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

Defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's application of a six-level enhancement under USSG 2B1.1(b)(2)(C) because the offense involved 250 or more victims, and a four-level enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(a) because defendant was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive. The court concluded that defendant's sentence is procedurally reasonable and the district court properly applied the enhancements at issue. The court remanded for the limited purpose of allowing the district court to amend the written judgment to conform it to the oral sentence. The court otherwise affirmed. View "United States v. Jesrum" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's application of a six-level enhancement under USSG 2B1.1(b)(2)(C) because the offense involved 250 or more victims, and a four-level enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(a) because defendant was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive. The court concluded that defendant's sentence is procedurally reasonable and the district court properly applied the enhancements at issue. The court remanded for the limited purpose of allowing the district court to amend the written judgment to conform it to the oral sentence. The court otherwise affirmed. View "United States v. Jesrum" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, asserting various First and Fourth Amendment claims. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his action with prejudice. The district court ordered the dismissal based on plaintiff's failure to seek timely reinstatement following a conditional dismissal order the district court entered to effectuate a then‐pending settlement agreement, which one defendant refused to join. Plaintiff also appealed, separately and on the merits, the district court’s earlier order, dated January 9, 2013, which granted a motion for partial summary judgment in favor of three of the defendants. The court concluded that the passage of 69 days before requesting reinstatement, standing alone, does not justify the extreme sanction of involuntary dismissal. Moreover, defendants suffered no prejudice from plaintiff's delay. Therefore, the district court abused its discretion in dismissing plaintiff's action and therefore, the court vacated the dismissal and remanded for further proceedings. The motion of defendants to strike portions of plaintiff's brief and appendices is moot, and their motion for damages is denied. View "Hoefer v. Bd. of Educ. of Middletown" on Justia Law

Appellee Flo & Eddie, Inc. filed suit against Appellant Sirius on behalf of itself and a class of owners of pre-1972 recordings, asserting claims for common-law copyright infringement and unfair competition under New York law. Specifically, Appellee alleged that Appellant infringed Appellee’s copyright in The Turtles’ recordings by broadcasting and making internal reproductions of the recordings (e.g., library, buffer and cache copes) to facilitate its broadcasts. Because this case presents a significant and unresolved issue of New York copyright law, the court certified the following question to the New York Court of Appeals: Is there a right of public performance for creators of sound recordings under New York law and, if so, what is the nature and scope of that right? View "Flo & Eddie, Inc. v. Sirius XM Radio, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Pfizer and others, alleging violations of federal securities laws because Pfizer made fraudulent misrepresentations and fraudulently omitted to disclose information regarding the safety of two of its drugs, Celebrex (celecoxib) and Bextra (valdecoxib). On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the district court abused its discretion in excluding the testimony of plaintiffs' expert regarding loss causation and damages. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion by excluding the expert's testimony in its entirety; the district court erred in concluding that the expert needed to disaggregate the effects of Pfizer’s allegedly fraudulent conduct from Searle’s or Pharmacia’s, regardless of whether Pfizer is ultimately found liable for the latters’ statements; the testimony could have been helpful to the jury even without such disaggregation; as to the expert's adjustment to the price increases, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that this change was not sufficiently reliable to be presented to a jury; the expert's error did not render the remainder of his testimony unreliable and the district court should have prevented him from testifying about the adjustment, but otherwise allowed him to present his findings on loss causation and damages; the district court erred in concluding, as a matter of law, that Pfizer had insufficient authority over certain Searle and Pharmacia statements as to have “made” them; but, however, the court's finding that the district court abused its discretion in excluding the expert's testimony does not turn on the question of Pfizer’s ultimate liability for these statements. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment for Pfizer and remanded. View "In re Pfizer Inc. Securities Litigation" on Justia Law

