10 results for 'judge:"Carnes"'.
J. Carnes finds that the district court properly denied the police officers' motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity an unlawful seizure claim raised by the individual in a civil rights action arising from her arrest after moving a barricade in a mall parking lot. The individual was trying to leave after failing to locate a protest in the wake of George Floyd's death. The officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the individual's vehicle. The district court improperly denied one officer's motion to dismiss the individual's claim that he violated her rights by failing to intervene in the other officer's use of excessive force. Also, the 11th Circuit lacks jurisdiction to consider the officers' challenge to the district court's decision not to incorporate some video footage of the incident into the pleadings. The challenge amounts to a claim that the district court made an incorrect evidentiary ruling. Affirmed in part.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: April 5, 2024, Case #: 22-12946, Categories: Civil Rights, Police Misconduct
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. 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. Carnes finds that the district court properly denied defendant's habeas petition for relief from his murder conviction and life sentence. Although the Georgia Supreme Court incorrectly applied a stricter prejudice standard in rejecting defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claim, defendant failed to show that he was prejudiced by his trial counsel's failure to argue that the use of a PIT maneuver by police to stop the high-speed car chase was an intervening cause that broke the causal chain between defendant's wrongful conduct and the victim's death. The Georgia Supreme Court decided as a matter of Georgia law that questions about the wisdom of using the PIT maneuver were insufficient for the maneuver to have been an intervening cause of the victim's death under Georgia law. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: 22-10313, Categories: Ineffective Assistance, Murder
J. Carnes finds that the district court properly dismissed a breach of contract, fiduciary duty and negligence action brought by the estate and clinic against the insurers stemming from an insurance coverage dispute which arose after a $60 million consent judgement was entered in an underlying wrongful death action in favor of the deceased liposuction patient's estate and against the clinic. The district court correctly found that a four-year statute of limitations applied to the fiduciary duty claim and that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations. The insurance policy unambiguously includes a policy limit of $50,000 for a claim of professional liability. The insurer had already incurred expenses beyond that amount defending the estate claims, therefore the policy limit was exhausted. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: February 8, 2024, Case #: 22-10614, Categories: Insurance, Fiduciary Duty, Contract
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[Consolidated.] J. Carnes dismisses the oil refinery's petitions for review of the decisions by the Environmental Protection Agency denying its petitions for economic hardship exemptions from the Clean Air Act’s renewable fuel standard program. The refinery should have filed its petitions for review in the D.C. Circuit because the challenged decisions were nationally applicable and announced a universal approach to evaluating hardship petitions. Since the refinery already filed petitions for review of the denied actions in the D.C. Circuit as a protective measure, the instant petitions will not be transferred.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: January 11, 2024, Case #: 22-11617, Categories: Environment
J. Carnes finds that the district court properly dismissed a father's federal and state false arrest claims in an action against the city. The action arose from the father's arrest and prosecution for murder after shooting his unarmed son. The father was later acquitted. The police officers had probable cause to believe that the father did not shoot the son in self-defense. The father failed to allege that the officers were offered but ignored exculpatory evidence that would have ruled out probable cause. The district court also correctly denied the father's motion for a new trial after a jury found in favor of the city on his civil rights claim arising from the search of his home. The district court did not commit any error by refusing to give a requested jury instruction on a custom or practice theory of municipal liability. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: August 28, 2023, Case #: 20-11994, Categories: Civil Rights
J. Carnes finds that the district court properly granted the companies' motion to voluntarily dismiss an action against the executives in federal court for misappropriation of trade secrets. The companies' action came days before the executives sued in state court seeking a declaratory judgement affirming that restrictive covenants in their employment agreements were unenforceable and that they had been fired without just cause. The district court correctly denied the executives' request for attorney fees and costs and found that the executives could move for fees and costs if the companies refiled the federal action. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: August 14, 2023, Case #: 22-10048, Categories: Trade Secrets, Attorney Fees
J. Carnes finds that the district court properly convicted defendant of being a felon in possession of a firearm and correctly sentenced him to 80 months in prison. Defendant failed to show that he was entitled to a judgment of acquittal or a new trial based on his justification defense. There was evidence which allowed the jury to find that defendant contributed to the circumstances of an altercation that later led him to grab a gun from his then-girlfriend and shoot a man. Any error the district court committed by allowing the government to question defendant about two convictions for robbery and giving false information to a police officer that were more than 10 years old was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: August 11, 2023, Case #: 21-12291, Categories: Firearms
J. Carnes finds that the district court improperly found in favor of the employer in an action brought by the deaf employee alleging that the employer violated the ADA by failing to provide him with a sign language interpreter on several occasions and by failing to give him text message summaries of nightly pre-shift safety meetings. A factfinder could reasonably find that the employee's inability to understand or participate in the meetings adversely affected the terms of his employment. There is also evidence that the employee's ability to participate in disciplinary proceedings involving attendance issues was also an essential part of the job which affected his pay raise. Reversed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Carnes, Filed On: May 24, 2023, Case #: 21-13083, Categories: Ada / Rehabilitation Act, Employment Discrimination