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

This case arose after the Republic of Argentina defaulted on sovereign debt in 2001 and numerous bondholders, including plaintiff, filed a class action suit. In this appeal, Argentina challenged the district court's grant of plaintiff's motion to modify the class definition by removing the continuous holder requirement and expanding the class to all holders of beneficial interests in the relevant bond series without limitations as to time held. In this case, the features of the bonds make the modified class insufficiently definite as a matter of law.  Although the class as originally defined by the district court may have presented difficult questions of calculating damages, it did not suffer from a lack of ascertainability. The court concluded that the district court erred in attempting to address those questions by introducing an ascertainability defect into the class definition. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on damages. View "Brecher v. Republic of Argentina" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, current and former employees of the State of Vermont, filed suit against the State, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. Plaintiffs first filed suit in state court and defendants removed to federal district court. The district court subsequently granted defendants' motion to dismiss. The court concluded that, while defendants may, by removing the action, have waived their Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in a federal forum, defendants have not expressly waived Vermont’s general sovereign immunity from private FLSA suit, and their litigation conduct does not constitute such a waiver. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Beaulieu v. State of Vermont" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Gaming Commission and others, alleging that the Commission did not act in accordance with federal law in approving an ordinance and subsequent amendments to that ordinance that permitted the Seneca Nation to operate a class III gaming facility - a casino - on land owned by the Seneca Nation in Buffalo. The court held that the district court correctly dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint in CACGEC III because the DOI and the NIGC’s determination that the Buffalo Parcel is eligible for class III gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), 25 U.S.C. 2701–2721, was not arbitrary or capricious, an abuse of discretion, or in violation of law; Congress intended the Buffalo Parcel to be subject to tribal jurisdiction, as required for the land to be eligible for gaming under IGRA; and IGRA Section 20’s prohibition of gaming on trust lands acquired after IGRA’s enactment in 1988, 25 U.S.C. 2719(a), does not apply to the Buffalo Parcel. Because the gaming ordinances at issue in the first two lawsuits (CACGEC I and CACGEC II) have been superseded by the most recent amended ordinance, the appeals of CACGEC I and CACGEC II are moot. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court in CACGEC III and dismissed the appeals of CACGEC I and CACGEC II. View "Citizens Against Casino Gambling in Erie Cnty. v. Chaudhuri" on Justia Law

