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

Plaintiff painted two large murals directly onto the walls inside a building on the campus of Defendant-Appellee Vermont Law School, Inc. The work stirred controversy, which eventually prompted the law school to erect a wall of acoustic panels around the murals to permanently conceal them from public view. Kerson brought suit against the law school, alleging that obscuring his work behind a permanent barrier violated his rights under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (“VARA”), which creates a cause of action for artists to prevent the modification and, in certain instances, destruction of works of visual art.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court held that merely ensconcing a work of art behind a barrier neither modifies nor destroys the work, as contemplated by VARA, and thus does not implicate VARA’s protections. The court explained that this case presents weighty concerns that pin an artist’s moral right to maintain the integrity of an artwork against a private entity’s control over the art in its possession. On the facts presented here, the court resolved this tension by hewing to the statutory text, which reflects Congress’s conscientious balancing of the competing interests at stake.  Because mere concealment of the Murals neither “modifies” nor “destroys” them, the Law School has not violated any of VARA’s prohibitions. As such, VARA does not entitle Plaintiff to an order directing the Law School to take the barrier down and continue to display the Murals. View "Kerson v. Vermont Law School, Inc." on Justia Law

Objector-Appellant appealed from a district court judgment approving a settlement award, attorneys’ fee award, and incentive award in a class action lawsuit. Plaintiff-Appellee, on behalf of similarly situated subscribers in California, sued Defendant-Appellee The New York Times (“NYT”), claiming that NYT automatically renewed NYT subscriptions without providing the disclosures and authorizations required by California’s Automatic Renewal Law (the “ARL”).  The parties negotiated a settlement agreement whereby class members dropped their claims in exchange for NYT’s reformation of its business practices and either Access Codes for one-month NYT subscriptions or pro rata cash payments. The settlement agreement also provided for the payment of substantial attorneys’ fees to class counsel and an incentive award to the class representative. Appellant objected to the proposed settlement, primarily arguing that the settlement is unfair, the attorneys’ fees calculation improperly exceeds limits set by the coupon settlement provisions of the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”), and the incentive award is not authorized by law. The district court disagreed, certifying a class and approving the settlement, $1.25 million attorneys’ fees, and a $5,000 incentive award.   On appeal, the Second Circuit agreed with Appellant that the district court exceeded its discretion when it approved the settlement based on the wrong legal standard in contravention of Rule 23(e). The court also agreed that the Access Codes are coupons,  which subject the attorneys’ fees calculation to CAFA’s coupon settlement requirements. Because the district court’s conclusions are intertwined, the court vacated the district court’s judgment in its entirety and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. View "Maribel Moses v. The New York Times Company" on Justia Law

Petitioner is a former employee of International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”) who signed a separation agreement requiring confidential arbitration of any claims arising from her termination. Petitioner arbitrated an age-discrimination claim against IBM and won. She then filed a petition in federal court under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) to confirm the award, attaching it to the petition under seal but simultaneously moving to unseal it. Shortly after she filed the petition, IBM paid the award in full. The district court granted Petitioner’s petition to confirm the award and her motion to unseal. On appeal, IBM argued that (1) the petition to confirm became moot once IBM paid the award, and (2) the district court erred in unsealing the confidential award.   The Second Circuit vacated the district court’s confirmation of the award and remanded with instructions to dismiss the petition as moot. The court reversed the district court’s grant of the motion to unseal. The court explained that Petitioner’s petition to confirm her purely monetary award became moot when IBM paid the award in full because there remained no “concrete” interest in enforcement of the award to maintain a case or controversy under Article III. Second, any presumption of public access to judicial documents is outweighed by the importance of confidentiality under the FAA and the impropriety of Petitioner’s effort to evade the confidentiality provision in her arbitration agreement. View "Stafford v. Int'l Bus. Machs. Corp." on Justia Law

