Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in April, 2011
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Plaintiff sued defendant in personam and also sued a number of defendant's vessels in rem for breach of contract when defendant failed to make payments due on four promissory notes held by plaintiff and on defendant's default on loan agreements to cover those notes. At issue was whether the district court properly granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment based on the determination that defendant's defenses were not assertable under Alabama law and that there were no genuine issues of material fact. The court affirmed summary judgment and held that the "entire agreement" clause in the Third Amended Loan Agreement between plaintiff and defendant defeated defendant's defenses of promissory and equitable estoppel.

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Defendant appealed from two counts of his four-count conviction for receipt and possession of child pornography after Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") seized several computers and hard drives belonging to defendant and discovered images and videos of child pornography. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction in Count I for "knowingly receiving" pornographic images under 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(2) and whether there was sufficient evidence at trial to support his conviction in Count 5 for possessing certain other images under section 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B). The court held that, given the evidence at trial, and especially the evidence that defendant repeatedly paid for members-only child pornography sites, the jury could have concluded that he paid for access to the child pornography site, entered a password and username to access the two videos at issue in Count I, and had them transmitted to his computer. The court also held that the government produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable juror to find that defendant knowingly downloaded the files at issue in Count 5 where it took into account the overwhelming evidence the government presented of defendant's involvement with child pornography.

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Maryland Casualty Company ("Maryland") sued Acceptance Indemnity Insurance Company ("Acceptance") when Acceptance refused to defend and indemnify its insured in an underlying lawsuit where Maryland and Acceptance had insurance policies with insured. At issue was whether the district court's order denying Acceptance's motion for a new trial was proper where Acceptance alleged issues concerning the jury's conclusions, jury charge, and subrogation. The court held that Midcontinent Insurance Co. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. did not bar Maryland's recovery where Acceptance absolutely refused to defend and indemnify its insured, Maryland's insurance policy created a right of contractual subrogation, and its settlements with the underlying lawsuit preserved its right to seek reimbursement from Acceptance for those indemnification costs. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Acceptance's proffered jury instruction and that there was evidence on the record to support the jury's verdict.

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Appellant, a Chapter 7 debtor, appealed the district court's order affirming the bankruptcy court's ruling that certain of his debts were nondischargeable under 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(4). At issue was whether loans obtained from a limited partnership that appellant managed in his capacity as officer and director of the partnership's corporate general partner were incurred through defalcation while acting as a fiduciary to the partnership. The court affirmed and held that even if the existence of the loans themselves were not a defalcation, the bankruptcy court did not err in further concluding that appellant recklessly breached his duty to the partnership by failing to protect against the increasing financial risk created by those loans by ensuring that the partnership perfected its liens on the pledged collateral, particularly when the failure accrued to his benefit.

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Petitioner, a Mexican citizen, appealed the Board of Immigration Appeal's ("BIA") decision affirming removal and ineligibility for cancellation of removal where petitioner voluntarily departed the country after being convicted for illegal entry in 1982 and subsequently reentered the United States illegally. At issue was whether petitioner's voluntary departure under the threat of deportation was the same as a departure under an order of deportation where a voluntary departure did not break continuous residence the way deportation did under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 8 U.S.C. 1255. The court affirmed the BIA's order and held that petitioner's absence was surely caused by the imminence of his deportation, even if deportation proceedings had not yet commenced against him; and therefore, petitioner's voluntary departure in lieu of deportation interrupted his alleged continuous residence as a matter of fact and law.

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Defendant appealed a restitution order when he plead guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and the district court ordered him to pay restitution to one of the children ("child") portrayed in the images he possessed. At issue was whether 18 U.S.C. 2259 included a proximate causation requirement and whether the restitution order exceeded the amount of the child's losses that his offense caused. The court held that the child was eligible for restitution as a "victim" of defendant's crime of possessing images of her abuse pursuant to section 2259(c) and that the other provisions of section 2259 did not require additional proof of causal connection between defendant's conduct and the child's recoverable losses. The court also vacated the order and remanded where it could not discern from the record any supportable rationale for the district court's order.

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Plaintiffs, a husband and wife, sued defendants alleging that defendants failed to keep its premises reasonably safe and failed to warn the husband of unknown dangers when the husband injured himself at defendants' store. At issue was whether summary judgment in favor of defendants was proper where the husband was injured while leaning on a chain hanging from defendants' premises during a grocery delivery the husband made to defendants' store. The court held that summary judgment was not proper where there were genuine issues of material fact regarding the reasonable safety of the chain and defendants' store, the defendants' failure to warn the husband of any danger, and the degree of fault attributed to the husband.

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Defendants, a husband and wife, filed a suit in federal court alleging that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi ("U.S. Attorney"), who prosecuted defendants for fraud, bribery, and tax evasion charges, violated 42 U.S.C. 1983 and statutes prohibiting government officials from releasing private tax records obtained in the course of their duties when he included defendants' federal tax records obtained during a criminal investigation in the complaint he filed with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance about the husband's conduct. At issue was whether prosecutorial immunity extended to a prosecutor's post-trial transfer of private federal tax records to a state ethics commission. The court held that the U.S. Attorney did not have prosecutorial immunity in this case where there was no case precedent extending immunity to post-trial conduct relating to a new action before a new tribunal and where the policies underlying prosecutorial immunity did not justify immunity in this context.

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Plaintiff, owner and operator of a hydroelectric station on a privately owned channel from the Mississippi River, sued defendant, operators of tug boats with barge tows, seeking damages for the value of the electrical power plaintiff was unable to generate due to the intrusion of defendant's barge. At issue was whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendant where plaintiff suffered damage to its property interest under Louisiana ex. rel. Guste v. M/V TESTBANK, which justified the recovery of economic damages. The court held that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendant where the entry of defendant's barge in plaintiff's privately owned hydroelectric facility caused physical damage to plaintiff's property and invasion of property interests.

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Plaintiffs, workers who were employed in cleaning up radioactive materials, alleged that they were harmed by excessive exposure to radiation at a Texas work site and brought a tort action in a New York state court against their employer and supervisors under the Price-Anderson Act, 42 U.S.C. 2011 ("Act") and Texas law. At issue was whether the district court erred in dismissing plaintiffs' bodily injury claims for failure to provide evidence that excessive radiation exposure at the cleanup site caused plaintiffs' injuries. Also at issue was whether the district court erred in dismissing plaintiffs' offensive contact claims based on the merits. Further at issue was whether plaintiffs' claims were compensable under the Act. The court held that the district court properly entered summary judgment for defendants on plaintiffs' bodily injury claims where plaintiffs' evidence was insufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether there was a causal connection between the radiation exposure and plaintiffs' claimed injuries. The court also held that the district court erred by holding that plaintiffs' offensive contact claims did not arise under federal law where those claims were part of a suit which was a public liability action. The court further held that plaintiffs may not recover on their offensive contact claims where such a recovery would be inconsistent with the Act when plaintiffs have not shown that their radiation exposure caused their alleged physical injuries and that their exposure constituted a nuclear incident.