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

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed a case involving the question of whether the federal Title X program preempts a Texas law that gives parents the right to consent to their teenagers’ obtaining contraceptives. Alexander Deanda, a father raising his children according to Christian beliefs, challenged the Secretary of Health and Human Services' administration of Title X, which funds clinics providing contraceptives to minors without parental notification or consent. Deanda contested this on the grounds that it nullifies his right to consent to his children's medical care, infringing on his state-created right. The court held that Title X does not preempt Texas's law. The statute does not preempt Deanda's parental right to consent to his children's obtaining contraceptives because Title X's goal (encouraging family participation in teens’ receiving family planning services) is not undermined by Texas's goal (empowering parents to consent to their teen’s receiving contraceptives). Instead, the two laws reinforce each other. The court affirmed the district court’s judgment to the extent it declared that Title X does not preempt Texas's parental consent law. However, the court reversed the partial vacatur of a regulation which forbids Title X grantees from notifying parents or obtaining their consent, as the regulation was not challenged by Deanda under the Administrative Procedure Act or otherwise. View "Deanda v. Becerra" on Justia Law

In this case, Miguel Angel Ortega, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, appealed the application of a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice. The enhancement was based on a conversation he had with his wife regarding a letter of support she was writing for his sentencing proceeding. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated Ortega's sentence and remanded for resentencing.The court reasoned that Ortega's conduct, i.e., advising his wife about what to say in her letter to the court and in her statement at the sentencing hearing, did not constitute obstruction of justice. The government had argued that Ortega was unlawfully influencing a witness's testimony and directing his wife to attribute his conduct to drug addiction, which she lacked personal knowledge of. However, the court found no evidence that Ortega urged his wife to provide false or misleading information. It also noted that the facts Ortega instructed his wife to include in her statement were all supported by the factual record.The court clarified that the obstruction-of-justice enhancement applies if: (1) the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and (2) the obstructive conduct related to (A) the defendant’s offense of conviction and any relevant conduct; or (B) a closely related offense.In this case, the court concluded, the government failed to show that Ortega's conduct met these requirements. Therefore, the court vacated Ortega's sentence and remanded the case for resentencing without the obstruction-of-justice enhancement. View "USA v. Ortega" on Justia Law

In a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Jessica Banks sued the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) for removing her four-year-old son R.B. from her custody without parental consent or a court order, alleging violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court denied DFPS's motion for summary judgment, finding that its employees were not entitled to qualified immunity as they had violated clearly established law.DFPS appealed the decision, but the appellate court affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court found that the removal of R.B. violated the constitutional rights of both the child and Banks, as there were no exigent circumstances that justified a warrantless removal from his mother. The court emphasized that the mere possibility of danger in the future was not enough to constitute exigent circumstances. The court also held that the law was clearly established that removing a child from their home without consent, a court order, or exigent circumstances was a constitutional violation.However, the court reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity for Linda Juarez, an Investigation Supervisor at DFPS. The court ruled that Juarez was not the ultimate decision-maker and was not actively involved in the decision to remove R.B., thereby entitling her to qualified immunity. View "Banks v. Herbrich" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and Defendant had two children together. After the couple separated, the children remained in Mexico with Galaviz. In July 2021, Defendant took the children to El Paso and refused to return them. Plaintiff filed an action in the district court requesting the return of the children to Mexico under the Hague Convention. Defendant raised two affirmative defenses claiming that returning the children would violate their fundamental right to an education and would expose them to a grave risk of harm or an intolerable situation. The district court concluded that Defendant had satisfied his burden and denied Plaintiff’s request for the return of the children. Plaintiff appealed.   The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded. The court explained that in the present case, the district court’s findings regarding the children’s healthcare, including the children’s cognitive decline, the fact that they remained non-verbal, or their regression to using diapers, may be supported by evidence that would be sufficient in a custody dispute. However, this evidence falls short of meeting Defendant’s clear and convincing burden. Finally, Defendant presented no evidence that unsuitable childcare would expose the children to a grave risk of harm. He merely expressed concern that Plaintiff often left the children with her older daughters, and they did not take care of the children. This is not clear and convincing evidence of a grave risk of harm. View "Galaviz v. Reyes" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit in federal court against his ex-wife, two state judges, and several others under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. The district court sua sponte dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, pointing to related state court proceedings pending on appeal.   On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court erred in dismissing his suit under Rooker-Feldman because the relevant state-court cases were pending on appeal when he filed this lawsuit. The Fifth Circuit agreed and reversed the district court’s judgment finding. The court explained that in denying Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, the district court relied on Hale and the court’s unpublished Houston decision.” The court concluded that Hale is no longer good law after Exxon Mobil and hold that Rooker-Feldman is inapplicable where a state appeal is pending when the federal suit is filed. The court further reasoned that the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that Rooker-Feldman is a “narrow” jurisdictional bar. It applies only to cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments. View "Miller v. Dunn" on Justia Law

