Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in March, 2012
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This case arose when plaintiffs acquired on the secondary market hundreds of millions of dollars of non-performing bonds issued by the Republic of Argentina. In due course, plaintiffs began to bring suit in the United States courts to collect the debt. In these eleven consolidated appeals, they moved to attach a New York bank account owned by ANPCT. The court held that the district court correctly held that the funds in the ANPCT account were subject to attachment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1610 because they were "used for a commercial activity in the United States." View "NML Capital, Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina" on Justia Law

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This case involved the importation and sale of counterfeit luxury goods bearing trademarks owned by Louis Vuitton (plaintiff) and others. Defendants appealed from the district court's judgment granting summary judgment to plaintiff on its claims of trademark counterfeiting and infringement, and awarding plaintiff statutory damages in the amount of $3 million, and more than $500,000 in attorney's fees and costs. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to stay the proceedings; that, as the district court concluded, an award of attorney's fees under 15 U.S.C. 1117(a) could accompany an award of statutory damages pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 1117(c); and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding such fees or in setting their amount. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A. v. LY USA, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

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Defendant was convicted of conspiring to distribute heroin, aggravated theft, and making false statements on a matter within the jurisdiction of a federal agency. Defendant appealed his convictions for aggravated identity theft and false statements, the district court's pretrial denials of his motions to suppress statements made during a safety-valve proffer and for severance of Count One from Counts Four and Six of the indictment, and his 110 month sentence. The court held that (1) defendant's conviction was supported by sufficient evidence; (2) the court's pretrial decisions on defendant's motions were not erroneous; and (3) defendant's sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. Concluding that defendant's claims on appeal have no merit, the court affirmed both his convictions and sentence. View "United States v. Oyewumi" on Justia Law

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Petitioner and her husband, natives and citizens of the People's Republic of China (PRC), petitioned for review of the BIA's denial of their application for asylum and other relief despite a finding by an IJ that petitioner would be subjected to coercive sterilization if returned to the PRC. The court concluded that an IJ's finding that a future even would occur if an applicant was removed was a finding of fact subject to review for clear error and that the BIA properly applied de novo review to an IJ's determination that an applicant had not satisfied her burden to establish an objectively reasonable fear of prosecution. The court also concluded that the BIA could determine the weight to be accorded to State Department country reports. Therefore, the court granted the petition and remanded the case. View "Huang v. Holder" on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment, dismissing their complaint, which alleged that an elementary school student's First Amendment rights were violated when he was suspended for six days after expressing a wish for violence to the school and teachers. The litigation arose out of a crayon drawing by B.C., a ten-year-old fifth-grader, in response to an in-class assignment. The drawing depicted an astronaut and expressed a desire to "[b]low up the school with the teachers in it." The court concluded that it was reasonably foreseeable that the astronaut drawing could create a substantial disruption at the school and defendants' resulting decision to suspend B.C. was constitutional. The court also held that there was no merit to plaintiffs' argument that B.C.'s punishment was excessive in light of the court's deference to school authorities. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Cuff v. Valley Central School District" on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs appealed from a judgment of the district court granting defendants' motion to dismiss and denying as moot plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on liability. The District Court held that plaintiffs failed to state a claim, under a variety of theories, based on defendants' purchase and possession of an interest in the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Egypt. The court concluded that the facts alleged in plaintiffs' Amended Complaint, if true, told a tragic story of religious discrimination in Egypt in the 1960s and the court understood the desire for compensation. However, that wrong, if it did indeed occur, was inflicted by the Egyptian government, not by defendants. Because the district court correctly determined that the Amended Complaint failed to state a claim against defendants and also therefore correctly denied plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment as moot, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "Bigio v. The Coca-Cola Co." on Justia Law

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This case arose as part of an industry-wide investigation into certain abuses that contributed to the recent financial crisis. The SEC moved for a stay of district court proceedings, pending resolution of its and Citigroup's interlocutory appeals and its petition for a writ of mandamus, seeking to set aside an order of the district court which refused to approve the parties' proposed consent judgment. The district court so ordered because it concluded that the proposed consent judgment was not fair, adequate, reasonable, or in the public interest because Citigroup had not admitted or denied the allegations. The court concluded that it was satisfied (1) that the SEC and Citigroup have made a strong showing of likelihood of success in setting aside the district court's rejection of their settlement, either by appeal or petition for mandamus; (2) the petitioning parties have shown serious, perhaps irreparable, harm sufficient to justify grant of a stay; (3) the stay would not substantially injure any other persons interested in the proceeding; and (4) giving due deference to the SEC's assessment of the importance of its settlement to the public interest, that interest was not disserved by the grant of a stay. Accordingly, the court granted the motion to stay the proceedings and denied the motion to expedite. View "SEC v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc." on Justia Law

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Defendant pleaded guilty to illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a) and (b)(2). On appeal, defendant contended that the district court miscalculated his applicable sentencing range under the Guidelines range by including a two-point criminal history enhancement for his commission of his offense while on a term of supervised release. The court held that a term of supervised release did not terminate upon a defendant-alien's deportation for purposes of calculating a defendant's applicable sentencing range under U.S.S.G. 4A1.1(d). The court further held that the district court did not erroneously take into account unproven relevant conduct in fashioning its sentence, nor was the district court's sentence substantively unreasonable in light of defendant's personal circumstances. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Roccisano" on Justia Law

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Plaintiff, an African-American and former Syracuse police officer, was suspended with pay pending investigation of an incident involving a fifteen-year-old girl whom he took to a hotel knowing she was a runaway. He was eventually suspended without pay and terminated. Plaintiff claimed that defendants, the City and certain police officers, discriminated against him by treating him more severely than white officers who committed acts of an equal or more serious nature. Because plaintiff's subsequent guilty plea to the charge of Endangering the Welfare of a Child resulted in his automatic termination under New York Public Officers Law 30(1)(e), he could not prove an "adverse employee action" for any of the measures taken by his employer after his guilty plea. Further, as a matter of law, plaintiff's suspension without pay pending the investigation did not, in these circumstances, amount to an adverse employment action, and plaintiff had no constitutionally recognized cause of action for deprivation of "professional courtesy" that police sometimes extended to their fellow officers. View "Brown v. City of Syracuse, et al." on Justia Law

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Defendant appealed from an order of the district court denying his motion to dismiss, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, plaintiffs' separate actions to recover for breach of contract. The district court based its subject matter jurisdiction determination on the commercial activities exception to foreign sovereign immunity as set forth in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1330, 1332, 1391(f), 1441(d), 1602-11. The district court also denied defendant's motions to dismiss, made pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). At issue was, as regards to "clause two" of the commercial activities exception, whether plaintiffs' claims were sufficiently "based upon" any act that defendant performed in the United States that was "in connection with [defendant's] commercial activity" in Brazil. Also at issue was, with respect to "clause three," whether defendant's extraterritorial commercial acts caused a "direct effect" in the United States. In both cases, defendant contended that the district court erred in finding the requirements of the exception to be satisfied and thus argued that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the cases. The court held that defendant was immune under the Act and therefore reversed the district court's order.