Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

SMF appealed from a bankruptcy court order finding that three payments totaling $54,778.46 received by SMF from IBC in the 90-day preference period preceding IBC's chapter 11 filing were preferential payments under 11 U.S.C. 547(b) and were thus subject to avoidance by U.S. Bank in its capacity as trustee for the IBC Creditors Trust. The court affirmed the order and held that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion by extending the time for service of process.

Defendants appealed from an order and judgment of the bankruptcy court granting summary judgment on plaintiff's complaint to determine dischargeability pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(2)(B). The court held that plaintiff failed to show that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law under the plain language of the statute where plaintiff had not met several statutory requirements. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to enter judgment for defendants.

In this appeal concerning the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b)(1), 2674, the court determined whether a purported personal representative could invoke the adjudicatory capacity, that is, the subject-matter jurisdiction of a United States District Court on behalf of statutory beneficiaries if, under section 2675(a), the representative failed or refused to first present to the appropriate federal agency evidence of her authority to act on behalf of such beneficiaries. As a preliminary matter, the court held that when faced with conflicting panel opinions, the earliest opinion must be followed "as it should have controlled the subsequent panels that created the conflict." The court held that a properly "presented" claim under section 2675(a) must include evidence of a representative's authority to act on behalf of the claim's beneficiaries under state law. The court also held that conformity with section 2675(a) was a jurisdictional term of the FTCA's limited waiver of sovereign immunity. Since there was no such compliance in this case, the district court properly dismissed the suit for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. The court further held that the personal representative did not have standing to assert the wrongful death claim at issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Appellee sued the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), seeking review of the SSA's denial of benefits to her daughter. At issue was whether a child conceived through artificial insemination more than a year after her father's death qualified for benefits under the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 402, 416. The Commissioner interpreted the Act to provide that a natural child of the decedent was not entitled to benefits unless she had inheritance rights under state law or could satisfy certain additional statutory requirements. The court held that the Commissioner's interpretation was, at a minimum, reasonable and entitled to deference, and that the relevant state law did not entitle the applicant in this case to benefits. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's judgments.

The Minch Family sued the Estate of the Norbys in diversity, seeking injunctive relief and damages for flooding of the Minch Family's property, allegedly caused by a field dike built on the Norbys' land. At issue was whether the district court erred in concluding that the Minch Family's claims were time-barred and whether the magistrate judge abused its discretion by denying the Minch Family's motion to amend its complaint to allege a claim for punitive damages and the Minch Family's motion to amend the scheduling order. The court held that the Minch Family had failed to meet its burden of showing that the applicable two year-statute of limitations should be tolled and its claims were untimely. The court held that because it had affirmed the district court's dismissal of the Minch Family's claims as time-barred, the issue of punitive damages was moot. The court further held that because the Minch Family's motion only related to its claim for punitive damages, the court need not address the issue of whether the magistrate judge abused its discretion in denying its motion to amend the court's scheduling order. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

LCI Equipments, Inc. (LLC) was a Texas corporation that imported and sold the tractor that killed Rudy Slater in a roll-over accident. Wanda Slater, an Arkansas resident and Rudy's wife, commenced a wrongful death action in state court, asserting negligence and strict product liability claims against LCI, and others, focusing primarily on the tractor's lack of a roll-over protection system (ROPS). LCI's insurer, also a Texas corporation, denied coverage and refused to defend LCI under its Commercial General Liability policy. With the wrongful death suit pending, LCI assigned its rights in the policy to Slater who then commenced this action against the insurer in Arkansas state court. On appeal, Slater asserted for the first time the absence of diversity jurisdiction and further argued that the district court erred in construing the policy exclusion. The court held that, as here, where Slater structured the case, naming LCI as a nominal plaintiff, the district court had, and properly exercised, diversity jurisdiction. The court also noted that the partial assignment of the $100 interest retained by LCI did not defeat jurisdiction. The court held that Slater's argument that the insurer had a duty to defend because of LCI's failure to install ROPS safety equipment was not properly preserved in the district court and therefore, the court declined to consider it further. The court also agreed with the district court's conclusion that LaBatt Co. v. Hartford Lloyd's Ins. Co., reflected Texas law. Moreover, the definition of "Your product" in the insurer's policy expressly excluded the "providing of or failure to provide warnings or instructions," unlike the exclusion at issue in LaBatt. Therefore, the insurer's contention was more consistent with the plain language of the policy and Slater had failed to show plain error. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

The trustee of Cheryl Reagan's bankruptcy estate, and Latta Bachelor, the personal representative of Ronald Reagan's probate estate, appealed from an order of the district court affirming the judgment of the bankrutpcy court in this interpleader and declaratory judgment action filed by Regions Bank. The court held that although Cheryl, acting as executrix, retained control over the assets in Ronald's estate, and she may have improperly exercised that control in her capacity as executrix, her conduct in that capacity did not invalidate the spendthrift provisions. Because the spendthrift provision was enforceable under Arkansas law, Cheryl's interest in the net income from Trust C was subject to a "restriction on... transfer" under "applicable nonbankruptcy law," the section 541(c)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code's exception applied, and Cheryl's interest in the distributions of net income from Trust C was not a part of her bankruptcy estate. Appellants have failed to establish the requisite inducement and detrimental reliance to successfully assert that Cheryl should be estopped from claiming the benefit of the spendthrift trust.

Plaintiff, the personal representative of the estate of Velda Smith, sued defendants for medical malpractice, claiming that defendants negligently failed to transfer Smith to a medical facility where she could have received tissue plasminogen activator("tPA") to treat her stroke. At issue was whether the district court properly excluded evidence of plaintiff's medical expert's testimony and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. The court affirmed summary judgment and held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert's testimony pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 where the testimony was predicated on a methodologically flawed and unreliable published medical study ("Zivin Paper").