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

Tru-Art appealed the district court's order denying its motion for interest and costs. After a jury trial, the district court entered judgment for Tru-Art. On appeal, this court affirmed the finding of liability, vacated the damages award, and remanded for a new trial on damages or, in the alternative, for the district court to offer Tru-Art a remittitur. Tru-Art chose a remittitur and then filed a motion for costs as well as prejudgment and postjudgment interest. The court affirmed the district court's denial of interests and costs, finding that Tru-Art's motion for prejudgment interest was untimely under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and that Tru‐Art waived its claim for costs pursuant to Local Civil Rule 54.1 of the Eastern District of New York. The court vacated the district court's order to the extent it denied postjudgment interest pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1961, remanding for the district court to calculate and award such interest. View "Tru-Art Sign Co., Inc. v. Local 137 Sheet Metal Workers Int'l Ass'n" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Ecuador, sought review of the BIA's order affirming the IJ's finding of removeability based on his unlawful entry into the United States. Petitioner, an unaccompanied juvenile of 17, entered the country without inspection to live with his mother. At issue was whether either the Fifth Amendment's due process clause or the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment required consideration and weighing of the proportionality of removal against the grounds for removability. The court held that no such consideration was necessary because removal was not punitive and no fair considerations were present in this case. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Marin-Marin v. Sessions" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants under the Americans with Disabilities Education Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq.; and state and local law. Plaintiff alleged that he was discriminated against at his workplace due to, inter alia, his HIV‐positive status and his failure to conform to gender stereotypes. The district court dismissed the federal claims for failure to state a claim and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state and local claims. The district court concluded that Simonton v. Runyon and Dawson v. Bumble & Bumble, holding that Title VII does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, precluded plaintiff's Title VII claim. The court concluded that it lacked power to reconsider Simonton and Dawson. The court concluded, however, that the district court erred by determining that plaintiff failed to plausibly allege a Title VII claim based on the gender stereotyping theory of sex discrimination articulated in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. In this case, plaintiff's complaint identified multiple instances of gender stereotyping discrimination. The court clarified that gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals do not have less protection under Price Waterhouse against traditional gender stereotype discrimination than do heterosexual individuals. Simonton and Dawson merely held that being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, standing alone, does not constitute nonconformity with a gender stereotype that can give rise to a cognizable gender stereotyping claim. Accordingly, the court reversed the dismissal of the Title VII claim and remanded. The court affirmed in all other respects. View "Christiansen v. Omnicom Group, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under 26 U.S.C. 7431 against the IRS, after the IRS sent a report containing plaintiffs' names, social security numbers, and financial information to the wrong person. The government conceded liability and acknowledged that plaintiffs were entitled to $1,000 each in statutory damages for the disclosure of the report. Plaintiffs argued, however, that they were entitled to statutory damages of $1,000 not just for the disclosure of the report but for the disclosure of each item of information contained in the report. Plaintiffs also sought punitive damages. The district court granted the government's motion for summary judgment. The court found no ambiguity in the statute, and held that the statute clearly provided an aggrieved taxpayer $1,000 in statutory damages for ʺeach actʺ of unauthorized disclosure, not for each item of information disclosed. To the extent that there was any doubt, the court explained that it must resolve the matter in favor of the government. In regard to punitive damages, the court agreed with the district court that no reasonable jury could find, on the record presented, that the disclosure resulted from anything other than ordinary negligence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Minda v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the constitutionality of a collection of New York regulations and laws that together prevent for‐profit law firms from accepting capital investment from non‐lawyers. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to allege the infringement of any cognizable constitutional right. On de novo review, the court concluded that neither as a for-profit partnership nor as a professional limited liability company do plaintiffs have the associational or petition rights that they claim. Even if the court were to assume, given the evolving nature of commercial speech protections, that they possess First Amendment interests, the regulations at issue here were adequately supported by state interests and have too little effect on the attorney‐client relationship to be viewed as imposing an unlawful burden on plaintiffs' constitutional interests. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Jacoby & Meyers v. The Presiding Justices of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Departments" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction of one count of embezzling funds from her company's 401(k) plan, and the forfeiture order entered against her. The court affirmed the conviction in a summary order issued contemporaneously with this opinion. At issue here was the amount of defendant's forfeiture order. The court held that mandatory criminal forfeiture amounts may not be reduced by the amount of restitution in the absence of specific statutory authorization for such an offset. Because the district court lacked the discretion to reduce defendant's forfeiture order in this case, the court affirmed as to this issue. View "United States v. Bodouva" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who suffers from a fear of needles (trypanophobia), filed suit against Rite Aid, alleging violation of his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., after he was terminated from his position as a pharmacist because he could not comply with the company's policy that required pharmacists to administer immunization injections to customers. On appeal, Rite Aid challenged the district court's award of substantial damages to plaintiff after a jury trial. Both parties appealed the district court's post-trial order that dismissed plaintiff's failure-to-accommodate claim, granted a new trial unless plaintiff agreed to a remittitur (later accepted), substantially granted plaintiff's claims for interest, and denied defendant's motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on plaintiff's wrongful discharge and retaliation claims. The court explained that because performing immunization injections was an essential job requirement and plaintiff presented no evidence of a reasonable accommodation that would have allowed him to perform immunizations at the time of his dismissal, no juror could reasonably conclude that plaintiff was "qualified to perform the essential functions of his job, with or without reasonable accommodation." Therefore, the court reversed the post-trial denial of the JMOL on plaintiff's federal and state wrongful termination and retaliation claims, affirmed the dismissal of the failure-to-accommodate claim; and remanded for entry of a revised judgment in favor of Rite Aid. View "Stevens v. Rite Aid Corp." on Justia Law

