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

Plaintiff filed suit in Texas district court against Mabe after plaintiff was involved in a car accident with a truck owned by Mabe and operated by a Mabe employee. The accident occurred in Louisiana, a few miles from its border with Texas. Although the Texas district court concluded that Mabe lacked sufficient contacts with Texas to subject the company to personal jurisdiction in the state, the Texas district court found that it was in the interests of justice not to dismiss the case and instead transferred it to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, which was the federal district court sitting in the district in which the accident occurred. The Louisiana federal district court concluded that plaintiff's claims were time-barred and granted summary judgment for Mabe.The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded, concluding that 28 U.S.C. 1631 is an on-point federal statute that does not conflict with the Louisiana Civil Code Articles and that would preempt any contrary Louisiana law, rule, or practice under the Supremacy Clause, and the Erie doctrine provides no reason to avoid the statute's application. Therefore, the statute can and must govern the court's determination of when and where plaintiff is considered to have filed this action. Applying section 1631, the court accepted that, as far as it was concerned, plaintiff is deemed to have filed his suit in the Western District of Louisiana on November 22, 2016, the date he actually filed suit in the Eastern District of Texas. Accordingly, for the court's purposes, plaintiff must be deemed to have filed his claim "in a court of competent jurisdiction and venue" on that date and thereby interrupted the one-year prescriptive period under Louisiana law, rendering his claim timely. The court concluded that the Louisiana district court erred by granting Mabe summary judgment on the basis that plaintiff's claim had prescribed. View "Franco v. Mabe Trucking, Co., Inc." on Justia Law

After LAPIA terminated defendant's employment, it filed suit against him in state court seeking damages for disparaging comments defendant allegedly made about the company while soliciting his former clients, as well as an injunction enforcing a non-compete clause in defendant's employment contract. Defendant counterclaimed, seeking to recover unpaid commissions, and then removed the case to federal court. For nearly two years, LAPIA failed to file an answer to defendant's counterclaims, only finally seeking leave to file the document after the parties had fully briefed cross summary judgment motions. The district court accepted LAPIA's answer without explanation, then granted the company summary judgment based on a new defense theory that had been raised for the first time in LAPIA’s belated answer.The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to LAPIA and its denial of defendant's motion for partial summary judgment, because LAPIA failed to demonstrate that its failure to initially file an answer was the product of "excusable neglect," as is required to obtain an extension of time once a filing period has elapsed under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "L.A. Public Insurance Adjusters, Inc. v. Nelson" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that an IRS transfer certificate is not necessary to transfer ownership of her account with Fidelity. The district court sua sponte dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that such a declaration would necessarily involve a determination with respect to federal taxes.The Fifth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the Declaratory Judgment Act's federal-tax exception is a jurisdictional condition, requiring dismissal, rather than a nonjurisdictional condition, which may be waived. In this case, because the requested relief—declaring that plaintiff was not required to provide a transfer certificate to Fidelity—necessarily involves a determination with respect to federal taxes, the district court properly dismissed her action for lack of jurisdiction. View "Rivero v. Fidelity Investments, Inc." on Justia Law

Bulkley is a Texas company that transports refrigerated goods interstate. After a Bulkley truck driver was injured while delivering goods to a customer in California, the Department of Industrial Relations cited Bulkley and assessed penalties for three violations of California health and safety law. Bulkley pursued administrative appeals in California, disputing the Department's authority to require Bulkley to comply with California law. Bulkley lost and has since filed two lawsuits challenging the Department's authority.The Fifth Circuit addressed personal jurisdiction before subject matter jurisdiction because: (1) Bulkley contests subject-matter jurisdiction without analyzing it, (2) the district court expressed reservations regarding subject matter jurisdiction in Bulkley I without explaining them, and (3) the court's precedents squarely address the personal jurisdiction question in this case. The court concluded that the Department's action of sending a letter to Bulkley in Texas, regarding penalties and inspections related to violations of California law, did not create minimum contacts that establish personal jurisdiction in Texas courts. Therefore, the Department lacks minimum contacts establishing personal jurisdiction in Texas. The court declined to reach the Department's alternative argument that the Texas long-arm statute does not apply to out-of-state officials. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Bulkley & Associates, LLC v. Department of Industrial Relations" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on remand against Midwestern. Contrary to Midwestern's argument that the Fifth Circuit also remanded a separate claim of unjust enrichment, the court's opinion expressly stated that it only reinstate Midwestern Cattle's money had and received claim. Likewise, the court's decretal language reversed as to only one claim and one remedy, not also a second, separate claim.Midwestern also finds fault in the district court's disposition of the money-had-and-received claim that the Fifth Circuit did remand. The court rejected Midwestern's Seventh Amendment claim and concluded that, even for actions at law, the Supreme Court has long held that summary judgment does not violate the Seventh Amendment. In this case, the court found no error in the district court's attentive weighing of the relevant considerations and grant of summary judgment on the unclean-hands defense. View "Midwestern Cattle Marketing, LLC v. Legend Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to deny IEVM's motion to compel arbitration and to enter judgment for UEG. The court concluded that the parties failed to contract around the general rule that courts resolve litigation-conduct waivers. Therefore, the arbitrators exceeded their authority in resolving the issue here.Applying the substantial invocation analysis, the court concluded that IEVM substantially invoked the judicial process to UEG's detriment. In this case, IEVM sued UEG in state court without saying anything about arbitration; demanded a jury trial and paid the required fee; filed a motion to remand the action to state court and appealed the district court's denial of that motion; vigorously defended the existence of personal jurisdiction in Texas and appealed the district court's personal jurisdiction dismissal; and sought rehearing en banc after this court affirmed the district court's removal and jurisdictional holdings. Furthermore, UEG has made the requisite showing of prejudice where, among other things, IEVM's persistent pursuit of litigation required UEG to defend its interests, and UEG incurred significant fees and costs. View "International Energy Ventures Management, LLC v. United Energy Group, Ltd." on Justia Law

