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

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to DLC in an action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), seeking overtime compensation for former DLC drivers. The court held that the FLSA's overtime requirement did not apply to DLC's drivers because DLC was engaged in the business of operating taxicabs. The court reasoned that a taxicab was (1) a chauffeured passenger vehicle; (2) available for hire by individual members of the general public; (3) that has no fixed schedule, fixed route, or fixed termini. In this case, there was no genuine dispute that DLC's vehicles met this description and thus DLC's drivers were employed by an employer engaged in the business of operating taxicabs. View "Munoz-Gonzalez v. D.L.C. Limousine Services" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 108 month sentence for his role in a robbery and a firearms offense. The Second Circuit held that the two level enhancement for physically restraining a person during the robbery, pursuant to USSG 2B3.1(b)(4)(B), was not validly imposed. In this case, the undisputed facts, revealed by a surveillance videotape, showed that no one was "physically restrained" within the meaning of the applicable guideline during the robbery. Accordingly, the court remanded for recalculation of the sentencing range and for resentencing. View "United States v. St. Juste (Paul)" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence of failure to register as a sex offender in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2250, arguing that the district court modified his sentence by including in the written judgment a duty to submit to polygraph testing that was not mentioned during pronouncement of sentence. The Second Circuit remanded for entry of an amended judgment, holding that the inclusion of a duty to submit to polygraph testing was, in this case, an impermissible modification of the spoken sentence, from which those words were omitted, because polygraph testing was burdensome to defendant and not a necessary or invariable component of sex‐offender treatment. View "United States v. Washington" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit granted a petition for review of the Commissioner's decision adopting the Department of Appeals Board's (DAB) decision and imposition of an assessment and penalty for petitioner's failure to report work activity while receiving Social Security disability insurance (SSDI) benefits. Although the court agreed that petitioner's failure to report work activity was "material" and thus authorized the Commissioner to impose an assessment and penalty, the court held that the DAB lacked substantial evidence to support the amounts of the assessment and penalty it imposed. In this case, petitioner's earnings from work activity did not amount to "substantial gainful activity," he remained disabled while failing to report work activity, and the findings of fact on which the DAB relied established only that petitioner's work was "sporadic." Therefore, the court vacated the DAB's decision and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cappetta v. Commissioner of Social Security Administration" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for two counts of production of child pornography and four counts of possession of child pornography. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant; the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence of his prior conviction for Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree; and defendant's sentence of 360 months in prison and fifteen years of supervised release was substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Spoor" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's summary judgment in favor of the trustees of two union-affiliated employee benefit plans on her claims for relief pursuant to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's decision denying plaintiff's claim under section 502(a)(1)(B) of ERISA against the Pension Fund for benefits due, and held that the Pension Fund trustees correctly denied plaintiff's request for an augmented survivor benefit following her husband's death. In regard to plaintiff's section 502(a)(3) claim for breach of fiduciary duty, the court rejected the district court's reasoning that a plan administrator cannot be held liable for unintentional misrepresentations made about the plan's operation by its non‐fiduciary, "ministerial" agent. The court nonetheless affirmed the district court's denial of relief under section 502(a)(3) because the Pension Plan's summary plan description (SPD) adequately described the eligibility requirements for the benefits in question and thereby satisfied the trustees' fiduciary duty to provide complete and accurate information to plan participants and beneficiaries. Therefore, the court affirmed as to Case No. 16‐3549‐cv.The court reversed and remanded as to Case No. 16‐977‐cv, holding that there was an open question of material fact concerning whether the Welfare Fund trustees breached their fiduciary duty to provide plan participants with complete and accurate information about their benefits. View "In re: DeRogatis" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit granted a petition for review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's order of removal because petitioner had derivative citizenship from his citizen father. The court held that the temporary physical separation caused by petitioner's time in federal pretrial juvenile detention did not strip petitioner's father of his "physical custody" of petitioner as that term is used in 8 U.S.C. 1431(a), and therefore petitioner is a U.S. citizen.The court explained that the statutory context and history of the derivative citizenship statute indicate that the "physical custody" requirement ensures that the legal permanent resident child, such as petitioner, has a strong connection to the naturalizing parent and to the United States at the time the child becomes eligible for derivative citizenship. Furthermore, the applicable canons of statutory interpretation also favored construing the term "physical custody" so that such custody does not terminate upon a brief, temporary separation from a parent; and the distinctive nature of federal pretrial juvenile detention—which encourages continued family involvement with the child during such detention—further supports the conclusion that petitioner's father retained "physical custody" over him. View "Khalid v. Sessions" on Justia Law

Defendant, a union local president, appealed his conviction of racketeering conspiracy and Hobbs Act extortion conspiracy for his efforts to force non‐union contractors to hire union members. The Second Circuit reversed the count of conviction for Hobbs Act conspiracy, affirmed the count of conviction for racketeering conspiracy, and remanded for resentencing. The court held that an an Enmons‐like exception did not apply to New York Penal Law extortion; the wages defendant attempted to extort were "property" capable of being extorted; the district court's threat instruction was correct with respect to New York Penal Law extortion; but the Government failed to prove defendant's involvement in the charged Hobbs Act conspiracy. View "United States v. Kirsch" on Justia Law

Sports photographers filed suit seeking to recover damages on copyright, contract, and tort theories of liability after the NFL exploited thousands of their photographs without a license and without compensation. The photographers also brought an antitrust challenge alleging that the NFL and AP conspired to restrain trade in the market for commercial licenses of NFL event photographs. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim.The Second Circuit held that the photographers' allegations plausibly supported an inference that before the 2012 AP-NFL agreement was signed, AP had not granted the NFL a complimentary license to use the photographers' works, and the NFL knew it. The court vacated the photographers' claims for copyright infringement against AP and the NFL relating to the NFL's use of photographs from 2009 to present; claims for copyright infringement against AP, the NFL, and Replay relating to uses of the photographs in connection with the Replay Photo Store; claims for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing against AP; and claims for fraud against AP. The court affirmed in all other respects and remanded for further proceedings. View "Spinelli v. National Football League" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for using firearms in the commission of violent crimes. The court held that defendant's argument as to substantive Hobbs Act robbery was defeated by this court's post-Dimaya decision in United States v. Hill, 890 F.3d 51 (2d Cir. 2018), which held that substantive Hobbs Act robbery was a categorical crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3)(A). Defendant's argument as to conspiratorial Hobbs Act robbery failed for two reasons: first, circuit precedent has long recognized that a conspiracy to commit a crime of violence was itself a crime of violence, and Dimaya/Johnson warranted no different conclusion; and second, in any event, the section 924(c)(3) definitions of a crime of violence applied only to the predicate offense of a crime of pending prosecution, not a crime of prior conviction as in Dimaya and Johnson. View "United States v. Barrett" on Justia Law