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

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff's motions to proceed in forma pauperis in three appeals challenging judgments under the three-strikes provision of 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), denial of leave to bring suit in forma pauperis, dismissal of his complaint without prejudice to his filing a new action with payment of the filing fee, and barring him from filing future actions in forma pauperis while a prisoner unless he was under imminent threat of serious physical injury. The court held that plaintiff had more than three strikes and has not met section 1915(g)'s exception to application of the three-strikes rule, and thus denied his arguments to the contrary. View "Akassy v. Hardy" on Justia Law

This appeal involved an intra‐family dispute over who owns a residential house. The Second Circuit held that the district court properly granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on the pleadings with respect to plaintiffs' adverse possession claim where the affirmative complaint did not contain any affirmative facts that plaintiffs did anything that constituted a distinct assertion of a right hostile to defendants. However, with regard to the constructive trust claim, the court held that there may be a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether an implied promise was made and as to whether defendants' refusal to honor this promise unjustly enriched them. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Jaffer v. Hirji" on Justia Law

28 U.S.C. 2255 jurisdiction does not reach the restitution part of a sentence where, as here, the restitution cannot be deemed custodial punishment. It is not the amount of restitution alone but, rather, the terms of payment that identify those rare cases in which a restitution order might equate to custodial punishment. The Second Circuit held that, because the challenged judgments in this case contemplate the payment of restitution on schedules yet to be set by the district court, defendants could not show on the present record that their restitution obligations were custodial punishments for purposes of section 2255 review. Therefore, the court vacated the judgments reducing restitution and remanded for reinstatement of original judgments. View "United States v. Rutigliano" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's personal injury claims against more than fifty corporate defendants, holding that the district court abused its discretion in invoking the equitable doctrine of judicial estoppel to dismiss her claims. In this case, Defendant Boeing argued that plaintiff's failure to disclose her husband's mesothelioma diagnosis during bankruptcy barred the personal injury claims related to the diagnosis. Plaintiff's husband passed away during the pendency of the appeal. The court held that the principles of equity required the courts to entertain plaintiff's personal injury claims where nothing in the record suggested that she withheld her husband's diagnosis from the bankruptcy court in an effort to game the bankruptcy system. View "Clark v. Advanced Composites Group" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of defendant's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss an action challenging a Connecticut law imposing recycling fees on electronics manufacturers. VIZIO alleged that Connecticut's E-Waste Law effectively regulated interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause. The court analyzed the claim through a "well-worn path," N.Y. Pet Welfare Ass'n, Inc. v. City of New York, 850 F.3d 79, 89 (2d Cir. 2017), and held that VIZIO failed to articulate entitlement to relief under this familiar rubric. The court declined to extend the extraterritoriality doctrine in such a way as to prohibit laws that merely consider out‐of‐state activity, did not apply the user fee analysis to VIZIO's case, and found no burden on interstate commerce that was clearly excessive to the considerable public benefits conferred by Connecticut's E‐Waste Law. View "VIZIO, Inc. v. Klee" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, five Korean citizens, filed suit alleging that Tower Research Capital, a New York based high‐frequency trading firm, and its founder injured them and others by engaging in manipulative "spoofing" transactions on the Korea Exchange (KRX) night market in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 U.S.C. 1 et seq., and New York law. The Second Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of the action, holding that plaintiffs' allegations make it plausible that the trades at issue were "domestic transactions" under the court's precedent, and thus the court did not agree that application of the CEA to defendants' alleged conduct would be an impermissible extraterritorial application of the Act. Furthermore, the court held that plaintiffs have brought a claim for unjust enrichment where New York unjust enrichment claims did not require a direct relationship between the plaintiff and defendant. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Choi v. Tower Research Capital LLC" on Justia Law

A collection notice that fails to disclose that interest and fees are not currently accruing on a debt is not misleading within the meaning of Section 1692e of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for Financial Recovery Services (FRS) in an action alleging that debt collection notices plaintiff received were "misleading" in violation of Section 1692 because the notices did not indicate whether their debts were accruing interest and fees. The court held that if a collection notice correctly states a consumer's balance without mentioning interest or fees, and no such interest or fees are accruing, then the notice will neither be misleading within the meaning of Section 1692e, nor fail to state accurately the amount of the debt under Section 1692g. If instead the notice contains no mention of interest or fees, and they are accruing, then the notice will run afoul of the requirements of both Section 1692e and Section 1692g. View "Taylor v. Financial Recovery Services, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit seeking enforcement of an English judgment against defendant for failure to tender payment under a freight-derivative contract and asserted admiralty jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1333(1). The Second Circuit vacated the district court's holding that admiralty jurisdiction did not exist. The court held that, considering plaintiff's identity as a shipping business together with the substance of the agreement, the agreement's principal objective was to further plaintiff's shipping business. Therefore, the court held that the agreement was a maritime contract subject to federal‐court jurisdiction under section 1333(1). The court remanded for further proceedings. View "d'Amico Dry Ltd. v. Primera Maritime (Hellas) Ltd." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, sought review of the BIA's dismissal of his appeal from an IJ's order of removal and denial of his application for deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Second Circuit denied the petition insofar as petitioner challenged his conviction-based removal on the ground that, in determining whether his federal narcotics conviction rendered him removable, the agency was required to apply a "time‐of‐decision" rule and to compare his statute of conviction to the version of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 801 et seq., in effect during his removal proceedings. The court granted the petition to the extent that petitioner urged that the agency committed legal error in denying his application for deferral of removal under the CAT. View "Doe v. Sessions" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a claim alleging that the New York State Thruway Authority violated the Dormant Commerce Clause when it used surplus revenue from highway tolls to fund the State of New York's canal system. The court held that Congress evinced an "unmistakably clear" intent to authorize the Thruway Authority to depart from the strictures of the Dormant Commerce Clause by allocating surplus highway toll revenues to New York's Canal System. The court explained that Congress placed no limits on the amount of such surplus highway toll revenue that the Thruway Authority could allocate to the Canal System. Finally, the court held that the district court had discretion to reach the merits of the Thruway Authority's defense that Congress had authorized it to devote surplus highway toll revenues to the Canal System. View "American Trucking Ass'ns, Inc. v. N.Y. State Thruway Authority" on Justia Law