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

Plaintiff filed suit against the company managing the prison he was incarcerated in, and others, for multiple violations of his constitutional rights. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court’s denial of his motion for appointment of counsel to help litigate his civil rights claims against defendants. The district court denied the motion because it had no funding with which to compensate an appointed attorney, and it could find “no attorneys in the area willing or able to take the case pro bono.” Then the district court entered summary judgment against plaintiff. The court vacated and demanded, concluding that federal courts have inherent power to order counsel to accept an uncompensated appointment under the limited factual circumstances here. On remand, the district court must consider whether a compulsory appointment is warranted. View "Naranjo v. Thompson" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., seeking attorneys' fees after she proved in an administrative hearing that a school district had violated her child’s right to a free appropriate public education by repeatedly placing him in isolation during school hours. The court concluded that the district court erred in applying section 1415(i)(2)(B)’s limitations period to this action for attorneys’ fees under the IDEA by a party that prevailed at the administrative level. Because the statute contains no limitations period for such actions, the district court should have borrowed one from state law. The court held that the limitations period for such an action does not begin to run until the time for seeking judicial review of the underlying administrative decision passes, and that plaintiff’s action was timely under any limitations period that could be borrowed. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "D.G. v. New Caney Indep. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

W. Steve Smith, trustee of a complex Chapter 7 estate, appealed the bankruptcy court's removal of him as trustee. Smith also appealed his removal from all of his other pending cases. Smith had traveled with his wife and children to New Orleans for an oral argument related to his work as trustee, billing the the firm for work that included estate funds for trip expenses. The district court affirmed. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court applied a proper legal standard, and its determination that Smith’s conduct violated that standard was not clearly erroneous. Therefore, the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion in finding cause sufficient to remove Smith as trustee. The court rejected Smith's notice argument as well as his as-applied constitutional argument to section 324(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. Finally, the court's ruling moots the issue of whether the bankruptcy and district courts wrongly refused to stay his removal pending appeal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Smith v. Robbins" on Justia Law

The parties in these consolidated appeals are involved in a decade-long dispute regarding the TESTMASTERS trademark. The district court granted both parties’ motions for summary judgment, denying nationwide registration to both. Before the court is another appeal from a different district court's order finding one of the parties and his attorney to be in contempt, and ordering the attorney to be briefly jailed. The court vacated the contempt findings as to the Daniel Sheehan, concluding that there was no clear and convincing evidence upon which to find that Sheehan violated the injunction’s requirements. The court affirmed in all other respects. View "Test Masters Educ. Serv., Inc. v. Robin Singh Educ. Serv., Inc." on Justia Law

Gate Guard filed suit against the DOL seeking a declaration that it was in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., and attorneys' fees if it prevailed. Before Gate Guard served the complaint, the DOL filed its own FLSA enforcement action against Gate Guard. The district court found that the DOL's case was weak and granted summary judgment for Gate Guard. The district court awarded Gate Guard attorneys’ fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act’s (EAJA) substantially-justified provision, 28 U.S.C. 2412(d), but denied fees under the EAJA’s bad faith provision, 28 U.S.C. 2412(b). On appeal, the DOL challenged the grant of attorneys' fees. The court concluded that the circumstances giving rise to an award included both the government’s conduct before and during litigation as well as a legally insupportable case. The government’s conduct here was sufficiently egregious to warrant an award under section 2412(b). Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Gate Guard Svc. v. Perez" on Justia Law

This case arose from Credit Management's debt-collection phone calls to plaintiff. On appeal, plaintiff's attorney challenged the district court's referral of his conduct to the disciplinary committee. Credit Management filed a motion to dismiss by requesting sanctions against the attorney under Rule 11, claiming that the attorney knew that the allegations in the complaint were false and frivolous. The district court denied the request for Rule 11 sanctions, holding that sanctions were unavailable because the attorney filed the motion to dismiss first, and thus obviously within twenty-one days of knowing that Credit Management was seeking Rule 11 sanctions. The district court, however, referred the allegation to the Admissions Committee for further review. The court concluded that neither plaintiff nor his attorney has standing to appeal that referral, which was not accompanied by any finding of misconduct. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal. View "Zente v. Credit Mgmt." on Justia Law