The Government appealed the district court's dismissal of an indictment against defendant and denial of its motion for reconsideration. Defendant was indicted for violation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250(a). The district court held that defendant did not violate section 2250(a) because defendant was not “required to register” until shortly before his release from custody and thus after the interstate travel charged in the Indictment. The court reversed and remanded, concluding that defendant was a person “required to register” under SORNA beginning at the latest on August 1, 2008, the effective date of the Attorney General’s final guidelines. This date arrived well before his alleged travel from Pennsylvania to New York. The district court thus erred in concluding that defendant became a person “required to register” under SORNA only after traveling interstate. View "United States v. Gundy" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of burglary charges, appealed the district court's judgment adopting the Report and Recommendation of a magistrate judge denying his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court agreed with petitioner that the district court erred in deferring to the state court’s determination that he failed to preserve his ineffective assistance of counsel claim by not raising it on direct appeal in his state court proceedings. The court also concluded that, upon further development of the factual record, petitioner may be able to demonstrate constitutionally unreasonable performance of his counsel during the plea process. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Fulton v. Graham" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants, a former prosecutor and a former audit-investigator, alleging that defendants deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial by intentionally manipulating the information contained on spreadsheet summary charts before they were presented to the grand jury in order to create the false impression that plaintiff billed Medicaid for dental services that he did not provide. The jury rendered a verdict in plaintiff's favor and the district court subsequently denied defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law and motion for a new trial. The court concluded that the actions of defendants upon which plaintiff bases his claims were the knowing creation of false or misleading evidence by a government officer acting in an investigative capacity; the court has held that such activity by a government official qualifies as an unconstitutional deprivation of the victimʹs rights; moreover, this was clearly established at the time of defendantsʹ conduct; and therefore, defendants not entitled to qualified immunity. The court further concluded that defendants waived their general‐verdict rule argument and are therefore not entitled to a new trial despite the district courtʹs conclusion that one of the three factual bases for the juryʹs conclusion as to liability was insufficiently substantiated by the evidence presented at trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Morse v. Fusto" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's summary judgment dismissal of his suit against defendants. At issue is the whistleblower protection provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 111-203, Title IX, 922(a), 124 Stat. 1376, 1841, which added section 21F to the Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78u-6. The SEC issued a regulation to clarify that, for the purposes of the employment retaliation protections provided by Section 21F, an individuals's status as a whistleblower does not depend on adherence to the reporting procedures specified in Exchange Act Rule 21F-9(a). The court concluded that, under SEC Rule 21F-2(b)(1), plaintiff is entitled to pursue Dodd-Frank remedies for alleged retaliation after his report of wrongdoing to his employer, despite not having reported to the Commission before his termination. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings. On remand, the district court will have an opportunity to consider the R&R’s recommendation to dismiss, without prejudice to amendment, for lack of a sufficient allegation of a termination entitled to Dodd-Frank protection, and any other arguments made by defendants in support of their motion to dismiss. View "Berman v. Neo@Ogilvy LLC" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court concluded that the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3162(a)(2), was violated when the district court allowed eleven months of unexcluded time to accumulate while defendant remained in custody with his suppression motion under advisement. In light of the seriousness of the Speedy Trial Act violation in this case, the absence of any explanation beyond mere administrative neglect weighs in favor of dismissal with prejudice; the sheer length of delay at issue here was presumptively prejudicial; and, given the extended administrative neglect by the district court and the government in allowing the case to stagnate for almost a year while defendant was incarcerated, the court concluded that the government’s interest in administering justice by prosecuting defendant’s firearms offenses is outweighed by the impact that permitting reprosecution would have on the administration of justice and of the Speedy Trial Act. Accordingly, the district court's determination to order dismissal of defendant's indictment without prejudice was an abuse of discretion. The court reversed the conviction and dismissed the indictment with prejudice. View "United States v. Bert" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and New York state law, against the City, the Police Department, and two Police Department employees, alleging constitutional and tortious injuries resulting from the use of physical force to eject him from the Albany City Court. The district court dismissed the complaint. Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his claims against Officer Blesser, in his individual capacity. The court concluded that, while the law in this circuit holds that an order to depart a public place that allows a person to go anywhere else he wishes does not, without more, effect a Fourth Amendment seizure, under Sheppard v. Beerman, where, as here, a plaintiff alleges that the ordering official used physical force intentionally to restrain plaintiff and control his movements, the officer’s conduct may or may not be reasonable, but the Fourth Amendment claim cannot be dismissed for failure plausibly to plead seizure. The court concluded, however, that plaintiff's First Amendment claim was correctly dismissed because he has not alleged either his engagement in expressive conduct or any impairment of his access to judicial records, plaintiff's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim was correctly dismissed because defendant Blesser’s alleged conduct falls well within the ambit of a traditional battery claim. Accordingly, the court vacated in part and affirmed in all other respects, remanding for further proceedings. View "Salmon v. Blesser" on Justia Law

In these appeals and cross-appeals, the taxpayers claim they are entitled to tax credits associated with foreign transactions that the government disallowed because it contends the transactions lacked economic substance. The court rejected AIGʹs contention that foreign tax credits, by their nature, are not reviewable for economic substance; in determining whether a transaction lacks economic substance, the court considered: (a) whether the taxpayer had an objectively reasonable expectation of profit, apart from tax benefits, from the transaction; and (b) whether the taxpayer had a subjective non‐tax business purpose in entering the transaction; the court concluded, as a matter of first impression in this Circuit, that foreign taxes are economic costs and should thus be deducted when calculating pre‐tax profit; the court also concluded that it is appropriate, in calculating pre‐tax profit, for a court both to include the foreign taxes paid and to exclude the foreign tax credits claimed; under the subjective prong, a court asks whether the taxpayer has a legitimate, non‐tax business purpose for entering into the transaction; as to AIGʹs transactions, the court held that there are unresolved material questions of fact regarding the objective factors and subjective business purpose for entering the cross-border transactions; as to BNYʹs transactions, the court held that the Tax Court correctly concluded that the Structured Trust Advantaged Repackaged Securities loan product (STARS) trust transaction lacked economic substance; and the court also held that the Tax Court did not err in concluding that the $1.5 billion loan from Barclays had independent economic substance, and that BNY was therefore entitled to deduct the associated interest expenses. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment in its entirety. View "Bank of N.Y. Mellon v. Commissioner" on Justia Law