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

Defendant and his co-defendant were convicted of charges related to their involvement in a scheme to defraud homeowners, home buyers, and mortgage lenders. Defendant appealed his sentence, challenging the district court's calculation of the loss amount and its application of the sentencing enhancement for "mass-marketing." In light of the court's precedent, the court could not say that the district court erred by employing an intended loss calculation and declining to account for the collateral's value, especially given the district court's factual findings that defendants did not intend to repay the mortgage loans here. The court also held that the district court did not err in imposing the mass-marketing enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(ii) where defendants used advertisements in newspapers that circulated to thousands of people and potentially more through online viewing. While defendants could have phrased their advertisements to sell one house to one person, they solicited thousands of potential buyers in order to find the one buyer for each property. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Morrison" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of aggravated rape in 1980. Texas paroled him in 2004, but he returned to prison in 2006 after violating a condition of his release. Defendant subsequently obtained a certificate of appealability on the issue of whether his street-time should have been restored because he was erroneously released to parole. The court held that because defendant had no protected liberty interest in the street-time credit that he claimed to have accrued, his due-process right was not violated. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of his habeas petition. View "Rhodes, Jr. v. Thaler" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Davila and Duarte appealed the district court's dismissal with prejudice of their claims brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b) and 3671, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, and 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiffs' claims arose out of two incidents, a checkpoint search and felony traffic stop. The court reversed the district court's dismissal of Davila's FTCA claim against the government arising out of his January 7, 2009 interrogation and arrest because the detention-of-goods exception did not apply to Davila's claim of false imprisonment as alleged in Count 2 of his complaint. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims against the NSPS Rangers arising out of the Big Bend traffic stop (Count 5 and 6) and affirmed the district court's dismissal of all four FTCA claims arising out of the Big Bend traffic stop (Counts 7, 9, and 10). View "Davila, et al v. United States, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Luminant, his employer, alleging several unlawful employment practices. The jury agreed with plaintiff that plaintiff's complaints motivated Luminant's decision to discipline him. The jury also found, however, that Luminant proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it would have made the "same decision" irrespective of his complaints. The district court entered judgment in Luminant's favor and taxed all costs against plaintiff. Plaintiff moved to retax costs and sought an award of attorney's fees. The court held that 42 U.S.C. 2000e-5(g)(2)(B)(i) authorized cost-and-fee-shifting only for violations of section 2000e-2(m). Retaliation did not violate section 2000e-2(m). Consequently, the district court correctly decided that section 2000e-5(g)(2)(B)(i) did not authorize cost-and-fee-shifting. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Carter v. Luminant Power Services Co." on Justia Law

Defendants, parents of a minor child who filed an unsuccessful administrative complaint against the school district, asserted that the district court's denial of attorneys' fees to the school district in turn rendered defendants prevailing parties. The court affirmed, however, the district court's denial of attorneys' fees to defendants because defeating a request for attorneys' fees was not the type of success on the merits required to establish prevailing party status. View "Alief Indep. Sch. Dist v. C. C." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Texas state prisoner of Muslim faith, filed a pro se complaint against TDCJ pursuant to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc-5, and 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff claimed that TDCJ violated RLUIPA and his constitutional rights by prohibiting him from wearing a beard and from wearing a white head covering, known as a Kufi, to and from worship services. The district court granted declaratory and injunctive relief in favor of plaintiff to the extent that TDCJ's policy prohibited him from wearing a quarter-inch beard. TDCJ appealed. As a preliminary matter, the court held that the district court did not violate Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a)(1), which required that the district court find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately. On the merits, the court held that TDCJ had not satisfied its burden of showing that the no-beard policy was the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling interests of controlling costs and in security by promoting easy identification of inmates. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Garner v. Kennedy, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant challenged his conviction for distribution of child pornography, arguing that he did not "distribute" child pornography by storing images in a shared folder accessible on a peer-to-peer computer network. Considering that defendant was a computer technician with computer experience, he affirmatively downloaded the LimeWare program, he maintained 144 videos of child pornography in his shared folder, he knew that others could access the materials stored in his shared folder, and a law enforcement officer actually downloaded one such video, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to support a finding that defendant distributed child pornography under 18 U.S.C. 2254(a)(2)(B). Any error in calculating the total offense level was harmless, given the district court's clear statements that it would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the correctness in the calculation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Richardson, IV" on Justia Law

Appellant, a former TWL employee, commenced a class action adversary proceeding within TWL's bankruptcy suit, alleging violations of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, 29 U.S.C. 2101-2109. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court's order denying appellant's related motion for class certification and dismissed the adversary proceeding. Because the reasons for the bankruptcy court's order were unclear, the court vacated in toto the orders and remanded to the district court to remand to the bankruptcy court for reconsideration. The court expressed no view as to the outcome the bankruptcy court should reach on remand in reconsidering appellant's motion for reclassification and the Trustee's motion to dismiss the adversary proceeding. View "Teta v. TWL Corp., et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, arguing pro se, appealed the district court's summary judgment on his racial discrimination claims against Huntington. The court granted Huntington's motion to summarily dismiss the appeal because plaintiff's appellate brief failed reasonably to comply with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28, which required a statement of issues presented for review. View "Davison v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc." on Justia Law