Appellants, American victims of terror attacks in Israel, appealed from the district court’s judgment dismissing their complaint for lack of in personam jurisdiction over Appellee Bank Saderat PLC, a bank associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Appellants challenged the district court’s conclusion that the Appellee’s default, which occurred just after the venue was transferred from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to the Eastern District of New York, did not forfeit its objection to personal jurisdiction in New York.   The Second Circuit concluded that the district court’s judgment relied on the erroneous factual finding that the Appellee had successfully challenged personal jurisdiction in the District of Columbia before the case was transferred to New York. The court explained that the district court premised its legal conclusion – that this case was distinguishable from Mickalis Pawn Shop – on the incorrect factual finding that BSPLC’s pre-transfer, pre-default personal jurisdiction challenge in the District of Columbia was successful. The record demonstrates that BSPLC achieved no such victory. It was, therefore clear error for the district court to find otherwise and to rely on that fact for the purpose of distinguishing BSPLC’s conduct from that of the defendants in Mickalis Pawn Shop. View "Kaplan v. Bank Saderat PLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s judgment dismissing her claims of age, race, and gender discrimination and retaliation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 621 et seq., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e et seq., and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. Section 1981. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard to her retaliation claim and that it erroneously concluded that she had failed to demonstrate that Defendants’ race-neutral explanations for not selecting her for two internal promotions were pretextual.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court held that Plaintiff has not demonstrated that Defendants’ explanations for her non-promotions were pretextual. Second, the court held that although the district court applied an incorrect standard to her retaliatory hostile work environment claim, Plaintiff has nevertheless failed to make out a prima facie case of retaliation and did not demonstrate that her employer’s non-retaliatory explanations were pretextual. The court explained that Defendant’s evidence supporting summary judgment established that Plaintiff received negative performance evaluations because she was not adequately or timely completing her duties and had become increasingly challenging to work with. The court wrote that Plaintiff has not rebutted this showing with evidence demonstrating that the reasons the NYCTA provided for the poor performance reviews were pretextual. Instead, she argues that the performance reviews must have been retaliatory due to their temporal proximity to her complaints. But she offers nothing more to establish causation. View "Carr v. New York City Transit Authority" on Justia Law

Police officers seized just over $8,000 in a search of Appellant’s home carried out as part of a drug trafficking investigation into her then-boyfriend, K.B. The local police turned over the funds to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which initiated an administrative forfeiture procedure to claim the funds as proceeds from drug sales. Acting pro se, Appellant filed a claim to the assets, forcing the government to terminate its administrative seizure and open a judicial forfeiture proceeding in district court.  She failed to timely oppose the ensuing judicial proceeding, and the clerk of court entered default against the funds. Appellant, still acting pro se, then sent several letters to the district court and the U.S. Attorney’s Office seeking leave to file a belated claim to the seized assets. The district court held that Appellant had not shown excusable neglect, denied her an extension of time to file a claim, and entered final default judgment against the seized assets.
The Second Circuit vacated the grant of the motion to strike and the entry of default judgment and remanded for further proceedings. The court held that the district court erred in granting default judgment to the government. Appellant’s letters are properly viewed as seeking both to lift the entry of default and to be granted leave to file an untimely claim to the assets. So understood, Appellant’s motion should have been assessed under the more permissive good cause standard, as is any other motion to lift entry of default in a civil suit. View "U.S. v. Starling" on Justia Law

