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

Plaintiff, trustee for the estate of debtor, attempted to avoid eight transfers made by debtor to the IRS as payment for the income tax liability of debtor's principal. The bankruptcy court ruled in favor of the United States as to the first seven transfers. The bankruptcy court concluded that plaintiff succeeded in proving constructive fraud and ruled that the IRS was an initial transferee from whom plaintiff could seek recovery. The district court affirmed with regard to the first seven transfers but reversed as to the eighth. The district court concluded that the IRS could not be held liable as an initial transferee because it qualified for the mere conduit exception. The court affirmed, viewing the transaction as sufficiently similar to the deposit of funds into a bank account to conclude that the IRS acted as a mere conduit. View "Menotte v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against MAM, a Delaware corporation. Plaintiff was a MAM secured creditor and he held two Convertible Promissory Notes. Plaintiff's complaint alleged claims related to the Security Agreement that each note was secured by. MAM failed to respond to plaintiff's complaint and two weeks after plaintiff moved for entry of default judgment, Michael Gleicher moved to intervene in the case. Gleicher sought leave to intervene in two capacities: (1) as a MAM general creditor holding two Convertible Promissory Notes; and (2) as a MAM shareholder. The court concluded that Gleicher cited no source giving a general creditor a right to defend his debtor from another general creditor for the sole purpose of defeating the latter's claim. Further, Gleicher cited no source giving a corporation's shareholder the right to intervene in a suit brought against the corporation by one of its creditors for the sole purpose of defeating the creditor's claim. Gleicher has not established, nor could he, that he suffered an injury-in-fact as a result of plaintiff's filing of this lawsuit. Therefore, Gleicher lacked standing to intervene and he lacked standing to appeal the district court's final judgment. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal. View "Hawes v. Gleicher" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's order compelling arbitration and dismissing their complaint filed against defendants. At issue was whether the arbitration agreement, which waived an employee's ability to bring a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., was enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 1 et seq. The court concluded that, after examining the FLSA's text, legislative history, purposes, and Supreme Court precedent, it discerned no "contrary congressional command" that precluded the enforcement of plaintiffs' Arbitration Agreements and their collective action waivers. The court concluded that plaintiffs' reliance on the Supreme Court's 1945 decision in Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil was materially distinguishable from this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Walthour, et al. v. Chipio Windshield Repair, LLC, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the City's Ordinance No. 2886-12, which generally prohibits targeted picketing within 50 feet of a residential dwelling. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's grant of the City's motion to dismiss. At issue are sections 62-79 and 62-77. The court concluded that the Ordinance's ban on targeted picketing, section 62-79, was content-neutral, furthered a significant government interest, was narrowly tailored, and left open ample alternate channels for speech. Therefore, section 62-79 was facially constitutional and the district court dismissed plaintiff's challenge as to section 62-79. The court concluded however, that section 62-77 granted private citizens unbridled discretion to invoke the City's power to regulate speech in public fora abutting private residences. Accordingly, the court concluded that the loitering provision was facially unconstitutional and invalid. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Bell, et al. v. City of Winter Park, FL, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2615, alleging that defendants wrongfully denied his request for eleven weeks of vacation time and terminated his employment. At trial, the jury found that plaintiff was not terminated because he requested leave, but nevertheless awarded him $200,000 in damages. The court concluded that the district court erred by denying defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law on both plaintiff's claims because plaintiff was not eligible for leave under the FMLA where plaintiff admitted that his leave was not for a period of incapacity. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions for the district court to vacate its order awarding attorney fees and to enter judgment in favor of defendants. View "Hurley v. Kent of Naples, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of malice murder and sentenced to death. The district court later granted petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus in part and vacated his sentence only. The court concluded that the state habeas court's rejection of petitioner's ineffective-assistance claims were not an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington where the state habeas court did not unreasonably determine that petitioner suffered no prejudice from his counsel's failure to discover mitigating background and mental health evidence, especially in light of the substantial aggravating circumstances that would also have been revealed. Further, petitioner had not shown that the Georgia Supreme Court unreasonably applied Griffin v. California or any other Supreme Court precedent in concluding that the prosecutor's closing argument did not violate petitioner's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. View "Jones v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

Petitioner and her husband, natives and citizens of China, sought review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's denial of petitioner's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and her husband's application for asylum and withholding of deportation. The court concluded that petitioner and her husband failed to show that the IJ and BIA erred in determining that the 2006 Tingjian Document- which ordered the sterilization of either petitioner or her husband when they returned to China - was unauthenticated, and therefore, the IJ and BIA did not err in giving it little or no weight; substantial evidence supported the BIA's conclusion that petitioner failed to show a well-founded fear of persecution where the BIA distinguished between U.S.-born and Chinese-born children for the purposes of enforcing China's family planning policy; and the court could not say that the record compelled a conclusion that there was a reasonable possibility that petitioner would face economic persecution if she returned to China. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Wu v. US Attorney General" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his motions for discovery and leave to amend his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, as well as the district court's determination that the U.S. Parole Commission did not violate the mandate handed down by the court in Bowers v. Keller. The court concluded that the district court's decision to deny leave to amend was informed largely by its overly narrow interpretation of the court's mandate. The district court also noted that the habeas petition was already "long and complicated." Neither explanation amounted to a "substantial reason" for denying a motion to amend. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in denying petitioner leave to amend. The court reversed and remanded on that ground, but affirmed on all other grounds. View "Bowers, Jr. v. U.S. Parole Commission, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute drugs, conspiracy to launder money, and possession with intent to distribute at least one kilogram of heroin. At issue on appeal was whether the district court misapplied the sentencing guidelines by using defendant's conduct in the underlying drug conspiracy to impose a role enhancement when calculating his adjusted offense level for money laundering under U.S.S.G. 2S1.1(a)(1). The court concluded that the district court mistakenly considered defendant's role in the drug conspiracy that generated the dirty money. Consequently, defendant received a higher adjusted offense level and guidelines range than he might have received if the application note to section 2S1.1 had been followed. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Salgado" on Justia Law

Petitioner, sentenced to death for the strangulation murder of a thirteen-year-old girl, appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court held that evidence of a rejected plea offer for a lesser sentence, like evidence of innocence or evidence of the geographical location of the crime, was not a mitigating circumstance because it shed no light on a defendant's character, background, or the circumstances of his crime; the Constitution did not mandate the admission of rejected plea offers as relevant mitigating evidence at sentencing; and, as a result, petitioner was not entitled to federal habeas relief on his Eighth Amendment claim. Finally, given the significant aggravating circumstances involved in his offense and found by the trial court, the court could not say that no fairminded jurists could agree with the Florida Supreme Court's determination that there was no reasonable likelihood of a lesser sentence had counsel obtained and presented the available evidence of brain damage. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of petitioner's section 2254 petition. View "Hitchcock v. Secretary, FL Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law