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

Plaintiff filed suit against JetBlue and its former employee, alleging federal and state law claims. Plaintiff's claims arose out of an encounter at JFK airport in which plaintiff was reported for making an alleged bomb threat and was then arrested by the FBI. Plaintiff had arrived at the gate after the boarding door was closed but her checked luggage was already on board. Unhappy with the situation, plaintiff made statements, or raised questions, about the possibility of a bomb in her luggage. The court agreed with the district court that defendants are immune from liability under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, 49 U.S.C. 44941. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Baez v. JetBlue Airways Corp." on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of criminal possession of a weapon, appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court issued a certificate of appealability on the issue of whether habeas relief is warranted on the ground that petitioner's Confrontation Clause right was violated by the state trial court’s order precluding petitioner from cross‐examining his wife, the main witness against him at trial, about her motive for testifying against him. The court concluded that the limitation imposed on petitioner’s ability to cross‐examine the key witness against him at trial was contrary to clearly established Supreme Court Confrontation Clause jurisprudence and the error was not harmless. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions. View "Nappi v. Yelich" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against a police officer under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and New York State law for false arrest. The officer arrested plaintiff for theft of services after she rebuffed his flirtatious advances, entered the back door of the bus she was intending to ride because the driver could not fix the stuck lift at the front entrance and told passengers to enter through the rear. When she was in line to swipe her MetroCard, the officer intercepted her and made her get off the bus. On appeal, plaintiff challenged portions of the district court's summary judgment order in favor of the officer on the false arrest claims. The court concluded that there is a genuine issue for a jury as to whether a reasonable officer in this officer's position could have had reasonable grounds to believe that she intended to commit, or was committing, theft of services and whether the officer had probable cause to arrest or reasonably hold the mistaken belief that he did. Therefore, the officer is not entitled to summary judgment on either the section 1983 or state law false arrest claims. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Simpson v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, physicians, filed suit against Cigna alleging that Cigna violated the anti-retaliation provisions of ERISA. Plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prohibit Cigna from terminating plaintiffs from its provider network. The district court denied the injunction and plaintiffs appealed. The court held that healthcare providers are not “beneficiaries” of an ERISA welfare plan by virtue of their in‐network status or their entitlement to payment. Patients may assign to their doctors the right to collect payment on their behalf in exchange for medical services, but the doctors in this case do not seek payment; instead, they seek to assert anti‐retaliation protections which were not assigned to them. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Henry L. Rojas, M.D. v. Cigna Health and Life Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a reimbursement action for a unilateral private placement under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., challenging the adequacy of the public school proposed by the school district for the placement of their child. The court found that the due process complaint’s challenges to the school were in fact substantive attacks on the child's individualized education plan (IEP) rather than prospective challenges to the school's capacity to provide the services mandated by the child's IEP. Therefore, the court agreed with the SRO and district court’s ultimate conclusions that the school district was not required to present evidence regarding the adequacy of the school at the impartial hearing, and the school district provided the child with a free appropriate education plan (FAPE). The court further clarified its decision in R.E. v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Educ., which imposes no such requirement. Consequently, plaintiffs are not entitled to reimbursement for their unilateral placement of the child in private school for the 2012 school year. The court affirmed the judgment. View "M.O. v. N.Y.C. Dep't of Educ." on Justia Law

The United States appealed the district court's order suppressing drugs and a firearm seized incident to defendant's arrest. The court concluded as a matter of law that the officers’ observations of defendant walking down a public street, carrying a beer‐sized can wrapped in a brown paper bag, which object he held in a cautious manner so as to avoid spillage, are articulable, objective facts that together provided reasonable suspicion to support a brief stop to investigate whether defendant was then violating a local open‐container ordinance. Therefore, defendant's ensuing arrest and the seizure of contraband incident thereto were not tainted by an unlawful stop warranting suppression of the seized items. The court reversed the suppression order and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Singletary" on Justia Law

The Creditors filed suit to recover losses incurred when subsidiaries of Hellas defaulted on notes valued at 1.3 billion euros. On appeal, the Creditors challenged the district court's affirmance of the bankruptcy court dismissing the Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy petitions filed by the Creditors against the Troy Entities; denying the Creditors’ motion to withdraw the reference to bankruptcy court; and affirming the July 18, 2013 opinion by the same bankruptcy court awarding the Troy Entities $513,427.16 in attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 15 303(i)(1). Determining that the court had jurisdiction, the court concluded that the Creditors knowingly and voluntarily consented to the bankruptcy court exercising its jurisdiction to award attorneys' fees and costs; the court rejected the Creditors' arguments challenging the bankruptcy court's conclusion that there is a bona fide dispute requiring dismissal of the involuntary petitions solely for the purpose of deciding whether there was a basis for the award of attorneys’ fees and costs; and the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees here. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Crest One SpA v. TPG Troy" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of access device fraud, appealed from the district court's judgment sentencing him to pay restitution both to his victims and to third-party providers of compensation for losses arising from his fraudulent activities. Because the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A, limits a defendant’s restitution amount to the actual losses suffered by his victims, and because third-party providers of compensation do not qualify as “victims” whose losses may expand the defendant’s restitution liability, the district court erred in ordering defendant to pay more in restitution than the victims’ actual losses. Therefore, the court vacated the restitution order and remanded for recalculation. View "United States v. Thompson" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's denial of his motion to reopen removal proceedings relating to his claim of derivative citizenship. Under the statute in effect when petitioner was born - the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the 1952 Act) - a child born abroad to an unwed citizen mother and non‐citizen father has citizenship at birth so long as the mother was present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of at least one year at some point prior to the child’s birth. A child born abroad to an unwed citizen father and non‐citizen mother has citizenship at birth only if the father was present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions prior to the child’s birth for a period or periods totaling at least ten years, with at least five of those years occurring after the age of fourteen. In this case, petitioner's father satisfied the requirements for transmitting citizenship applicable to unwed mothers but not the more stringent requirements applicable to unwed mothers. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the court concluded that the gender‐based distinction at the heart of the 1952 Act’s physical presence requirements is not substantially related to the achievement of a permissible, non‐stereotype‐based objective. The court saw no reason that unwed fathers need more time than unwed mothers in the United States prior to their child’s birth in order to assimilate the values that the statute seeks to ensure are passed on to citizen children born abroad. Conforming the immigration laws Congress enacted with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, the court concluded that petitioner is a citizen as of his birth. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Morales-Santana v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after he plead guilty to violating for the second time the conditions of his supervised release by associating with a convicted felon. Defendant spoke to a member of his sex offender treatment group in the subway after one of their group sessions. The court concluded that the district court failed to state a specific reason for the imposition of an above-Guidelines sentence. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Aldeen" on Justia Law