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

Petitioners seek a writ of mandamus directing the district court to give them "crime victim" status under the Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3771. The court concluded that petitioners have a right to file their own motion to be declared crime victims under the CVRA, and it is clear and indisputable that no time bar prevented the district court from considering the novel arguments raised by pro bono counsel in its motion below. Issuance of a writ is appropriate where, as here, petitioners raised arguments previously raised by the Government during the time the Government represented their interests, and where petitioners have been able to retain counsel. View "In re: Jewell Allen, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Novartis in the Western District of Texas, then the case was transferred by the Judicial Panel on MDL to the Middle District of Tennessee. Plaintiffs' compliant alleged, inter alia, that Novartis failed to notify the public and physicians of the possibility of suffering osteonecrosis of the jaw until 2004 and failing to notify dental professionals until 2005. The MDL court granted partial summary judgment to Novartis and ruled that: (1) Texas law applied to plaintiffs' case, and (2) Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 82.007(a) - which provides manufacturers a rebuttable presumption against liability for failing to warn - foreclosed plaintiffs' failure to warn claims. On remand, the district court granted summary judgment on plaintiffs' remaining claims. The court affirmed the denial of plaintiffs' Rule 56(d) and Rule 60(b) motions; the remand court properly applied the law of the case when it refused to reconsider the MDL court's rulings that section 82.007 applied to plaintiffs' failure to warn claims; and the remand court properly granted summary judgment on plaintiffs' warranty claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "McKay, et al v. Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp." on Justia Law

Appellant and his children brought tort claims against Placid in connection with the allegedly asbestos-related illness and death of his wife. On appeal, appellants challenged the district court's affirmance of the bankruptcy court's grant of Placid's motion for summary judgment. The court affirmed, concluding that appellants were unknown creditors whose pre-petition claims were discharged by Placid's constructive notice and that Placid's notice was not substantively deficient. The court has never required bar date notices to contain information about specific potential claims and neither the Bankruptcy Court nor Rules require bar date notices to apprise creditors of potential claims. The court held that because a bar date notice need not inform unknown claimants of the nature of their potential claims, Placid's notices were substantively sufficient to satisfy due process. View "Williams, Sr., et al. v. Placid Oil Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed various products liability and general tort claims against the Brand Defendants - who initially developed and received FDA approval for metoclopramide - and Generic Defendants - who manufactured and sold the product that plaintiff used. Plaintiff alleged that as a result of his prolonged use of the drug metoclopramide, he developed tardive dyskinesia. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his claims against the Brand Defendants and grant of summary judgment to the Generic Defendants. The court held that plaintiff's products liability claims against the Generic Defendants were preempted under the holdings and reasoning of PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing and Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. v. Bartlett, and that plaintiff failed to adequately plead any parallel claims. The court also held that plaintiff's claims against the Brand Defendants failed because plaintiff did not use the Brand Defendants' products and because Texas did not recognize a duty to a consumer who uses a competitor's products. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims against the Generic Defendants and grant of summary judgment to the Brand Defendants. View "Eckhardt, et al. v. Qualitest Pharmaceuticals, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671, against Louisiana national guardsmen for alleged negligence arising from post-Hurricane Katrina activities undertaken while they were in federal-pay status. The Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act (the immunity statute), La. Rev. Stat. 29:735(A)(a), grants immunity to the state and its agents if they were engaged in emergency-preparedness activities. The court agreed with the district court that the guardsmen were engaged in emergency-preparedness activities and were therefore immune. In regards to plaintiff's alternative argument that the immunity statute is unconstitutional under a provision of the Louisiana Constitution, the court concluded that Louisiana's immunity statute was not unconstitutional as applied to the guardsmen who were put into the shoes of private individuals for purposes of the FTCA claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. View "Alfonso, IV v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Exxon Mobil alleging damages caused by exposure to naturally occurring radioactive material. On appeal, Exxon Mobil challenged the dismissal of its intervention based on the district court's ruling that a memorandum prepared by Exxon Mobil's in-house counsel was ineligible for the protections of the attorney-client privilege. The court concluded that the manifest purpose of the memorandum was to deal with what would be the obvious reason Exxon Mobil would seek its lawyer's advice in the first place, namely to deal with any legal liability that may stem from under-disclosure of data, hedged against any liability that may occur from any implied warranties during complex negotiations. Accordingly, the court concluded that the memorandum was privileged and vacated and remanded the judgment of the district court. View "Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Hill, et al." on Justia Law

BCN filed suit against Catalina and three of its individual officers or employees, alleging deceptive trade practices, trademark violations, and related fraud and tort claims. BCN's claims stemmed from defendants' creation of CouponNetwork.com, a website and business "remarkably similar" to BCN's existing business, BrandCouponNetwork.com. The court vacated the district court's judgment to the extent that it dismissed BCN's claims under Rule 12(b)(6) as time barred because the district court erred in considering evidence outside the pleadings and a genuine issue of material fact appeared to exist regarding the timeliness of BCN's claims which would preclude summary judgment. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the individual defendants where BCN failed to preserve its claims where BCN did not present it to the district court and BCN's claims were conclusional. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Brand Coupon Network, L.L.C. v. Catalina Marketing Corp., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a Jones Act suit alleging that EBI was negligent in the construction and/or maintenance of the LC-400 shipyard crane. A jury concluded that plaintiff was a Jones Act, 33 U.S.C. 902(3), seaman and that EBI's negligence caused his injury from the crane, awarding him past and future physical pain and suffering, past and future mental pain and suffering, and future lost wages. EBI appealed. The court concluded that the evidence supported the jury's finding that plaintiff was a seaman under the Jones Act; because the district court's seaman status instruction was clear and consistent with the usual articulation, the court concluded that the district court did not err in its instruction on the issue of seaman status; the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's finding of negligence; and because the court could not discern to what extent plaintiff's award for emotional suffering was based upon the non-compensable harm caused by a relative's death, his awards were tainted. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court as it related to liability but vacated the judgment as it related to damages, remanding for further proceedings. View "Naquin, Sr. v. Elevating Boats, L.L.C." on Justia Law

In this diversity case, at issue was whether plaintiff, a Mississippi resident injured in Mississippi while working for an Alabama resident contractor, had an action in tort for damages against the employer's worker's compensation insurer because of the insurer's intentional bad-faith refusal to pay him worker's compensation when due. The court concluded that under Mississippi's choice-of-law principles, plaintiff's tort suit was governed by Mississippi substantive law. Further, the district court erroneously concluded that, under Mississippi law, the insurer's alleged intentional bad faith refusal to pay plaintiff's worker's compensation was merely a breach of contract and not an independent tort committed by the carrier outside the scope of plaintiff's employment as the Mississippi Supreme Court held in Southern Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Holland. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Williams v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Island petitioned for review of a modification of a benefits award under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWC Act), 33 U.S.C. 901-950. Island's employee had filed claims for benefits under the LHWC Act after he injured his knee on an oil production platform. Island argued that the original judgment was not eligible for modification or alternatively, the facts did not support the modification. The court concluded that both Banks v. Chicago Grain Trimmers Ass'n and O'Keefe v. Aerojet-General Shipyards, Inc. clearly established that contrary to Island's position, mistakes of fact were not limited to newly discovered and previously unattainable evidence. Therefore, the court affirmed the Benefit Review Board's (BRB) decision on this basis. Alternatively, the court concluded that there was evidence to support the ALJ's finding, and the BRB correctly affirmed the modification of the employee's award to include permanent partial benefits. View "Island Operating Co., Inc., et al. v. DOWCP, et al." on Justia Law