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

Plaintiff, as the administrator of his sister's estate, sued defendant in Connecticut state court, alleging that it negligently failed to timely diagnose the colon cancer that caused her death. Defendant removed the case to federal court. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his medical malpractice claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court concluded that the district court may have mistakenly interpreted its precedent in A.Q.C. ex rel. Castillo v. United States, which held that it was not an abuse of discretion to deny equitable tolling to a plaintiff whose law firm did "literally nothing" to determine the federal status of plaintiff's health care provider; the district court did not fully consider whether, despite the differences between this case and A.Q.C., plaintiff's lawyers had reason to know that they should have investigated defendant's federal status; and, therefore, the court remanded for reconsideration because it could not be certain on the present record whether the district court's decision should be affirmed under the correct legal standard. View "Phillips v. Generations Family Health Center" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Midland, a debt collector, for damages after Midland called him between 22 and 28 times over the course of 2011 when none of the calls were intended for plaintiff. On appeal, plaintiff contended that neither of two putative offers of judgment extended by Midland could have rendered his action moot because neither offer complied with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68. The court held that an offer need not comply with Rule 68 in order to render a case moot under Article III. Consequently, the court agreed with the district court that plaintiff's refusal to settle the case in return for Midland's offer, notwithstanding plaintiff's acknowledgement that he could win no more, was sufficient ground to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Doyle v. Midland Credit Management, Inc." on Justia Law

Intervenors appealed the district court's denial of their motion to intervene in a suit where the lead plaintiff and other putative class members alleged that defendants had made fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions in the offering and sale of certain financial instruments which they purchased. The court held that: (1) American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah's tolling rule did not apply to the three-year statute of repose in Section 13 of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. 77m; and (2) absent circumstances that would render the newly asserted claims independently timely, neither Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24 nor the Rule 15(c) "relation back" doctrine permitted members of a putative class, who were not named parties, to intervene in the class action as named parties in order to revive claims that were dismissed from the class complaint for want of jurisdiction. The proposed intervenors could not circumvent Section 13's statute of repose by invoking American Pipe or Rule 15(c). Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment insofar as the district court partially denied the motions to intervene. View "In re IndyMac Mortgage-Backed Sec. Litig." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to bribing an ICE employee to grant Lawful Permanent Resident status to an alien and for furnishing a forged passport. On appeal, defendant claimed that he did not understand the plea proceedings. There was no indication that after the district court learned that defendant took medications, it endeavored to ascertain whether they could impact his ability to proceed. This critical omission precluded a finding that defendant's plea in the bribery case was knowing and voluntary, and dictated that the plea be vacated. In regards to the forged passport plea, the district court committed plain error by improperly conflating the proceedings, assuming defendant was taking the same medications at the time of the next plea, and that he remembered the proceedings from the plea that happened sixteen months earlier. Accordingly, the court need not address defendant's remaining claim because it concluded that neither of his pleas was knowing and voluntary. The court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Tien" on Justia Law

Defendants, former executives of the retail drugstore chain Duane Reede, appealed their convictions for securities fraud. Defendants had executed a number of schemes to inflate the company's earnings in quarterly and annual financial statements filed with the SEC. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony of non-expert witnesses. The court also concluded that Defendant Tennant's claims that his conviction should be overturned for insufficient evidence to prove his knowledge of the fraud and that it was error for the district court to give a conscious avoidance jury instruction were without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Cuti" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought this action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendant, the officer who arrested her, alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment. The court concluded that the record established uncontroverted facts that, taken together, provided probable cause for the arrest and prosecution of plaintiff. Therefore, defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions for the district court to grant defendant's motion for summary judgment. View "Stansbury v. Wertman" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a complaint seeking damages and injunctive relief, alleging that defendants violated, inter alia, the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a)(1), and New York General Business Law 349 when defendants published a scientific article reporting research results related to plaintiff's production of surfactants. The court concluded that, as a matter of law, statements of scientific conclusions about unsettled matters of scientific debate could not give rise to liability for damages sounding in defamation. The court also concluded that the secondary distribution of excerpts of such an article could not give rise to liability, so long as the excerpts did not mislead a reader about the conclusions of the article. Therefore, the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff failed to state a claim based on publication of the article itself because the challenged statements were protected scientific opinion and plaintiff failed to adequately allege that defendants Chiesi and Cornerstone distributed misleading excerpts of the article. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "ONY, Inc. v. Cornerstone Therapeutics, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Principal after it concluded that he was not eligible for long term disability benefits and denied his claim. The court concluded that Principal failed to properly consider plaintiff's subjective complaints and that Principal's request for objective evidence proving that he suffered from tinnitus was unreasonable. Therefore, the court held that Principal's denial of plaintiff's claim was arbitrary and capricious, and the court reversed the judgment of the district court, remanding for further proceedings. View "Miles v. Principal Life Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for several counts of production of child pornography, committing a felony offense involving a minor while being required to register as a sex offender, and possession of child pornography. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress all of the evidence. The court affirmed the district court's determinations that the officers lacked probable cause to search for evidence of child pornography and that the warrant was facially overbroad. However, the court vacated the judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings because the court found deficient the factual and analytical record as to whether the warrant was severable and whether the images of child pornography were seized in plain view. View "United States v. Galpin" on Justia Law

A class of seafarers sought, as part of unearned wages, overtime pay from Maersk that they would have earned from the time of their discharge until the end of their respective voyages. On appeal, Maersk challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the seafarers. The court concluded that the district court correctly determined that the application of general maritime law could be limited, but not abrogated, in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs); the CBA at issue here did not address the inclusion of overtime pay in the calculation of Plaintiff Padilla's unearned wages; the unearned wages included overtime pay where the seafarer reasonably expected to earn overtime pay on a regular basis throughout his service in an amount that was not speculative and would have earned it "but for" an illness or injury; and, given that overtime was a substantial and routine component of the seafarer's compensation, they were entitled to overtime payments because, under general maritime law, they must be placed in the same position they would have been in had they not been injured or disabled. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment, including the district court's denial of Maersk's motion to amend the judgment. View "Padilla v. Maersk Line, Limited" on Justia Law