Georgia law, the court certified the following three questions to the Supreme Court of Georgia: (1) Under the facts of this case, and in the light of the Final Judgment and Order -- in the Underlying Suit -- approving of and authorizing and directing the implementation of the terms of the settlement agreement, is Piedmont “legally obligated to pay” the $4.9 million settlement amount, for purposes of qualifying for insurance coverage under the Excess Policy? (2) In a case like this one, when an insurance contract contains a "consent-to-settle" clause that provides expressly that the insurer's consent "shall not be unreasonably withheld," can a court determine, as a matter of law, that an insured who seeks (but fails) to obtain the insurer's consent before settling is flatly barred --whether consent was withheld reasonably or not-- from bringing suit for breach of contract or bad-faith failure to settle? Or must the issue of whether the insurer withheld unreasonably its consent be resolved first? (3) In this case, under Georgia law, was Piedmont's complaint dismissed properly? View "Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Inc. v. XL Specialty Ins. Co." on Justia Law