260 results for 'court:"11th Circuit"'.
J. Branch finds that the district court properly convicted defendant of producing child pornography. The district court did not commit any error in accepting defendant's guilty plea on a count of production of child pornography involving a victim who was not related to him without first finding that the victim volitionally participated in the sexual act. The statute did not require that the minor victim actively participate in the sexually explicit conduct. The sleeping victim was used as the object of defendant's sexual desire as he engaged in the sexually explicit conduct. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Branch, Filed On: March 19, 2024, Case #: 22-12338, Categories: Plea, Child Pornography
J. Pryor finds that the district court improperly dismissed the receiver's fraud, fraudulent transfers and negligence action against the brokerage and software companies arising from their participation in a Ponzi scheme. The district court incorrectly found that the receiver lacked standing to maintain the fraudulent transfer claims against the brokerage company. The transfers injured the corporate entities used to perpetrate the scheme. However, the receiver lacks standing to maintain common law tort claims against the companies because the receiver failed to allege that the receivership estate was separate and distinct from the Ponzi scheme perpetrators. Reversed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 19, 2024, Case #: 22-13658, Categories: Fraud
[Consolidated.] J. Newsom denies the immigrant's petition for review of the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing the appeal of his application for adjustment of status and denying his motion for reconsideration. The board applied the correct standard in rejecting the immigrant's claim and finding that the immigrant was not entitled to discretionary relief in light of his criminal record and bad character.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Newsom, Filed On: March 15, 2024, Case #: 22-11065, Categories: Immigration
[Consolidated.] J. Pryor finds that the district court properly denied defendants' motions for a new trial after they were convicted of offenses including health care fraud, money laundering and paying kickbacks for operating fraudulent drug rehabilitation clinics. The district court correctly denied defendants' motion to compel discovery of confidential treatment records pertaining to treatment their patients received at other addiction clinics. Defendants cannot show that the records contain impeachment information. Expert testimony from a doctor and lay summary testimony from a certified fraud examiner was properly admitted. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 14, 2024, Case #: 22-10978, Categories: Fraud, Money Laundering
J. Pryor finds that the bankruptcy court properly ruled in favor of the debtor in his Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition claiming that a retirement account was exempt property of his bankruptcy estate. The creditors sought to garnish funds in the retirement account to satisfy a $1.6 million default judgment entered against the debtor in an action for damages arising from a failed condominium development. The state court's judgment authorizing the bank to remit certain funds to the state court clerk gave it only a limited right to transfer the debtor's funds and did not extinguish the debtor's interest in the funds in the account. The bank failed to exercise its right before the debtor filed for bankruptcy. The lower court's judgment also did not create a right to setoff in favor of the bank. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 14, 2024, Case #: 22-14113, Categories: Bankruptcy
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J. Branch finds that the district court properly denied the individual's motion to set aside the default judgment entered against him in the couple's action arising from alleged misconduct in real estate investment transactions. The district court correctly found that the individual's default was willful and that he repeatedly ignored documents mail to him, including the complaint, written discovery requests and a subpoena for document production. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Branch, Filed On: March 13, 2024, Case #: 22-13303, Categories: Civil Procedure
J. Pryor finds that the district court properly granted the motion by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to dismiss the nonprofit's injunctive relief action arising after the department notified it that activities and payments under five grants would be terminated or withheld due to potential fiscal mismanagement. The department later withdrew the notices, rendering the notices non-final and the case moot. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 13, 2024, Case #: 22-14057, Categories: Jurisdiction, Injunction
J. Pryor finds that the district court properly dismissed the volunteer golf attendants’ putative class action against the county alleging that the county’s use of their services at a county-owned golf club violated the minimum wage and anti-retaliation provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Florida Minimum Wage Act. The district court correctly found that the attendants were public agency volunteers, not employees. The attendants received reasonable benefits for their services in the form of discounted rounds of golf and were not promised any compensation. The attendants did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of compensation. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 12, 2024, Case #: 23-11065, Categories: Class Action, Labor
J. Brasher finds that the district court improperly ruled in favor of the detective in a civil rights and malicious prosecution action brought by a citizen arrested by a detective for the murders of the man’s mother and stepfather. The individual spent a year in jail until the charges were dropped and another person was charged with the offenses. The detective omitted the full timeline of events from the arrest warrant affidavit, including the fact that the mother and stepfather were not killed until at least seven hours after the individual was last inside the house. A corrected version of the affidavit would not have established arguable probable cause for the individual’s arrest. A reasonable jury could find that the detective intentionally or recklessly left information out of the affidavit that exonerated the individual. Reversed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Brasher, Filed On: March 11, 2024, Case #: 22-13258, Categories: Civil Rights, Malicious Prosecution
