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

Plaintiffs filed suit in Mississippi state court against defendants seeking damages and declarative injunctive relief. Plaintiffs asserted two claims: first, common-law trade-secret misappropriate and intentional interference with business relations; and second, violation of state law, which protects a patient's right to use any pharmacy of his choosing. After removing plaintiffs' suit to federal court, defendants moved to compel plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims under the arbitration contracts to which all or most defendants were not signatories under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 3-4. The court concluded that the relevant Arizona law, made controlling by the Provider Agreement's choice-of-law clause, supported the non-signatory defendants' motion to enforce the agreement to arbitrate against plaintiffs based on state-law equitable estoppel doctrine. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment compelling arbitration. The court recognized that the court's prior decisions applying federal common law, rather than state contract law, to decide such questions have been modified to conform with the Supreme Court's holding in Arthur Andersen LLP v. Carlisle. View "Crawford Professional Drugs, et al. v. CVS Caremark Corp., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against an elementary school principal who did not allow him to distribute religious material to other adults at his son's in-class winter party. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his constitutional claim based on qualified immunity. The court found that plaintiff failed to establish that a right to distribute religious gifts was clearly established for the purpose of qualified immunity analysis. Accordingly, plaintiff's allegations were not sufficient to overcome the principal's qualified immunity defense. The district court did not address the actual constitutionality of the principal's conduct and the court concluded that it need not reach the question. The court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Morgan, et al. v. Plano Indep. Sch. Dist., et al." on Justia Law

In this nearly fifty-year-old desegregation case, the United States appealed the district court's order implementing a freedom of choice plan intended to desegregate the formerly de jure African-American middle school and high school in the Cleveland School District. At issue was the district court's adoption of a plan that abolished attendance zones and a majority-to-minority transfer program and implemented a freedom of choice plan that allowed each student in the district to choose to attend any junior high or high school. The court concluded that, given the available statistics that not a single white student chose to enroll at the schools after the district court's order, and that historically, over the course of multiple decades, no white student has ever chosen to enroll in the school, the district court's conclusion that a freedom of choice plan was the most appropriate desegregation remedy at those schools certainly needed to be expressed with sufficient particularity to enable the court to review it. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for a more explicit explanation of the reasons for adopting the freedom of choice plan, and/or consideration of the alternative desegregation plans proposed by the parties. View "Cowan v. Bolivar County Bd. of Educ." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250(a). On appeal, defendant challenged his 120-month sentence. The court concluded that the district court did not plainly err by sentencing defendant and defendant failed to demonstrate that the district court improperly balanced the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. The court concluded that the district court erred in finding that failure to register is a sex offense but the error was not clear or obvious. Even if the error was clear or obvious, defendant failed to demonstrate that it affected his substantial rights. The court declined to exercise its discretion in reversing the sentence and therefore, affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Segura" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was an original member of the class of plaintiffs in Betty Dukes, et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. After the Supreme Court decertified the Dukes class, plaintiff filed this putative class action in the Texas district court. That court dismissed plaintiff's individual claims because they had ceased to be tolled and were therefore time-barred. The court reversed and remanded, holding that, under Am. Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah and its progeny, the relevant statute of limitations remained tolled when plaintiff filed her complaint in this case. View "Odle v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc." on Justia Law

The Bank sought to vacate an arbitration award in favor of 21st Century. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in determining that the Bank had actual or constructive notice of the arbitration; the record contained several communications showing that various bank organizers knew of the forthcoming proceedings; and because the Bank had actual or constructive notice and Bernstein Seawell & Kove v. Bosarge requires no more, the court did not need to decide whether 21st Century failed to comply with section 15.2 of the Agreement. The court also concluded that the contract did not expressly require senior management to engage in negotiations; even if senior management were required to engage in a second round of negotiations, the Agreement did not expressly condition the ability to arbitrate a dispute on failed senior management negotiations; and the record supported the district court's finding regarding good-faith negotiations on the operational level. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "21st Century Financial Services v. Manchester Financial Bank" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed their convictions for conspiracy to avoid federal income tax and of filing false tax returns. The district court erred in not clarifying that plaintiffs' good-faith belief need not be objectively reasonable. Nevertheless, the erroneous jury instruction in this case was harmless because the evidence showing that plaintiffs intentionally underreported their income was so overwhelming that the error could not have contributed to the jury's decision to convict. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in calculating the total tax loss resulting from the offenses and declining to accept plaintiffs' tax-loss estimate. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Montgomery, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of her former employer, UTHSC, on her sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. The court concluded that plaintiff failed to include a specific sex discrimination claim on her EEOC intake sheet and consequently did not exhaust her administrative remedies on that claim; plaintiff's subsequent claim regarding sex discrimination not based upon harassment fell outside the scope of the EEOC investigation and could not reasonably be expected to grow out of her initial charge of sexual harassment; the incidents described by plaintiff were insufficient to demonstrate pervasive hostility toward her as a matter of law, and therefore, the district court properly granted summary judgment for UTHSC on plaintiff's sexual harassment claim; and a jury could reasonably conclude that UTHSC's reasons for not renewing plaintiff's contract was pretextual. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Hague v. UT Health and Science Center" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed his habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. After petitioner was transferred to FCI Sandstone in Minnesota, the Pennsylvania federal district court dismissed the petition without prejudice, holding that it lacked jurisdiction because petitioner's immediate custodian was outside the district. Petitioner appealed, the Third Circuit reversed, remanding the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Petitioner was then transferred to a federal prison in Illinois and then eventually to Mississippi. The U.S. Magistrate Judge in Minnesota transferred the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The district court in Mississippi concluded that it lacked jurisdiction because the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania district court attached upon petitioner's filing of his petition while he was confined there and jurisdiction was not destroyed by petitioner's subsequent transfer to another prison. The court vacated the dismissal order and transferred the case back to Pennsylvania. The court concluded that petitioner stated a claim upon which relief could be granted and that the Pennsylvania district court was the proper forum. The court concluded that jurisdiction attached on that initial filing for habeas corpus relief and it was not destroyed by the transfer of petitioner and accompanying custodial charge. View "Griffin, Jr. v. Ebbert" on Justia Law

Planned Parenthood filed suit against the State for declaratory judgment and to enjoin provisions of 2013 Texas House Bill No. 2 (H.B. 2). H.B. 2 pertains to the regulation of surgical abortions and abortion-inducing drugs. Two provisions of H.B.2 were at issue: first, the requirement that a physician performing or inducing an abortion have admitting privileges at a hospital no more than thirty miles from the location where the abortion is provided; and second, the limitations on the use of abortion-inducing drugs to a protocol authorized by the FDA. The district court held that parts of both provisions were unconstitutional and granted, in substantial part, the requested injunctive relief. A motions panel of this court granted a stay pending appeal, and the Supreme Court upheld the stay. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that the physician-plaintiffs had standing on behalf of their patients, as well as standing to assert their own rights. The court concluded that the district court applied the wrong legal standards under rational basis review and erred in finding that the admitting-privileges requirement amounts to an undue burden for a large fraction of women that it affects. The court also concluded that the district court erred in holding that H.B. 2's rejection of the off-label protocol from fifty to sixty-three days LMP (last menstrual period) facially imposes an undue burden on the abortion rights of certain women. Accordingly, the court reversed and rendered judgment for the State, except that the admitting privileges requirement may not be enforced against abortion providers who timely applied for admitting privileges under the statute but are awaiting a response from the hospital. View "Planned Parenthood, et al. v. Abbott, et al." on Justia Law