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

Petitioner, a citizen of Pakistan, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of less than two ounces of marihuana. At issue was whether a waiver was available where an applicant had been convicted of two separate offenses of possessing 30 grams or less of marihuana but had already received an 8 U.S.C. 1182(h) waiver relating to the first offense. The court held that based on the plain language of section 1182(h), the implausibility of petitioner's reading, and prior BIA and Fifth Circuit precedent, an alien who had been convicted of two or more offenses of simple possession of 30 grams or less of marihuana was ineligible for a 1182(h) waiver, regardless of whether he previously received a 1182(h) waiver related to one of his offenses. Therefore, the petition for review of the BIA's decision was denied.

Petitioner was convicted of capital murder, rape, and kidnapping and subsequently appealed the denial of his petition for habeas corpus. At issue was whether the trial court erroneously allowed the prosecution to submit to the jury an aggravating circumstance without sufficient evidentiary support in violation of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Also at issue was whether the trial court erred during the sentencing phase of defendant's trial by excluding relevant mitigating evidence in violation of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The court held that although the "great risk of death" aggravating circumstance was improperly applied to defendant, the error was harmless. The court also held that the trial court's exclusion of a self-made videotape as mitigating evidence was not objectively unreasonable in light of the clearly established constitutional precedent. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief.

Jefferson Block submitted a claim under the London OPA Insurance Policy for Offshore Facilities (OPA Policy) for indemnification of the removal costs it incurred in responding to a pipeline leak. Underwriters denied the claim and Jefferson filed suit against Underwriters in district court, alleging that Underwriters wrongfully refused to indemnify it for oil pollution removal costs. The court held that the district court erred when it refused to apply the contra-insurer rule where the OPA Policy was ambiguous with respect to the issue of coverage for Jefferson Block's 16-inch pipeline and extrinsic evidence in the record did not conclusively resolve this ambiguity. Therefore, the court held that, since Jefferson Block offered a reasonable interpretation of the policy and did not completely draft the ambiguous provisions of the OPA Policy, the contra-insurer rule should apply and the ambiguity should be resolved in favor of the insured, Jefferson Block.

Plaintiff was a secretary of G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. during his service as a district judge until Porteous was impeached and the Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit suspended Porteous's authority to employ staff, which resulted in plaintiff's termination. Plaintiff sued the Judicial Council and fifteen of its members seeking declaratory relief, reinstatement to her position, monetary relief, and attorney's fees and costs. Plaintiff subsequently appealed the district court's order insofar as it dismissed her claims against the members of the Judicial Council. The court held that plaintiff lacked prudential standing to bring her constitutional challenge to the Judicial Council's action. The court rejected plaintiff's claim that the ultra vires exception applied to sovereign immunity where her claims for injunctive relief were moot in light of Porteous's removal from office; claims for back pay and retirement credits were barred by sovereign immunity; and plaintiff lacked the necessary injury-in-fact to pursue declaratory relief. The court also held that even if plaintiff had standing to seek declaratory relief, she had not pleaded a sufficient claim of ultra vires action by the Judicial Council to overcome the jurisdictional bar of sovereign immunity. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Petitioner appealed the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 application as an unauthorized successive habeas petition. Under the AEDPA, a certificate of appealability (COA) was necessary to proceed with this appeal. However, the district court did not rule upon whether a COA was warranted and the "lack of a ruling on a COA in the district court cause[d] this court to be without jurisdiction to consider the appeal." Accordingly, the court remanded to the district court to consider in the first instance whether to grant or deny a COA.

In this design defect case, Hyundai appealed a jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs after their daughter sustained fatal injuries in an automobile accident. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to have found that a design defect in the front passenger seat and the restraint system was the producing cause of the daughter's injuries. The court held that the facts and inferences in this case did not point so overwhelmingly in favor of Hyundai such that any reasonable jury would have been obligated to reach a verdict in it's favor. Accordingly, the court applied the deferential standard of review required when examining jury verdicts and affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiffs filed suit in district court against the United States, alleging negligence in record-keeping and the administration of a certain life insurance policy. Plaintiffs subsequently appealed from the district court's order granting the United States' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held that plaintiffs did exhaust its administrative remedies, but its claim arose out of a misrepresentation and was barred by the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671.

The bankruptcy court issued an order that authorized the debtor to reimburse qualified bidders for expenses incurred in connection with the sale of a substantial asset of the debtor's estate. Debtor and debtor's parent companies subsequently appealed the bankruptcy court's reimbursement order. As a preliminary matter, the court held that it had jurisdiction over the appeal where, in settling this "discrete dispute," the reimbursement order was sufficiently separable from the rest of the bankruptcy proceeding to be appealable as a "final" order under 28 U.S.C. 158(a) and (d). The court also held that, based on the record, the bankruptcy court did not err in issuing the reimbursement order under the business judgment standard in section 363(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

This appeal arose from an earlier trial relating to the Enron scandal. The government alleged that Enron loaned out the stake in the barges that it owned off the Nigerian coast to Merill Lynch, risk-free and with a guaranteed return, but made it seem like a sale so that it could book a pretend profit. Defendant, a managing director at Merrill Lynch and the head of its Strategic Asset and Lease Finance group at the time of the transaction, challenged his convictions related to the sale on the grounds that the government violated his right to due process by withholding materially favorable evidence that it possessed pre-trial. The court affirmed and held that the district court did not clearly err in holding that the evidence at issue was not material.

This case arose when debtor, a former firefighter, and his wife, filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, but failed to disclose on their bankruptcy schedules either his judgment against the City of Arlington (an asset of the estate) or his associated legal fees (a liability of the estate). At issue was whether judicial estoppel barred a blameless bankruptcy trustee from pursuing a judgment that the debtor, having concealed the judgment during bankruptcy, was himself estopped from pursuing. The court held that it did not. The court concluded that this result upheld the purpose of judicial estoppel, which in this context was to protect the integrity of the bankruptcy process, by adhering to basic tenets of bankruptcy law and by preserving the assets of the bankruptcy estate for equitable distribution to the estate's innocent creditors.