Per curiam, a panel of the 11th Circuit finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the employer in an action brought by the former employee. The employee claimed the employer violated the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by giving her a less favorable bonus compensation structure than a male colleague. The district court correctly found that the employer showed the pay disparity was based on factors other than sex, like the male employee's greater experience and qualifications. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: March 8, 2024, Case #: 22-11381, Categories: Employment Discrimination
J. Branch finds that the 11th Circuit lacks jurisdiction over an appeal of the district court's entry of final judgment in favor of the insurer in a declaratory judgment action against the subcontractor's insurer arising from a coverage dispute. The final judgment did not dispose of all claims against all parties.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Branch, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: 22-14136, Categories: Insurance
J. Carnes substitutes the previous panel opinion in the case with the instant opinion partially denying and partially dismissing the Jamaican immigrant's petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals' decision dismissing his appeal from an immigration judge's removal order. The board correctly found that the immigrant is an aggravated felon and is therefore ineligible for cancellation of removal or asylum based on his Georgia family violence battery conviction. The order modifying the immigrant's sentence from his original 12-month probation sentence to a sentence of 11 months and 27 days did not change his term of imprisonment under federal immigration law. The sentence modification order was issued after defendant completed his sentence and only for the purpose of preventing removal.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 19-15077, Categories: Immigration
J. Pryor finds that the district court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss the 73-count indictment charging him with unlawful drug dispensing and refusing an inspection of his pharmacy. Defendant, who filled fraudulent opioid prescriptions, was convicted of all but two counts and sentenced to 188 months in prison. The superseding indictment alleged sufficient facts to put defendant on notice of the charges against him. The district court correctly imposed a $200,000 fine and did not commit any error by admitting evidence that defendant's pharmacy came up in other investigations or in excluding an officer's testimony. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 22-12044, Categories: Drug Offender
J. Pryor finds that the district court properly convicted defendant of three firearm offenses and sentenced him to serve 110 months in prison and pay a $25,000 fine for trying to ship a box of guns and ammunition to the Commonwealth of Dominica. Eleventh Circuit precedent forecloses defendant's challenge claiming the felon-in-possession law violates the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen did not abrogate the precedent. Defendant's prior conviction for trafficking hemp is a controlled substance offense under the sentencing guidelines because Georgia law at the time of that conviction regulated hemp. Sufficient evidence was presented to support the jury's finding that defendant knew the box he tried to ship contained guns. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: March 5, 2024, Case #: 22-10829, Categories: Firearms, Sentencing
J. Grant finds that the district court properly granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the companies and blocked enforcement of a provision of Florida's Individual Freedom Act which sought to bar employers from holding mandatory workplace meetings if those meetings endorsed viewpoints related to race and inequality which the state found offensive. The provision violates the First Amendment because it targets speech based on its content and penalizes certain viewpoints. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Grant, Filed On: March 4, 2024, Case #: 22-13135, Categories: First Amendment
J. Hull finds that the district court properly dismissed the insured's class action breach of contract claim premised on the theory that the insurer had a duty to periodically reassess its cost of insurance rates but did not do so during the class period. The claim arose out of a dispute over a life insurance policy. However, the district court improperly dismissed the breach of contract claim premised on an alternative theory that the insurer chose to reassess its rate scale during the class period and violated the policy by ignoring its expectations as to future mortality experience and failing to base the insured's rates on those improving expectations. Reversed in part.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 22-12991, Categories: Insurance, Contract
J. Lagoa certifies to the Florida Supreme Court a question arising from the magistrate judge's decision awarding $1.7 million in damages to the insurance administrator and rejecting the crane distributor's claim that Florida's economic loss rule shielded it from liability in a negligence and unfair trade practices action arising from the collapse of a crane boom. Florida law is unclear as to the economic loss rule's applicability to the case. The Florida Supreme Court should consider whether the rule applies to negligence claims against a product distributor for the failure to alert a product owner of a known danger when the only damages claimed are to the product itself.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Lagoa, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: 22-14104, Categories: Negligence, Product Liability
J. Wilson finds that the district court properly sentenced defendant to 60 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release following his guilty plea to conspiracy for stealing and reselling luxury cars. The plea agreement was unambiguous. The record shows that defendant understood that the agreement in which the government promised to recommend a 60-month custodial sentence did not prohibit the government from also recommending supervised release despite the absence of a supervised release provision. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Wilson, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: 22-12826, Categories: Sentencing, Conspiracy, Plea
J. Lagoa finds that the district court properly upheld the administrative law judge's denial of the mother's claim for insurance benefits for a child she conceived through in vitro fertilization using the decedent's sperm after his death. The decedent's will did not provide for his posthumously conceived child. The child is not eligible for a claim against the decedent's estate and is not considered a child of the decedent for the purposes of qualifying for benefits under the Social Security Act. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Lagoa, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: 20-11656, Categories: Insurance, Social Security, Wills / Probate