Harm is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, currently residing in Ireland. Lake-Harm is a U.S. citizen, currently living in New Orleans. The couple was married in the U.S.; their daughter, SLH, was born in the U.S. in 2017. Lake-Harm was a musician and traveled extensively. Harm alleged that SLH was abducted by Lake-Harm from Ireland in 2019. The three had been living in Ireland to obtain European Union residency for Lake-Harm and SLH. Harm initiated a custody suit in the U.S.Under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the country in which a child maintains her “habitual residence” almost always has jurisdiction to decide a custody dispute between the parents. If a child moves to a new country but her presence there is deemed “transitory,” the country in which the child habitually resided before the move remains the child’s habitual residence. The district court applied the “totality-of-the-circumstances” analysis in determining that SLH’s habitual residence was in the U.S. and that her residence in Ireland was transitory. The Fifth Circuit affirmed. Despite “the increase of SLH’s parents’ center of gravity in Ireland,” the district court followed the Supreme Court’s precedent in Hague Convention cases and did not commit clear error in determining and weighing the operative facts. View "Harm v. Lake-Harm" on Justia Law

Father filed suit under the Hague Convention, alleging that mother wrongfully removed their children from Argentina to Texas. While this appeal was pending, the Supreme Court held in Monasky v. Taglieri, 140 S. Ct. 719, 730 (2020), that the correct approach to habitual residence is to examine the totality of the circumstances.The Fifth Circuit applied the totality-of-the circumstances standard established in Monasky to the district court's findings and held that the totality of the circumstances shows that the children did not habitually reside in Argentina. In this case, the district court found, among other things, that both parents and all the children were born in the United States and continued to be United States citizens; father's work contract in Argentina was at-will; mother continued to own property in Texas; the children attended an American school in Argentina; and none of the parties owned any property in Argentina. View "Smith v. Smith" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit granted a writ of mandamus directing vacatur of the district court's issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) against executive order GA-09 as applied to abortion procedures. In order to preserve critical medical resources during the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor of Texas issued GA-09, which postpones non-essential surgeries and procedures until 11:59 p.m. on April 21, 2020.The court held that the drastic and extraordinary remedy of mandamus was warranted in this case because the district court ignored the framework governing emergency public health measures, like GA-09, in Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905); the district court wrongly declared GA-09 an "outright ban" on previability abortions and exempted all abortion procedures from its scope, rather than apply the Jacobson framework to decide whether GA-09 lacks a "real or substantial relation" to the public health crisis or whether it is "beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion" of the right to abortion; the district court failed to apply the undue-burden analysis in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 857 (1992), and thus failed to balance GA-09's temporary burdens on abortion against its benefits in thwarting a public health crisis; and the district court usurped the state's authority to craft emergency health measures, substituting instead its own view of the efficacy of applying GA-09 to abortion. Therefore, the court found that the requirements for a writ of mandamus are satisfied in light of the extraordinary nature of these errors, the escalating spread of COVID-19, and the state's critical interest in protecting the public health. View "In re: Gregg Abbott" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Shell in an action brought by plaintiff under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In this case, the day after Shell formally disciplined plaintiff for violating its attendance policy, she missed her scheduled shift because she got arrested for drunk driving and wrecked her truck.The court held that employees cannot immunize themselves from legitimate termination by taking FMLA leave. In regard to plaintiff's FMLA retaliation claim, the court held that Shell produced evidence that plaintiff would have been lawfully terminated had she not taken leave, and thus she had no right to return to work. The court held that plaintiff failed to make a prima facie case under the ADA because she did not present admissible evidence establishing that she was disabled or that Shell regarded her as disabled. Even if plaintiff had made a prima facie case, her argument failed for the same reasons her FMLA retaliation claim failed. View "Amedee v. Shell Chemical, L.P." on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's final order of garnishment under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. Defendant pleaded guilty and was convicted of wire fraud, mail fraud, and falsifying a tax return, all in connection with the ongoing theft of funds from her employers. Defendant was then ordered to pay restitution of more than $2 million. In order to enforce the judgment, five investment retirement accounts (IRAs), held under defendant and her husband's names, were garnished. After defendant agreed to release the funds, the government reapplied to garnish two accounts in the husband's name and the district court granted the writ.The court first rejected defendant's claim under federal law that any non-defendant spouse's IRA an be part of a defendant spouse's property or rights to property under 18 U.S.C. 3613. The court has previously held that notwithstanding its anti-alienation provision, 29 U.S.C. 1056(d)(1), Employee Retirement Income Security Act retirement accounts are subject to MVRA restitution awards. Furthermore, under United States v. Loftis, 607 F.3d 173 (5th Cir. 2010), the court held that defendant's one-half interest in her husband's solely managed IRA is part of all property and rights to property of the spouse fined under section 3613.Under Texas law, the court held that the husband's IRAs are solely managed community property, and that a wife has only a one-half interest in her husband's solely managed community property. Finally, the court held that the Consumer Credit Protection Act was inapplicable in this case. Therefore, the court held that half the funds—around $1 million—may be garnished now. View "United States v. Berry" on Justia Law