Petitioner and the Government cross-appealed the tax court's orders relating to petitioner's underreporting of income in his 2003 tax return, principally in connection with a $2 million payment he received from Delta Currency Trading for his role in a now-defunct tax shelter scheme. While petitioner's deficiency proceeding was pending losses reported by Mercato - a partnership of which petitioner was a member - were disallowed in a partnership tax proceeding. The tax court held that it lacked jurisdiction over the added income tax deficiency because I.R.C. 6230 required the Commissioner to apply the results of the Mercato proceeding to petitioner by computational adjustment, rather than in his deficiency proceeding. The tax court also held that petitioner owed the self-employment tax and corresponding penalty. The court held that the tax court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction over the additional income‐tax deficiency attributable to the $2 million Delta payment; section 6751(b)(1) requires written approval of the initial penalty determination no later than the date the IRS issues the notice of deficiency (or files an answer or amended answer) asserting such penalty; and compliance with section 6751(b) is part of the Commissioner's burden of production and proof in a deficiency case in which a penalty is asserted. Therefore, the court vacated the tax court's jurisdictional ruling; remanded to the tax court to enter a revised decision upholding the additional income-tax deficiency, because petitioner concedes that the $2 million payment was fully taxable; affirmed the portion of the tax court's order upholding the self-employment tax deficiency; and reversed the portion of the tax court's order upholding the accuracy-related penalty. View "Chai v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

Petitioner, born in the Dominican Republic to unwed parents and admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, sought review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's finding that petitioner was ineligible for derivative citizenship and denial of petitioner's motion to terminate removal proceedings. Petitioner argued that he became a U.S. citizen derivatively when his father was naturalized in 1980, when petitioner was eleven years old. The court agreed with the IJ and BIA that petitioner was not a "child" eligible for derivative citizenship because he was not "legitimated" within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1432(a). In this case, the elimination of legal distinctions between children born in and out of wedlock under Dominican law did not occur before petitioner's sixteenth birthday. Furthermore, petitioner failed to identify any legal authority suggesting that New York has eliminated all legal distinctions between children based on the marital status of their parents. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petition for review. View "Gil v. Sessions" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted, among other crimes, of coercing and enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. The court held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress incriminating statements he made to law enforcement because he was not in custody at the time he made the statements; Federal Rule of Evidence 413 does not violate the Due Process Clause; and the district court did not err by permitting the government to introduce portions of four videos that showed defendant committing prior sexual assaults on two minor girls. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Schaffer" on Justia Law