District court’s imposition of a 15-month term of imprisonment on each count of bank robbery and attempted robbery to be served concurrently is vacated and remanded for resentencing as the district court, believing it was acting in defendant’s best interests because of his need of medical care, violated section 3582(a) in imposing a sentence of incarceration at the top of the Guidelines range. Read US v. Hoffa, No. 08-3920 Appellate Information...
It was drilled into most of our heads in high school civics and government classes: the U.S. Supreme Court has nine justices. But what most people don’t know is that the number of justices is not set in stone. And with the likelihood of a conservative majority of justices for the foreseeable future, several Democratic presidential candidates are promoting various plans to “pack” — add more judges — to the court as a way to tip the ideological balance....
Although California already has some of the most conservative gun laws in the country, gun owners are currently stockpiling ammunition ahead of the latest California gun control measure taking effect on July 1. Come July 1, not only will the price of ammunition increase, but purchasers will have to show ID and clear a background check before purchasing ammo. As you might expect, gun owners are stocking up on ammo before the prices go up and their hassles multiply....
Action to Collect on D&O Insurance Policy In Wintermute v. Kansas Bankers Surety Co., No. 09-2806, an action claiming that a directors and officers (D&O) liability insurance policy obligated defendant to defend plaintiff in a criminal action brought against her, the court reversed summary judgment for defendant where 1) because the doctrine of res judicata would have foreclosed the claims plaintiff sought to add to her complaint, any amendment would have been futile; 2) looking beyond the allegations in the complaint would not result in a final adjudication requirement even though the policy contained no such requirement; and 3) missing from the facts stated in the indictment was an allegation that plaintiff received a personal gain to which she was not legally entitled....
Erwin Chemerinsky, the constitutional law scholar, may have more published opinions than any justice of the Supreme Court. That’s because media outlets often quote him, and judges generally do not talk to the press. So when Chemerinsky speaks, people usually listen. Now that he has landed in the dean’s chair at Berkeley Law, Chemerinksy also has a bully pulpit for his latest opinion: recent Supreme Court decisions are “very troubling.”...
The end-of-term madness continues as the Supreme Court today issued four new opinions, dealing with bankruptcy, bankruptcy, whistleblowing, and patents. It’s this last case that concerns us today. Commil USA has a patent on a particular method of extending the range of wireless networks. It sued Cisco Systems, claiming infringement of its patent in Cisco’s network equipment. Commil also claimed that Cisco induced others to infringe its patent by selling the network equipment containing the allegedly infringing technology....
In an action by rail workers alleging injuries from exposure to hydrochloric acid fumes, summary judgment for Defendant is affirmed where Defendant rail carrier’s failure to perform a ten-point inspection under 49 C.F.R. section 173.31 did not violate that regulation because it did not apply to rail carriers such as Defendant. Read Borger v. CSX Trans., Inc., No. 08-3685 Appellate Information Argued: May 1, 2009 Decided and Filed: July 8, 2009...
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a public school district did not infringe on a math teacher’s First Amendment free speech liberties by ordering him “not to use his public position as a pulpit from which to preach his own views on the role of God in our Nation’s history to the captive students in his mathematics classroom.” That little zinger was in the first line of the opinion....
Adams v. Zelotes, No. 07-1853, concerned an action challenging the constitutionality of a Bankruptcy Code provision, 11 U.S.C. § 526(a)(4), alleging that the provision’s prohibition on debt relief agencies advising clients to incur additional debt in contemplation of bankruptcy violated plaintiff’s First Amendment rights. The Second Circuit reversed an injunction in favor of plaintiff, on the ground that the Supreme Court’s decision in Milavetz directly foreclosed plaintiff’s as-applied challenge by narrowly construing the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act to avoid his First Amendment complaint....
Are window washers exempt from overtime? They very well could be, the Seventh Circuit said in an opinion issued on April 1 (which is no joke, by the way). Judge Richard Posner wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel in affirming a grant of summary judgment to window-cleaning company CCS against several current and former employees who claimed window washers didn’t fall outside one of the exceptions to overtime in the Fair Labor Standards Act....
