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

Petitioner, a Ghanaian citizen, was charged with being removable because he was an alien present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. That same year, petitioner applied for asylum. Petitioner subsequently petitioned for review of the BIA's dismissal of his appeal of the IJ's denial of his request for asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture protection. Petitioner also petitioned for review of the BIA's denial of a motion to consider. The court addressed the second petition, holding that the departure regulation could not be applied to statutorily authorized motions to reconsider. The departure regulation therefore could not serve as a basis for denying aliens who have departed the United States their statutorily authorized right to file one motion to reconsider. Accordingly, the court granted the second petition for review and remanded for further proceedings. In light of the remand, the court denied the first petition for review and left unanswered the questions regarding whether petitioner was properly found to have been removable. View "Lari v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Cambridge appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Concentra. Cambridge and Concentra owed each other contractual duties of defense and indemnification. Cambridge and a subsidiary of Concentra were later named as defendants in a state court lawsuit. Concentra settled and obtained a release that benefited Cambridge to the extent of Concentra's indemnification obligation. However, Concentra rejected Cambridge's tender of defense. Cambridge filed suit in federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that Concentra owed it contractual defense and indemnification for the costs that Cambridge incurred in settling the state-court litigation. The court affirmed summary judgment of the district court dismissing Cambridge's claims against Concentra for indemnification, but reversed summary judgment with respect to Concentra's duty to defend. View "Cambridge Integrated Services v. Concentra Integrated Services" on Justia Law

This appeal arose from a grand jury investigation in which the target of the investigation (the witness) was subpoenaed to produce any records of foreign bank accounts he was required to keep under Treasury Department regulations governing offshore banking. The witness informed the government that he would not comply with the subpoena, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and the government moved to compel the witness to comply. Because the court concluded that the Required Records Doctrine applied in this case, the court declined the witness's invitation to create a circuit split and accordingly reversed the district court's denial of the government's motion to compel the witness to comply with the subpoena. View "In Re: Grand Jury Subpoena" on Justia Law

Maude Williams passed away in May 2000, leaving behind both a substantial fortune and incomplete estate-planning documents. Originally believing this omission precluded transfer of the relevant estate property to a limited partnership, her Estate paid over $147 million in federal taxes. The Estate later discovered Texas state authorities supporting that Williams sufficiently capitalized the limited partnership before her death, entitling the Estate to a substantial refund. In this refund suit, the Estate claimed a further substantial deduction for interest on the initial payment, which it retroactively characterized as a loan from the limited partnership to the Estate for payment of estate taxes. The district court upheld both the Estate's contentions. The court affirmed, holding that the district court correctly concluded that Williams' intent on forming the partnership was sufficient under Texas law to transfer ownership of the Community Property bonds to the partnership. The district court also correctly concluded that the post hoc restructuring of the transfer as a loan from the partnership back to the Estate for tax purposes was a necessarily incurred administrative expense; the Estate retained substantial illiquid land and mineral assets that justified the loan, and the loan did not constitute an "indirect use" of the Community Property bonds. View "Keller, et al v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, local government officials, sought a declaration that a provision of the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA), Tex. Gov't Code Ann. 551.001 et seq., violated the First Amendment. Specifically, they contend that Texas Government Code 551.144 was a content-based restriction on political speech, was unconstitutionally vague, and was overbroad. Section 551.144 prohibited members of covered governing bodies from knowingly participating in a closed meeting, to organize a closed meeting, or to close a meeting to the public. The court held that TOMA was content-neutral and was not unconstitutionally overbroad or vague. TOMA was also a disclosure statute, though that did not change the level of scrutiny, because the statute was content-neutral. Accordingly, the district court properly applied intermediate scrutiny and the court affirmed the judgment. View "City of Alpine, TX, et al v. Abbott, et al" on Justia Law

Countrywide appealed a class certification order of the bankruptcy court. Plaintiffs are former chapter 13 debtors with mortgages serviced by Countrywide. Plaintiffs claimed, among other things, that the fees Countrywide charged while plaintiffs' bankruptcy cases were still pending were unreasonable, unapproved, and undisclosed under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2016(a). Because the bankruptcy court's decision was not an abuse of discretion, the court affirmed its grant of class certification for plaintiff's injunctive relief claim. Because the court's precedence rejected the fail-safe class prohibition, the court concluded that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion when it defined the class in the present case. Because the court concluded that Countrywide's Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration was not based on newly discovered evidence, the court did not revisit the bankruptcy court's separate merits denial of the motion. View "Rodriguez, et al v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death in Texas for two murders. Petitioner challenged his death sentence in habeas corpus proceedings under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied relief and petitioner sought a certificate of appealability. Petitioner raised issues related to ineffective assistance of counsel, violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights under Beck v. Alabama, and violation of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights because the trial judge excluded a jurist on the basis of her conscientious scruples against the death penalty. The court denied petitioner's request because jurists of reason could not debate the district court's denial of habeas relief under section 2254. View "Feldman v. Thaler" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a Title VII sex discrimination claim against her former employer. The district court granted summary judgment for the employer on the ground that the grievance procedure established in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) provided the exclusive remedy for plaintiff's claim. Because the CBA did not clearly and unmistakably waive a union member's right to bring a Title VII claim in a federal judicial forum, the district court erred when it concluded that the CBA required plaintiff to submit her Title VII claim to the Article 51 grievance process. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment for the employer and remanded for further proceedings. View "Ibarra v. United Parcel Service, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought a class action suit under section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. 15, against the largest United States casket manufacturer, Batesville; and against the three largest United States funeral home chains and distributors of Batesville caskets. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants conspired to foreclose competition from independent casket discounters (ICDs) who sold caskets directly to consumers at discount prices and maintained artificially high consumer casket prices in violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1, 2, by engaging in a group boycott to prevent ICDs from selling Batesville caskets and dissuading consumers from purchasing caskets from ICDs. Plaintiffs also alleged that defendants used concerted efforts to restrict casket price competition, including coordinating prices, limiting the advertisement of pricing, and engaging in sham discounting. The court reversed and remanded the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction of the claim for attorneys' fees and costs; affirmed the district court's dismissal of Consumer Appellants' and FCA's injunctive relief claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction; and affirmed the district court's denial of class certification. View "Funeral Consumers Alliance Inc, et al v. Service Corp. Intl, et al" on Justia Law

Chesapeake Exploration entered into an agreement to purchase deep rights held by Peak Energy in certain oil and gas leases in the Haynesville Shale formation at a certain price. Peak Energy filed a complaint against Chesapeake Exploration after Chesapeake Exploration refused to honor its commitment when the price of natural gas plummeted several months after the agreement. Chesapeake Exploration argued that the agreement was unenforceable under the Texas statute of frauds, fatally indefinite, and that Peak Energy had failed to tender performance. The court held that the district court did not err in its instructions to its expert, or in holding that the agreement was enforceable under the statute of frauds; in finding that Peak Energy was willing and able to tender performance of the agreement; and in calculating damages. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Coe, et al v. Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C., et al" on Justia Law