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

COMMISA contracted with PEP to build oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. When the parties accused each other of breach of contract, COMMISA initiated arbitration proceedings, prevailed, and obtained an award of approximately $300 million. The district court then affirmed the award and PEP appealed, while simultaneously attacking the arbitral award in the Mexican courts. The court held that the Southern District properly exercised its discretion in confirming the award because giving effect to the subsequent nullification of the award in Mexico would run counter to United States public policy and would (in the operative phrasing) be “repugnant to fundamental notions of what is decent and just” in this country; PEP’s personal jurisdiction and venue objections are without merit; and the Southern District did not exceed its authority by including in its judgment $106 million attributed to performance bonds that PEP collected. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Corporacion Mexicana De Mantenimiento Integral v. Pemex-Exploracion" on Justia Law

Several active and former Assistant Urban Park Rangers (AUPRs) employed by the City's Parks Department alleged that they, and others similarly situated, were not paid in accordance with the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. The district court granted partial summary judgment for defendants and closed the case without further proceedings. The court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. On the current record, the court could not conclude as a matter of law that plaintiffsʹ donning and doffing of uniforms were not integral and indispensable to their principal activities as AUPRs - the sole ground on which the district court granted partial summary judgment. Therefore, the court remanded to allow the district court to decide, in the first instance, whether plaintiffsʹ donning and doffing are nevertheless non‐compensable as a matter of law under the de minimis doctrine or the terms of a collective bargaining agreement. The district court should also resolve the issues that defendants raise as to their entitlement to partial summary judgment on other aspects of plaintiffsʹ claims, which the district court's decision erroneously failed to reach.  Absent another appeal or additional motions by the parties that dispose of the action in its entirety, the case should then proceed to trial. View "Perez v. The City of New York" on Justia Law

Years after Steven Greenfield was implicated in tax evasion as a result of a document leak, the Government issued a summons for Greenfield’s records, including documents relating to all of Greenfield’s financial accounts and documents pertaining to the ownership and management of offshore entities controlled by Greenfield. Greenfield opposed production and moved to quash the summons based on his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The district court granted enforcement as to a subset of the records demanded by the summons. The court found that, for all but a small subset of the documents covered by the order, the Government has not demonstrated that it is a foregone conclusion that the documents existed, were in Greenfield’s control, and were authentic even in 2001. Second, the court found that the Government has failed to present any evidence that it was a foregone conclusion that any of the documents subject to the summons remained in Greenfield’s control through 2013, when the summons was issued. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order and remanded, because the Government has not made the showing that is necessary to render Greenfield’s production of the documents non-testimonial and, hence, exempt from Fifth Amendment challenge. View "United States v. Greenfield" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiring to distribute cocaine base, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and causing the death of Melissa Barratt. Defendant contends that the "pinging" of his cell phone was a search that violated the Fourth Amendment and that, as a result, the district court’s failure to suppress evidence recovered upon his arrest requires reversal of his conviction. In this case, officers investigating Barratt's death asked Sprint, defendant's cell-phone provider, to track the GPS coordinates of defendant's cell-phone over a two-hour period. The court found that the officers reasonably believed that defendant posed an exigent threat to the undercover officers and confidential informants involved in his drug operation. This threat justified the pinging of defendant's phone, a) which at most constituted a limited intrusion into his privacy interests, b) which objectively could be viewed as plausibly consistent with existing law, and c) which the officers used in the most limited way to achieve their necessary aim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Caraballo" on Justia Law

Respondents appealed the district court's grant of petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and order that petitioner be granted an individual bond hearing before an immigration judge. The district court found that petitioner's detention was governed by 8 U.S.C. 1226(a) and he was, therefore, entitled to a bond hearing. The court agreed, concluding that the language and structure of the statutes dictate the conclusion that petitioner’s detention during the pendency of his withholding‐only proceedings is detention pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1226(a). Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Guerra v. Shanahan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Columbia University student, appealed the dismissal of his amended complaint for failure to state a claim. Plaintiff alleged that the University violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., and state law, by acting with sex bias in investigating him and suspending him for an alleged sexual assault. The court concluded that the complaint meets the low standard described in Littlejohn v. City of New York, by alleging facts giving rise to a plausible minimal inference of bias sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss, which the court held applies to Title IX cases. In this case, the complaint alleged that both the investigator and the panel declined to seek out potential witnesses plaintiff had identified as sources of information favorable to him; the investigator and the panel failed to act in accordance with University procedures designed to protect accused students; and the investigator, the panel, and the reviewing Dean reached conclusions that were incorrect and contrary to the weight of the evidence. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Doe v. Columbia University" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a composer and music producer, filed a copyright suit against Sony, Razor Sharp Records, and Dennis Coles, a/k/a Ghostface Killah, to enforce plaintiff's claimed ownership rights in the "Iron Man" theme song. The district court determined that plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption that Marvel was, in fact, the copyright owner. Therefore, the district court dismissed plaintiff's New York common law claims for copyright infringement, unfair competition, and misappropriation on the basis that those claims were preempted by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. The court held that, although the district court properly determined that defendants had standing to raise a “work for hire” defense to plaintiff’s copyright infringement claim, the district court erred in concluding that plaintiff failed to raise issues of material fact with respect to his ownership of the copyright; the district court properly dismissed plaintiff’s state law claims as preempted by the Copyright Act; the court vacated the district court’s summary judgment ruling with respect to plaintiff’s Copyright Act claim and remanded for further proceedings; and the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's state law claims. View "Urbont v. Sony Music Entm't" on Justia Law

Defendant, a mobility‐impaired inmate who suffers from cerebral palsy and scoliosis, filed suit against DOCCS under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 29 U.S.C. 794, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief allowing him to use his motorized wheelchair within DOCCS facilities. The court held that the district court erred by granting summary judgment in favor of DOCCS because there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the mobility assistance program provides plaintiff meaningful access to DOCCS services and as to whether allowing him the use of his motorized wheelchair would unduly burden DOCCS. The court also held that DOCCS’s blanket ban on motorized wheelchairs - without an individualized inquiry into the risks of allowing a mobility‐impaired inmate to use his or her motorized wheelchair - violates the ADA and the RA. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "Wright v. New York State Dep’t of Corr." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of assaulting a federal officer and sentenced as a career offender principally to 180 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. The court concluded that, after the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson v. United States, a conviction for first‐degree robbery in New York is not in every instance a conviction for a “crime of violence.” Therefore, the district court plainly erred in sentencing defendant as a career offender based on its conclusion that a conviction for first‐degree robbery is necessarily a conviction for a “crime of violence” within the Career Offender Guideline. The court need not address defendant's argument that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs owned two convertible notes issued by SBAC. After converting the notes into equity and/or cash, plaintiffs filed a breach of contract claim, alleging that SBAC failed to pay the interest owed on the underlying notes following the conversion. Plaintiffs assert two identical causes of action: a breach of contract claim for each set of notes. The district court dismissed the claim with prejudice, holding that there was no reasonable interpretation of the underlying contract that entitled plaintiffs to both the benefits of the conversion and the final interest payment. The court held that SBAC’s refusal to pay plaintiffs the final interest payment did not constitute a failure to perform under the indentures. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Orchard Hill Master Fund v. SBAC Corp." on Justia Law