J. Grant finds that the district court properly convicted defendant of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute meth and correctly denied defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal. The district court correctly instructed the jury that the government only had to show that defendant knew he possessed a controlled substance, not that he knew he possessed meth. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Grant, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: 22-13516, Categories: Drug Offender
J. Newsom finds that the lower court improperly ruled in favor of defendant police officers on wrongful death claims brought by a woman whose son died following an interaction with police. The evidence indicates that reasonable individuals could determine that the officers' tases and kicks caused the son's death.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Newsom, Filed On: February 28, 2024, Case #: 22-11675, Categories: Wrongful Death
J. Rosenbaum finds that the lower court improperly granted defendants summary judgment on a speech pathologist's traditional hostile work environment claim. Considering a major's statement that she intended to "get" the plaintiff, the major's race-baked remark, and failure to take action on an allegedly race-based patient-diversion scheme, a reasonable jury could find that the major pursued the pathologist's HIPAA violation "so vigilantly" at least partly because of her race. Vacated in part.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Rosenbaum, Filed On: February 28, 2024, Case #: 21-12332, Categories: Employment Discrimination
J. Brasher finds that the district court properly admitted evidence of a police investigator's testimony and correctly convicted defendant of RICO conspiracy, attempted murder and other offenses. The investigator's statement at a preliminary hearing recounted a witness's statements implicating defendant in a crime. The witness was later murdered by other gang members who attended the hearing. The testimony was not hearsay because it was offered to establish the effect it had on the listeners at the hearing and to show that defendant and fellow gang members had a motive to kill the witness for cooperating with police. The district court correctly found that the probative value of the testimony was not outweighed by any unfair prejudice to defendant. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Brasher, Filed On: February 26, 2024, Case #: 22-13068, Categories: Confrontation, Conspiracy, Racketeering
J. Branch finds that the district court improperly approved a class action settlement resolving three actions by consumers against the sunglasses manufacturer for allegedly deceptive warranty and repair policies. The settlement was valued at approximately $32 million. The named plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue injunctive relief because they did not allege any threat of future injury from the manufacturer's repair cost misrepresentations. The district court therefore incorrectly considered the injunctive relief's value in its determination that the settlement was fair and reasonable. Vacated.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Branch, Filed On: February 26, 2024, Case #: 22-10663, Categories: Settlements, Class Action
Per curiam, a panel of the 11th Circuit finds that the district court improperly dismissed the professor's action against officers of the university alleging that they conspired to retaliate against him for filing an earlier lawsuit claiming that the university's president bought alcohol for minors, sexually assaulted another professor and covered up an employee's sexual harassment complaint against a university vice president. The district court incorrectly found that the statute of limitations barred the professor's conspiracy claims. Vacated.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: February 21, 2024, Case #: 23-11680, Categories: Employment Retaliation
J. Hull finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the employer in a disability discrimination action brought by the former employee alleging that the employer violated the ADA by firing her to avoid paying healthcare costs associated with her multiple sclerosis and severe migraines. The employee failed to show that the employer's non-discriminatory reasons for firing her after her job became automated were pretextual. The district court correctly awarded $1,000 in discovery sanctions in the employer's favor. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: February 16, 2024, Case #: 22-12045, Categories: Ada / Rehabilitation Act, Sanctions, Employment Discrimination
J. Pryor finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the prison officials and correctly found they are entitled to qualified immunity from the inmate's First Amendment action alleging that the officials retaliated against him for reporting that he was sexually assaulted during a pat-down search. Disciplinary proceedings for lying were initiated against the inmate after an investigator determined the inmate's accusation was unfounded. The officials complied with prison regulations and were acting in the scope of their discretionary authority when they disciplined the inmate for breaking a prison rule against lying. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Pryor, Filed On: February 16, 2024, Case #: 22-11738, Categories: Immunity, First Amendment, Prisoners' Rights
J. Carnes finds that the district court properly granted the board's motion to dismiss the ex-employee's action under the Georgia Whistleblower Act and the anti-retaliation provision of the False Claims Act alleging that she was fired for reporting the university's misallocation of head start funds to an executive director. Congress did not abrogate sovereign immunity for lawsuits against states under the provision. The district court correctly found that the board is an arm of the state entitled to the same immunity the state would have from the ex-employee's claims. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 21-14409, Categories: Immunity, False Claims, Whistleblowers
J. Grant finds that the district court improperly granted defendant habeas relief from his murder conviction based on a determination that the trial court incorrectly refused to suppress incriminating statements defendant made to a fellow suspect when police put the two men in an interrogation room together even after defendant had invoked his right to counsel. A reasonable jurist could conclude that the officer's decision to put defendant in the interrogation room with the other suspect was not a violation of defendant's Miranda rights. The officer's move was a "strategic use of a neutral situation," not a "coercive psychological ploy." Reversed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Grant, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 22-11744, Categories: Habeas, Miranda, Murder