Law firms Campbell Harrison & Dagley, L.L.P. (CHD), and Calloway, Norris, Burdette & Weber, P.L.L.C. (CNBW) (collectively, the firms), challenged the district court’s partial vacatur of most of an arbitration award, rendered pursuant to a fee agreement (combining a high hourly-rate fee and a low-percentage contingency fee), which governed the firms’ representation of Albert G. Hill, III, and his wife, Erin Hill. After arbitrating a dispute over the requested payment to the firms under the fee agreement, the arbitrators awarded them approximately $28 million. Although the district court, inter alia, enforced the hourly-rate fee award, it vacated the contingency-fee award as unconscionable. In rejecting the arbitrators’ determinations regarding the uncertainty of recovery, the reasonableness of the total fee, and unconscionability, the Fifth Circuit concluded the district court “substitute[d] [its] judgment for that of the arbitrators merely because [it] would have reached a different decision”. As a result, it erred in vacating the contingency-fee-portion of the award and related awards (for the arbitration, the firms’ attorney’s fees, other fees, expenses, and arbitrators’ compensation; and pre-judgment interest on the contingency-fee portion). The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court with respect to the unconscionability issue, and remanded the case for further proceedings. The district court was affirmed in all other respects. View "Campbell Harrison & Dagley, et al v. Hill" on Justia Law

Pending before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was a motion by petitioner's federal habeas counsel to withdraw as counsel. Counsel argued that because he also represented petitioner during state habeas proceedings, it would be a conflict of interest for him to now determine whether his conduct was ineffective. Petitioner also requested the appointment of new counsel to investigate whether he has any viable claim under the rule established in the Supreme Court's decisions in "Martinez v. Ryan" and "Trevino v. Thaler." The Fifth Circuit did not read the Supreme Court's narrowly crafted decisions in Martinez or Trevino to require in this case the appointment of additional federal habeas counsel. "[P]etitioner's present lawyer is conflicted only in the sense that every lawyer charged to examine the performance of counsel is conflicted in that task when the performance is his own. That has no bearing on counsel's charge to argue the substantive claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. We do not read the Supreme Court as requiring a second federally appointed lawyer to plow the same ground ably plowed by the first federally appointed lawyer with no suggestion or hint of any shortcoming on his part. By this manner of reason there is no end to the succession of potential appointments, for each previous lawyer might have been ineffective." Construing present counsel's motion to withdraw as a motion for the appointment of supplemental counsel, the Fifth Circuit granted that motion. Because the claims he brought were yet unresolved, the Court denied the motion of present counsel to withdraw. The case was remanded in part back to the district court solely to appoint supplemental counsel, and to consider in the first instance whether petitioner court establish cause for the procedural default of any ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims pursuant to Martinez and Trevino that he might raise, and if so, whether those claims merited relief. View "Speer v. Stephens" on Justia Law

Appellant and her law firm appealed the bankruptcy court's contempt order holding them in civil contempt for failing to pay sanctions imposed for prior misconduct. The misconduct stemmed from appellant's misconduct in her legal representation of debtor during bankruptcy proceedings. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court retained jurisdiction to enforce the sanctions orders through any appropriate means, including a civil contempt order; the court rejected appellant's contention that she was "threatened" with imprisonment and concluded that the order does not violate the prohibition on imprisonment for a debt; and the order was not an abuse of the bankruptcy court's discretion because appellant is not protected by her alleged membership in her LLC where she was found in civil contempt for failure to pay sanctions that she owed because of her own misconduct in prior bankruptcy proceedings. Accordingly, the court affirmed the order. View "Garrett v. Coventry II DDR" on Justia Law

The underlying litigation in this appeal stemmed from WM's suit against a former employee for misappropriating confidential business information and violating the terms of his employment agreement. This appeal arose from a contempt proceeding ancillary to the merits of the underlying case where Michael A. Moore, the attorney for the employee, appealed the imposition of sanctions following a finding that Moore was in civil contempt. The court concluded that the district court's finding that Moore participated in an attempt to mislead the court as to the existence of a thumb disk drive is clearly erroneous; Moore's failure to comply with the terms of a preliminary injunction by not producing an iPad image was excusable because the order required Moore to violate the attorney-client privilege; and requiring Moore to produce the iPad itself also violated the attorney-client privilege. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the district court. The court denied Moore's motion to remove WM as appellee. View "Waste Mgmt. of WA v. Kattler" on Justia Law