Congress empowered the Department of Labor to issue rules and regulations governing claims procedures for employee benefit plans under Sections 503 and 505 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1133, 1135. The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut held that, when exercising discretionary authority to deny a claim for benefits, a plan’s failure to establish or follow reasonable claims procedures in accordance with the regulation entitles the claimant to de novo review of the claim in federal court, unless the plan “substantially complied” with the regulation, in which case an arbitrary and capricious standard applies to the federal court’s review of the claim. The district court further held that a plan’s failure to follow the Department’s regulation results in unspecified civil penalties. The court disagreed, holding that, when denying a claim for benefits, a plan’s failure to comply with the Department of Labor’s claims‐procedure regulation, 29 C.F.R. 2560.503‐1, will result in that claim being reviewed de novo in federal court, unless the plan has otherwise established procedures in full conformity with the regulation and can show that its failure to comply with the regulation in the processing of a particular claim was inadvertent and harmless; civil penalties are not available to a participant or beneficiary for a plan’s failure to comply with the claims‐procedure regulation; and a plan’s failure to comply with the claims‐procedure regulation may, in the district court’s discretion, constitute good cause warranting the introduction of additional evidence outside the administrative record. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Halo v. Yale Health Plan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of qualified immunity to Defendant Police Officer Patterson. The district court dismissed plaintiff's claim against Patterson by reason of his having seized her for psychiatric evaluation based on her supposed dangerousness to her son. The court found that the record of evidence of what happened consists only of the terse notes of the CPS caseworkers, and those notes lack indicia of, or specific observations substantiating, plaintiff’s “dangerousness". Nor do they show that Patterson reasonably relied on communications from CPS caseworker Jodi Weitzman or others in making the seizure. Moreover, and notably, there is no statement by Patterson in the record. Therefore, without evidence regarding the grounds of Patterson's decision, the court is unable to determine whether his actions were contrary to clearly established law. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further expansion of the record as to the basis on which the arrest was made, and for reevaluation of Patterson’s entitlement to qualified immunity on the basis of an expanded record. View "Johnson v. Patterson" on Justia Law

This case originated in a sex‐discrimination lawsuit by plaintiffs against their former employer, Lyons. Interested party-appellant Garrison appealed various factual determinations made by the district court in granting a motion to enforce a judgment. The court concluded that the district court properly construed plaintiffs’ motion pursuant to New York Civil Practice Law and Rules 5225 as a plenary action pursuant to New York’s substantive law of fraudulent transfers. In this case, the district court found that the book of business at issue was in fact transferred to Garrison, that the book of business was worth at least $300,000, that it originally belonged to LPS (not Lyons), and that LPS itself received no consideration for the transfer. The court concluded that the district court did not err, much less clearly err, in making these factual findings. View "Mitchell v. Garrison Protective Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against defendants, alleging securities fraud in violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78j(b), Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. 78t(a), and Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b‐5, 17 C.F.R. 240.10b‐5. Plaintiffs alleged material misstatements and omissions in SAIC’s public filings regarding its exposure to liability for employee fraud in connection with SAIC’s contract work for New York City’s CityTime project. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's denial of their motion to vacate the judgment and to amend the complaint. The court disagreed with the district court’s conclusion that amending the complaint to include the Financial Accounting Standard No. 5 (FAS 5) and Item 303 of the SEC Regulation S-K claims based on the March 2011 10‐K would be futile. Because the district court improperly denied plaintiffs' postjudgment motion to amend their FAS 5 and Item 303 claims, the court vacated the district court's order as to those claims and remanded for further proceedings. The court affirmed as to the remaining claims. View "Indiana. Pub. Ret. Sys. v. SAIC, Inc." on Justia Law

The district court granted petitioner's request for the return of his son, the son whose custody he and respondent shared in Singapore, and the court affirmed. In this appeal, petitioner seeks an order directing respondent to pay the necessary expenses related to his successful petition under the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), 22 U.S.C. 9007(b)(3). The district court ordered respondent to pay petitioner $283,066.62. The court concluded that the record demonstrated that petitioner committed intimate partner violence against respondent and respondent did not commit any violence against petitioner. Although the district court was correct in considering this unilateral intimate partner violence as a relevant equitable factor, the district court erred in its assessment of the relationship between the intimate partner violence and respondent's decision to remove the child from the country of habitual residence and thus erred in its weighing of the equitable factors. Because respondent established that petitioner had committed multiple, unilateral acts of intimate partner violence against her, and that her removal of the child from the habitual country was related to that violence, an award of expenses to petitioner, given the absence of countervailing equitable factors, is clearly inappropriate. Accordingly, the court reversed and vacated. View "Souratgar v. Fair" on Justia Law