The Eighth Circuit decided four criminal matters, one civil rights case and one employment discrimination case. In Polson v. Bowersox, No. 08-3919, petitioner appealed from the district court’s dismissal of his habeas petition as untimely. The Eighth Circuit reversed, holding that the statute of limitations was tolled during the pendency of petitioner’s petition for relief pursuant to Missouri Supreme Court Rule 91, and thus, petitioner’s federal habeas petition was timely....
It was the day before the big heavyweight fight, and then suddenly it was off. One of the fighters got injured, tested positive for drugs, or something. Or as in the case of U.S. v. Microsoft Corp., Congress stepped in and broke it up. The CLOUD Act, which created new procedures for acquiring data stored across borders, settles the issues in the case. So everybody go home, sorry no refunds....
We didn’t have to be Miss Cleo or the late Sylvia Browne to figure this one out. With a widening chasm between circuit courts’ opinions regarding the so-called Obamacare contraception mandate, it was only a matter of time before the Court granted certiorari in at least one of the lower courts’ cases. And after the court asked for the Solicitor General’s input, and the government agreed that certiorari was appropriate, it was a near-certainty that the Court would take the case....
Trinidad Klene applied for citizenship. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied the application after concluding that Klene’s marriage to a U.S. citizen had been fraudulent. Klene asked a district court for relief under 8 U.S.C. §1421(c), which allows a judge to make an independent decision about an alien’s entitlement to be naturalized. Later, CIS opened removal proceedings. Once the administrative removal proceedings were under way, the agency asked the district court to dismiss Klene’s suit....
If someone is pregnant but doesn’t want to be, they might take to the internet to look for abortion providers. It may also be jarring to discover that at least 11% of Google’s abortion-related searches lead to anti-abortion nonprofits. In the United States, there are nearly 3,000 crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) that do not provide abortions. There are significantly fewer clinics that provide abortions, with less than 800 nationally. U.S. lawmakers who are in favor of abortion rights are urging Google to take a stand against crisis pregnancy centers....
The Supreme Court celebrated its first week back to business in the new year with four – count ’em, four! – unanimous decisions. On Tuesday, the Court released decisions for Ryan v. Gonzales and Tibbals v. Carter (consolidated appeals) and LA County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council. On Wednesday, the Court issued opinions in Already LLC v. Nike Inc. and Smith v. U.S. Let’s turn to the holdings!...
In a dispute involving attorney’s fees, district court order is reversed where, in cases which involve more than a nominal award, a fee award should not be reduced because the damages are smaller than a plaintiff originally sought. On remand the court should consider the lodestar figure, the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate, as well as other factors set out in Hensley....
Don’t shed a tear for the plaintiffs in the wasted eye drops case. Their putative class-action was dismissed for lack of standing, but the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in Cottrell v . Alcon Laboratories. The appeals court said the trial judge applied a too-narrow definition of injury. The plaintiffs alleged eye drop bottles wasted their medicine. In other words, standing is in the eye of the bottle holder....
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady seldom misses his targets on the football field, but his recent forward pass into the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office went badly awry. The 42-year-old Brady, winner of a record six Super Bowls and husband of a supermodel, filed an application to the USPTO to trademark the term, “Tom Terrific.” The agency, however, rejected Brady’s request, saying that that nickname rightfully belongs to another great athlete, former New York Mets pitcher Tom Seaver – even though it is not trademarked....
When it comes to child pornography, most would agree that viewing any child porn is sufficient for an entire lifetime. But in a case decided Monday, the Third Circuit determined that a jury didn’t see too much child porn to be unfairly prejudiced. Where does the Third Circuit draw the line between prejudice and probative value when it comes to child pornography? Pennsylvania resident Craig Alan Finley was convicted in federal court on child pornography charges including the distribution of “material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor....