In 2005, a federal district court entered a permanent injunction against several pro-life advocates enjoining them from entering the public sidewalk within fifteen feet of the entrance of any abortion clinic in the Western District of New York. Twelve years later, in 2017, Plaintiff, who was not a named party to the 2005 permanent injunction, started sidewalk counseling near the Planned Parenthood facility in Rochester, New York. After Defendants, the New York Attorney General and the City of Rochester decided that Plaintiff was bound by the 2005 permanent injunction, he sued, seeking a declaratory judgment that he was not bound by the injunction. He also moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent Defendants from applying the injunction to his counseling activities. The district court dismissed his suit for failure to state a claim and denied his motion for a preliminary injunction.   The Second Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court insofar as it dismissed Plaintiff’s complaint and vacated the judgment insofar as it denied Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The court remanded for further proceedings. The court held that a person who is not a named party to an injunction or legally identified with a named party is bound by the injunction only from acting for the benefit of, or to assist, an enjoined party in violating the injunction. The allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint do not establish that he so acted and therefore state a claim for declaratory relief. View "Havens v. James" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are twenty-six former employees of International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”) who signed separation agreements requiring them to arbitrate any claims arising from their termination by IBM. The agreements set a deadline for initiating arbitration and included a confidentiality requirement. Plaintiffs missed the deadline but nonetheless tried to arbitrate claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”). Their arbitrations were dismissed as untimely. They then sued IBM in district court, seeking a declaration that the deadline is unenforceable because it does not incorporate the “piggybacking rule,” a judge-made exception to the ADEA’s administrative exhaustion requirements. Shortly after filing suit, Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment and attached various documents obtained by Plaintiffs’ counsel in other confidential arbitration proceedings. IBM moved to seal the confidential documents. The district court granted IBM’s motions to dismiss and seal the documents. On appeal, Plaintiffs argued that (1) the filing deadline in their separation agreements is unenforceable and (2) the district court abused its discretion by granting IBM’s motion to seal.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court first wrote that the piggybacking rule does not apply to arbitration and, in any event, it is not a substantive right under the ADEA. Second, the court held that the presumption of public access to judicial documents is outweighed here by the Federal Arbitration Act’s (“FAA”) strong policy in favor of enforcing arbitral confidentiality provisions and the impropriety of counsel’s attempt to evade the agreement by attaching confidential documents to a premature motion for summary judgment. View "In re IBM Arb. Agreement Litig." on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged he post-trial rulings of the United States Tax Court regarding their tax obligations for the 2004 tax year. Petitioners argued that the Tax Court erroneously concluded that (1) they filed a valid joint return, (2) the Internal Revenue Service issued a statutory notice of deficiency before the limitations period for a tax assessment under I.R.C. Sections 6501(a) and (c)(4) expired, (3) they owed a $28,836 penalty pursuant to I.R.C. Section 6651(a)(1) for filing a late tax return, and (4) they owed a $128,526 penalty pursuant to I.R.C. Section 6662 for filing an inaccurate tax return.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court held that the Tax Court did not clearly err in its finding that Petitioners intended to jointly file the Return. Further, the court wrote that the IRS issued the Deficiency Notice within the limitations period for the tax assessment. Moreover, the court held that Petitioners are subject to a $28,836 late-filing penalty under I.R.C. Section 6651(a)(1). Finally, the court held that Petitioners are subject to a $128,526 accuracy-related penalty under I.R.C. Section 6662. View "Soni v. Comm'r of Internal Revenue" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s judgment dismissing for failure to state a claim his suit against Defendant-Appellee New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS”) for attorneys’ fees and costs under 20 U.S.C. Section 1415(i)(3)(B)(i), the fee-shifting provision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”).   The Second Circuit reversed and remanded. The court explained that the relevant provision permits a court, in its discretion, to award reasonable attorneys’ fees and related costs to “a prevailing party who is the parent of a child with a disability.” 20 U.S.C. Section 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(I). The IDEA defines “parent” broadly to include, inter alia, foster parents, guardians, individuals “acting in the place of a natural or adoptive parent . . . with whom the child lives,” and “individual[s] who [are] legally responsible for the child’s welfare.” On de novo review, the court concluded that the IDEA permits a court to award fees and costs to J.S. as “an individual who is legally responsible for the child’s welfare” because, as an adult “child with a disability” and without representation by a guardian, natural parent, or appointed individual, he prevailed in his action on his own behalf seeking required educational services from DOCCS. View "J.S. v. DOCCS" on Justia Law