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

Appellant Spies petitioned for a rehearing on the court's decision in United States v. Nadirashvili where the court vacated appellant Solomonyan's sentence because the district court used the incorrect standard, preponderance of the evidence, in applying two offense level enhancements under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the involvement of: (i) 200 or more firearms, under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(1)(E); and (ii) a destructive device, under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(3)(A). The court found that the district court used the incorrect standard in applying the enhancements of appellants Spies and Kharabadze. Therefore, the court vacated their sentences and remanded for resentencing.

Defendant appealed from a judgment of the district court following his plea of guilty to a violation of the conditions of his supervised release. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court exceeded its authority by imposing a post-revocation term of supervised release that extended beyond the end-date of the originally imposed term of supervision. Therefore, defendant argued that his sentence was impermissible under Johnson v. United States. The court joined a number of other circuits in rejecting the approach urged by defendant where the court failed to see how the decision could be read to impose the limitation which defendant sought. In the alternative, defendant argued that the term of supervised release was a substantively unreasonable sentence. The court held that because this was not an exceptional case where the trial court's decision could not be located within the range of permissible decisions, the court found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a 59-month term of supervised release. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Defendants, moved the district court to dismiss plaintiff's complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that Mathew Trainor, a Fulton County Assistant District Attorney, was absolutely immune from plaintiff's claims. The court affirmed the district court to the extent it found Trainor absolutely immune from plaintiff's claim that Trainor violated her constitutional rights by making false statements in support of a material witness order. The court vacated and remanded the rest of the order and judgment because absolute immunity did not immunize prosecutors from liability for making defamatory statements to the press, accessing a person's voicemail without consent, or persuading a party to a conversation to record its contents; and, the district court should consider in the first instance whether Trainor was absolutely immune for continuing to withhold/preserve evidence - plaintiff's cell phone.

Defendant, former Majority Leader of the New York State Senate, appealed his conviction for honest services mail fraud, arising from defendant's failure to disclose conflicts of interest related to his receipt of substantial payments from individuals seeking to do business with the State. While defendant's appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Skilling, and held that 18 U.S.C. 346, the honest services statute, criminalized only fraudulent schemes effectuated through bribes or kickbacks and did not criminalize mere failures to disclose conflicts of interest. At issue was whether defendant could be retried under the standard announced in Skilling on certain counts. Although the court held that Skilling required the court to vacate the convictions on Counts Four and Eight, because the court's review of the record convinced it that the government adduced sufficient evidence under the Skilling standard, double jeopardy did not bar retrial on those two counts. The court also held that double jeopardy did not bar retrial on Count Three because, regardless of the sufficiency of the evidence, the Double Jeopardy Clause did not preclude a retrial on a charge that resulted in a hung jury. Accordingly, the court vacated the counts of conviction and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff, a New York state prisoner who practiced Rastafarianism, sued New York Department of Corrections officials, among others, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging inter alia that these two defendants infringed his rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by touching his dreadlocks without his consent. Following trial, a jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff but awarded him only $1.00 in actual damages. Plaintiff appealed from the part of an amended judgment awarding him $1.50 in attorney's fees and ordering defendants to pay $1.40 of the fee award. Plaintiff contended that the district court erred in concluding that the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e(d)(2), capped the maximum possible fee award in this case at 150 percent of the $1.00 monetary judgment. The court agreed with the district court and held that Section 1997e(d)(2) limited the possible award of attorney's fees in this case to 150 percent of the monetary judgment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the amended judgment.

Plaintiff, a purchaser of auction rate securities (ARS), brought a purported class action lawsuit against defendants, alleging that defendants engaged in a scheme to manipulate the ARS market in violation of securities laws. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint and the district court granted the motion on several grounds, including that defendants' disclosures of its auction practice precluded plaintiff's claim that these practices were manipulative. On appeal, plaintiff contended that this dismissal was in error. The court held that defendants' disclosures of its bidding practices precluded plaintiff's market manipulation claim. Because plaintiff had failed to satisfy the "manipulative acts" elements of his claim, the court need not address his arguments directed toward the other element of his claim or defendants' arguments that the court should affirm on alternative grounds. Accordingly, the district court's judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that two shoe lines manufactured by defendant infringed plaintiff's trademark. At issue was whether a trademark registrant's delivery of a covenant not to sue, and voluntary dismissal of its trademark claims, divested a federal court of subject matter jurisdiction over a defendant's counterclaims for a declaratory judgment and cancellation of the trademark's registration. After considering the breadth of plaintiff's covenant not to sue and the improbability of future infringement, the district court dismissed defendant's counterclaims because no case or controversy existed under Article III of the United States Constitution. The court agreed with the district court and affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiff, in his role as executor of the estate and personal representative of his wife, who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as in his individual capacity, filed suit alleging claims that arose from the events of that day, of assault and battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, conspiracy, wrongful death, and violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. 2333. Defendant subsequently appealed from an order denying without prejudice its motion to vacate entry of default and to dismiss the complaint. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiff's suit was properly considered under the noncommercial tort exception to foreign sovereign immunity provided by 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(5). Because factual issues persisted with respect to whether the Taliban's actions in allegedly agreeing to facilitate the September 11th attacks were properly considered to be the action of Afghanistan and as to whether any such actions were "discretionary" under section 1605(a)(5)(A), the court remanded the case for jurisdictional discovery as requested by Afghanistan in the district court.

Plaintiff appealed from a judgment of the district court granting defendant's motion to dismiss her complaint. On appeal, plaintiff principally contended that the dismissal of her claim brought pursuant to section 7434 of the Internal Revenue Code, a provision that created a civil damages remedy for the willful filing of fraudulent "information return[s]," was in error. The court held that plaintiff's allegations of an intentional failure to file required information returns did not state a claim under this provision, which by its terms required an allegation that a fraudulent information return was willfully filed by defendant. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment.

Appellants brought various claims before Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitrators against Ameriprise, a financial-services company, for, inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, fraud, and negligent misrepresentation related to the decline in value of various financial assets owned by appellants and managed by Ameriprise. Ameriprise answered appellants' FINRA complaint by asserting, principally, that appellants released their claims by operation of a settlement agreement in a class-action agreement suit that had proceeded between 2004 and 2007 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. After FINRA arbitrators denied Ameriprise's motion to stay appellants' arbitration, Ameriprise moved in the district court, in which the class action had been litigated and settled, for an order to enforce the settlement agreement that would enjoin appellants from pressing any of their claims before FINRA arbitrators. The district court concluded that the class settlement barred all of appellants' arbitration claims and therefore granted Ameriprise's motion and ordered appellants to dismiss their FINRA complaint with prejudice. The court held that the district court had the power to enter such an order and that several of appellants' arbitration claims were barred by the 2007 class-action settlement. Therefore, the court affirmed in part. But because the court concluded that appellants' arbitration complaint plead claims that were not, and could not have been, released by the class settlement, the court vacated in part the district court's judgment, and remanded the case for the entry of an order permitting the non-Released claims to proceed in FINRA arbitration. The court dismissed as moot appellants' appeal from the district court's denial of their motion for reconsideration.