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

Plaintiff filed suit against R.J. Reynolds under the Connecticut Products Liability Act (CPLA), Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. 52-572m et seq., for strict liability and negligence. Plaintiff claimed that the cigarettes she smoked for 25 years caused cancer in her larynx. On appeal, R.J. Reynolds challenged the denial of its renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court certified the following question to the Connecticut Supreme Court: Does Comment i to section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts preclude a suit premised on strict products liability against a cigarette manufacturer based on evidence that the defendant purposefully manufactured cigarettes to increase daily consumption without regard to the resultant increase in exposure to carcinogens, but in the absence of evidence of any adulteration or contamination. View "Izzarelli v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of receiving and possessing child pornography. At issue on appeal was whether defendant could be ordered to make restitution to one of the victims and, if so, in what amount. The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to support a finding of proximate cause and that the district court reasonably estimated the share of the victim's losses to be attributable to defendant as her total loss divided by the number of persons convicted of possessing her image at the time of the restitution request. The court concluded, however, that the district court abused its discretion by including in its calculation losses that defendant could not have proximately caused and by holding defendant jointly and severally liable for harm caused by defendants who were not before the court. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for recalculation. View "United States v. Lundquist" on Justia Law

Defendant's conviction stemmed from his involvement in a conspiracy that had defrauded American victims through a lottery telemarketing scheme operated out of three so-called "boiler rooms" at different locations in Israel. On appeal, defendant, an American citizen, challenged his conviction of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud through telemarketing. The court concluded that the district court correctly denied defendant's motion to suppress the evidence gathered through foreign searches and surveillance where ongoing collaboration between an American law enforcement agency and its foreign counterpart in the course of parallel investigations did not - without American control, direction, or an intent to evade the Constitution - give rise to a relationship sufficient to apply the exclusionary rule to evidence obtained abroad by foreign law enforcement. Further, the court concluded that the district court committed procedural error in failing adequately to explain the sentence it imposed. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's conviction, vacated the sentence, and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Getto" on Justia Law

AmBase purchased Carteret, a federally chartered stock savings bank or thrift, and then filed consolidated income tax returns with Carteret. The dispute in this appeal related to AmBase's 1992 consolidated federal income tax return. The court held that the district court had subject-matter jurisdiction and affirmed its grant of AmBase's claimed deduction to the extent that it offset Carteret's post-seizure income for the 1992 tax year. Further, the court concluded that the district court should grant AmBase's claimed deduction to the extent that it derived from Carteret's post-seizure bad debts for the 1992 tax year. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "AmBase Corp. v. United States" on Justia Law

Troma, producer and distributor of "controlled budget motion pictures," filed suit against defendants alleging copyright infringement under federal law and state law claims of common law fraud and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage. At issue on appeal was section 302(a)(3)(ii) of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules, and in particular its requirement that the allegedly tortious conduct of the individual over whom personal jurisdiction was asserted under that section "caus[ed] injury to person or property within the state." Troma failed to articulate a non-speculative and direct injury to person or property in New York that went beyond the simple economic losses that its New York-based business suffered. The court held that it was well settled that such economic losses were not alone a sufficient basis for personal jurisdiction over the persons who caused them. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court correctly determined that it did not have the power to exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants because Troma failed to make a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction under section 302(a)(3)(iii). View "Troma Entertainment v. Robbins" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her convictions stemming from her arrest at the border of the United States and Canada where 70,000 pills containing methamphetamine were found in the gas tank of the rental car she was driving. Defendant raised numerous issues on appeal. The court found that the cumulative effect of the various errors - including defendant's improper shackling, the failure to investigate potential juror misconduct, an improper Allen charge, and serious evidentiary errors - undermined the guarantee of fundamental fairness to which defendant was entitled. Accordingly, the court vacated the conviction and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Haynes" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed an in rem action in federal court laying claim to the intact shipwreck of an early nineteenth century wooden schooner at the bottom of Lake Erie under admiralty law as the finder and salvor of the sunken vessel. New York intervened, asserting title under state law and the Abandoned Shipwreck Act, 43 U.S.C. 4101 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of New York. The court concluded that abandonment could be inferred from circumstantial evidence and affirmed the judgment of the district court on the basis that the record demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the shipwreck was abandoned within the meaning of the Act. The court also concluded that plaintiff failed to raise a material dispute of fact on this issue. View "Northeast Research, LLC v. One Shipwrecked Vessel" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the denial of disability insurance benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 401 et seq. The court concluded that the failure explicitly to engage in a function-by-function assessment of plaintiff's limitations and restrictions as a part of her residual function capacity (RFC) did not constitute a per se error requiring remand. The court concluded that remand was not required where the ALJ's Step Four analysis of plaintiff's limitations and restrictions provided an adequate basis for meaningful judicial review, the ALJ's determination applied the correct legal standards, and the determination was supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Cichocki v. Astrue" on Justia Law

Time Warner petitioned for review of the FCC's 2011 order promulgated under section 616(a)(3) and (5) of the Communications Act of 1934 (Communications Act), as amended by the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 (Cable Act), 47 U.S.C. 536(a)(3), (5). Section 616(a)(3) and (5) and that part of the 2011 Order establishing the standard for demonstrating a prima facie violation of these statutory provisions (the program carriage regime) were intended to curb anticompetitive behavior by limiting the circumstances under which a distributor of video programming could discriminate against unaffiliated networks that provided such programming. The court concluded that the program carriage regime did not violate the First Amendment where its case-specific standards for identifying affiliation-based discrimination served important government interests in promoting competition and diversity in an industry still posing serious competitive risks and were narrowly tailored not to burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests. The court concluded, however, that the 2011 Order was substantive and therefore subject to the notice-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq. Because the FCC failed to comply with such requirements, the court granted the petition for review insofar as it raised an APA challenge. View "Time Warner Cable Inc. v. FCC" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. 2250(a), which makes it a crime for someone who was required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16913, to travel in interstate commerce and knowingly fail to update his registration. Defendant traveled from New York to Nevada without updating his registration. The court concluded that the constitutionality of SORNA as applied to defendant remained unaffected by any limitations on Congress's Commerce Clause power that could be found in the Supreme Court's decision in Nat'l Fed'n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Robbins" on Justia Law