Alliance and Coalition are nonprofit organizations that endorse political candidates in New Orleans. Alliance filed suit against Coalition, seeking to enjoin use of its trade name and logo for federal trademark infringement under the Lanham Act, state trademark infringement, and unfair trade practices. The district court subsequently joined Darleen Jacobs as a third party to the case.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's award of attorney's fees to Alliance for federal trademark infringement under the Lanham Act. The court concluded that the district court's procedure for joining Jacobs met the demands of due process, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding her directly liable for the fee award. The court found it appropriate to extend the interpretation of the Patent Act fee-shifting provision to its interpretation of the Lanham Act and found that district courts do have the authority to award appellate fees under the Lanham Act. The court concluded that the district court's decision to award fees for further litigation of the attorney's fee award did not contravene the mandate rule; even if appellants are correct that Alliance's billing entries are flawed, the proper remedy is "a reduction of the award by a percentage intended to substitute for the exercise of billing judgment," which the district court did; and the district court considered each of appellants' objections to Alliance's fees motion. Finally, the court declined to address appellants' First Amendment argument, which was not addressed in Alliance I. View "Alliance for Good Government v. Coalition for Better Government" on Justia Law

AAAPC and UAS filed suit against Quest for conspiring to force them out of the market of providing allergy and asthma testing. The district court dismissed plaintiffs' claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).The Fifth Circuit concluded that plaintiffs' claims alleging that Quest violated sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and the Texas antitrust law are not time-barred. The court explained that plaintiffs' allegations about Phadia and Quest's continued meetings with providers and payors do not restart the statute of limitations; plaintiffs' allegations regarding the June 2015 policy change does not suffice to restart the statute of limitations; but plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that Phadia and Quest were involved in the alleged conspiracy and that the allegation regarding Phadia's May 2014 email reset the statute of limitations. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal as to the state and federal antitrust claims. The court also reversed the dismissal of plaintiffs' misappropriation of trade secrets claim, concluding that plaintiffs have sufficiently pled they could not have discovered their misappropriation injury using reasonable diligence. Moreover, nothing in the complaint forecloses their potential rejoinder to the statute of limitations defense. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the civil conspiracy and tortious interference claims. Finally, the court affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' request for leave to amend their complaint. View "Academy of Allergy & Asthma in Primary Care v. Quest Diagnostics, Inc." on Justia Law

NYK Line, a company incorporated and headquartered in Japan, chartered a ship that collided with a U.S. Navy destroyer in Japanese territorial waters, killing seven sailors and injuring at least forty others. Two sets of plaintiffs filed suit against NYK Line: the Douglass plaintiffs are personal representatives of the seven U.S. sailors killed and the Alcide plaintiffs represent those injured in the collision and their family members.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the consolidated actions based on lack of personal jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2). The court first concluded that personal jurisdiction is only proper in this case if the Fifth Amendment due process test is satisfied. The court followed Patterson v. Aker Sols., Inc., 826 F.3d 231, 233 (5th Cir. 2016), and its application of Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014), in addressing whether the district court could constitutionally exercise personal jurisdiction over NYK Line, and agreed with the district court that it could not. Bound by the rule of orderliness, the court agreed with the district court that personal jurisdiction over NYK Line cannot be constitutionally established under existing Fifth Circuit precedent. In this case, NYK Line's contacts with the United States represent a small portion of its contacts worldwide and its American employees represent less than 1.5 percent of all employees. The court explained that, although NYK Line has considerable contacts with the United States, these are not so substantial and of such a nature that NYK Line is essentially rendered at home in the United States. View "Douglass v. Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Mann Hospitality, owner of the Sunset Inn in Caldwell, Texas, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), alleging that the inn's information, posted on third-party booking websites, failed to identify rooms accessible to disabled persons like her.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's suit based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction where plaintiff failed to show the necessary concrete interest to support standing. In this case, plaintiff had no definite plans to travel to the Sunset Inn or anywhere else in Texas. Nor does she allege she tried, or intends to try, to book a room at the Sunset Inn. The court vacated the district court's award of attorneys' fees to Mann under 28 U.S.C. 1919, concluding that the district court erred in doing so because section 1919 authorizes "just costs" but not attorneys' fees. View "Laufer v. Mann Hospitality, LLC" on Justia Law