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

Plaintiffs filed suit against the United States seeking enforcement of a settlement agreement. At issue was whether the actions taken by the district court in 1985 - verbally expressing approval of the settlement terms, dismissing the case on the merits in a brief order, and subsequently signing and so‐ordering the parties’ settlement agreement - sufficed to retain jurisdiction over the enforcement of the agreement. The court concluded that the district court did not have jurisdiction over the enforcement of the settlement agreement because the district court’s order of dismissal failed expressly to retain jurisdiction or to incorporate the terms of the agreement, and because the district court’s so‐ordering of the settlement agreement took place after the court had already relinquished jurisdiction over the case and was thus ineffective to retain it. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Hendrickson v. United States" on Justia Law

Hicks was a deckhand on a tugboat when, while handling heavy gear, he injured his shoulder. A company doctor determined that Hicks was not fit for duty. His employer acknowledged its obligation to pay maintenance and cure and medical expenses until full recovery, maximum improvement, or until his condition was declared permanent, 46 U.S.C. 30104 (Jones Act). Hicks had surgery and physical therapy. His employer hired an investigator to videotape Hicks surreptitiously. The video showed Hicks planting a small tree and playing with his grandson. When Hicks’s doctor requested funding for an MRI scan, he was shown this footage and told that Hicks’s job required only light lifting. The doctor determined that Hicks was fit for duty. The employer terminated payments. Hicks consulted a second doctor, who diagnosed a recurrent rotator cuff tear and recommended another surgery plus rehabilitation. Under financial pressure, Hicks returned to work and missed physical therapy. His house went into foreclosure, and he was unable to pay for health insurance. Hicks sued, claiming negligence under the Jones Act and the maritime doctrines of unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure. The jury awarded $190,000 for past and future maintenance and cure and $132,000 for pain and suffering. Based on a finding that the failure to pay was unreasonable and willful, Hicks was awarded $123,000 in punitive damages and $112,083.77 in attorney’s fees. The Second Circuit affirmed. View "Hicks v. Vane Line Bunkering, Inc." on Justia Law

Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC) sued Putnam Advisory for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and negligence, claiming that Putnam misrepresented its management of a collateralized debt obligation called Pyxis to induce FGIC to provide financial guaranty insurance for Pyxis. According to FGIC’s complaint, Putnam stated that it would select the collateral for Pyxis independently and in the interests of long investors (i.e., investors who profit when the investment succeeds), but in fact permitted the collateral selection and acquisition process to be controlled by a hedge fund that maintained significant short positions in Pyxis (i.e., investments that would pay off if Pyxis defaulted). Essentially, FGIC alleged that Putnam misrepresented the independence of its management of a structured finance product, which, upon default, caused FGIC millions of dollars in losses. The district court dismissed FGIC’s fraud claim on the ground that the complaint did not adequately plead loss causation and dismissed FGIC’s negligence claims on the ground that the complaint failed to allege a special or privity‐like relationship between FGIC and Putnam. The Second Circuit vacated, holding that FGIC sufficiently alleged both its fraud and negligence‐based claims. View "Fin. Guar. Ins. Co. v. Putnam Advisory Co., LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against media outlets after they accurately reported her arrest and charge for various drug-related offenses. Plaintiff claimed that the published articles, while factually true at the time of publication, became false and defamatory when her charges were nolled and the records of her arrest and prosecution erased under Connecticut's Criminal Records Erasure Statute, Conn. Gen. Stat. 54-142a. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants, concluding that the Erasure Statute does not render tortious historically accurate news accounts of an arrest. While reporting plaintiff's arrest without an update may not be as complete a story as plaintiff would like, it does not imply anything false about her. View "Martin v. Hearst Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against defendants under, inter alia, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. 1350, alleging that defendants took plaintiffs away from their families as children, falsely told them that their parents had died or abandoned them, and transported them to Australia. Plaintiffs' claims stem from an alleged "child migration" program undertaken after World War II as a part of a scheme to populate Australia with "pure white stock" from Britain and "working boys" from Malta. Plaintiffs and other children were made to work essentially as slaves for long hours without pay and were subject to extreme physical and, in some cases, sexual abuse. In light of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the court held that plaintiffs' claims under the ATS for violations of international law that occurred in Australia, except for human trafficking, must be dismissed as extraterritorial applications of the ATS. As for the human trafficking claim, plaintiffs' claim is barred by the statute of limitations. The court rejected plaintiffs' remaining arguments and affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Ellul v. Christian Brothers" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Wing F. Chau and his company, filed suit against author Michael Lewis, his source, Steven Eisman, and Lewis's publisher for twenty-six allegedly defamatory statements in Lewis's book "The Big Short." On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissal of each of plaintiffs' claims. The court concluded that the law of defamation in New York is predicated on the free exchange of ideas and viewpoints; that marketplace can wound one's pride - for words can offend or insult - but simple slights are not the stuff of defamation; and, in this case, Chau's feelings may be hurt but his claims were rightly dismissed by the district court. The court considered all of plaintiffs' contentions and found them without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Chau v. Lewis, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Crane, alleging that Crane, a supplier of shipboard equipment to the Navy, caused her husband to be exposed to asbestos during his service from 1974 to 1980 by failing to affix adequate asbestos warnings to the valves it supplied for the Navy's vessels. Crane removed the suit to federal court under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1442(a)(1). Plaintiff then moved to remand to state court and the district court granted the motion. The court concluded that Crane has provided evidence that the Navy issued detailed and comprehensive specifications regarding the production and packaging of its valves. Therefore, Crane has provided sufficient evidence to create a colorable federal defense at this preliminary stage. The court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "Cuomo v. Crane Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Iraqi women who were the victims of torture by agents of the Saddam Hussein regime or whose husbands were the victims of such torture, filed suit against Chevron and others, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Plaintiffs alleged that they suffered harms cognizable under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 (ATS), 28 U.S.C. 1350; the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 28 U.S.C. 1350 note.; and New York common law. Plaintiffs claimed that the defendant corporations aided and abetted the abuses of the Saddam Hussein regime by paying the regime kickbacks and other unlawful payments, which enabled the regime to survive and perpetrate the abuses suffered by plaintiffs or their husbands. The court held that the Supreme Court's decision in Mohammad v. Palestinian Authority indisputably forecloses plaintiffs' TVPA claims. The court concluded that it does not have jurisdiction over plaintiffs' ATS claims under the Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., or the court's holding in Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc. In this case, the complaint failed plausibly to plead that defendants' conduct related to aiding and abetting the alleged violations of customary international law was intentional, and accordingly, the conduct cannot state a claim for aiding and abetting liability under the ATS and cannot form the basis of the court's jurisdiction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Mastafa v. Chevron Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her coworker and her employer, LIRR, and others asserting violations of the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) and 42 U.S.C. 1983; state law claims of false arrest, malicious prosecution, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress; and violations of state and city human rights laws. On appeal, the coworker challenged the district court's award of damages to plaintiff on her claim of malicious prosecution. The incident leading up to the suit concerned the coworker's accusation that plaintiff touched her breast in the workplace parking lot. The court affirmed the district court's denial of the coworker's motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial on liability. The court concluded, however, that the jury's award of damages exceeded limits reasonably allowable in the district court's discretion. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's denial of the coworker's motion seeking a new trial on damages unless plaintiff accepted remittitur reducing the amount of the judgment. View "Stampf v. Trigg" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, cleaning workers who purportedly were exposed to toxic contaminants while working in buildings on the periphery of the World Trade Center site following the September 11, 2001, attacks, filed suit against defendants, owners of various buildings in lower Manhattan that were damaged or destroyed in the attacks. At issue on appeal are two district court orders: 1) the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing the claims of 211 plaintiffs who answered "none" to an interrogatory asking plaintiffs to identify "diagnosed" conditions, injuries, and diseases for which they were seeking recovery; and 2) the district court's dismissal of the claims of another 31 plaintiffs for failure to prosecute because they did not certify their interrogatory responses by a court ordered deadline. The court concluded that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to plaintiffs based solely on their answer "none" to the "diagnosed" condition interrogatory without considering the record as a whole. However, the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the claims of the 31 plaintiffs for failure to prosecute. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "In Re: World Trade Center Lower Manhattan Disaster Site Litig." on Justia Law