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

Plaintiff filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart in the Circuit Court for St. Louis County, Missouri. Plaintiff alleged Walmart engaged in misleading and deceptive marketing practices by selling cough suppressants with dextromethorphan hydrobromide (“DXM”) and a “non-drowsy” label. Walmart removed the case to the Eastern District of Missouri, and Plaintiff moved to have the case remanded to state court. The district court remanded, finding Walmart had not met the Class Action Fairness Act’s jurisdictional requirement of showing the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.
The Eighth Circuit reversed, finding that Walmart has shown the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.  The court concluded that Walmart’s declaration was sufficient to support a finding that sales exceeded $5 million. The total amount of sales can be a measure of the amount in controversy. The court explained that the declaration was sufficient, particularly when it is very plausible that a company the size of Walmart would have sold more than $5 million in cough suppressants in the state of Missouri over a period of five years. View "Nicholas Brunts v. Walmart, Inc." on Justia Law

After the bankruptcy court allowed Chapter 12 debtors – several years in a row – to modify their confirmed plan over the objection of their primary secured creditor, that creditor appealed. The issues are whether the bankruptcy court abused its discretion by confirming the debtors’ fourth modified plan under 11 U.S.C. Section 1229 without requiring the debtors to show an “unanticipated and substantial change in circumstances” and whether, under whatever standard applicable to plan modifications, the court’s factual findings were clearly erroneous.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court held that, at a minimum, a substantial change in circumstances is required to justify modification of a plan under Section 1229. The bankruptcy court’s alternate ruling that the debtors met their burden of showing an unanticipated, substantial change in circumstances is not clearly erroneous, nor is the bankruptcy court’s finding that the fourth modified plan was feasible and confirmable. View "Farm Credit Services v. Steven L. Swackhammer" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed their convictions and sentences arising out of an attempted robbery that resulted in a woman’s death.   The Eighth Circuit vacated Defendants’ convictions and sentences on Count One and directed the district court to dismiss Count One. The court affirmed the remaining convictions, vacated Defendants’ remaining sentences under the sentencing package doctrine, and remanded for resentencing. The court explained that the record contains overwhelming evidence of both Defendants’ guilt. Considering the evidence and counsel’s (mostly) appropriate arguments, the court wrote that it cannot say the district court erred in failing to declare a mistrial sua sponte or abused its discretion in determining the prosecutor’s statement did not satisfy the requisite prejudice to warrant a new trial. Further, the court wrote that given the evidence in the record, the two alleged predicate offenses for the firearms conspiracy were so inextricably intertwined that no rational juror could have found Defendants possessed firearms in relation to one predicate but not the other. The court reasoned that while it would have been preferable for the jury to have been given special interrogatories or a special verdict form to facilitate effective appellate review, considering the nature of the jury instructions and the evidence submitted to the jury, the court found that Defendants’ substantial rights were not affected by the jury’s general verdict in this particular case. View "United States v. Tawhyne Patterson, Sr." on Justia Law

In this § 1983 lawsuit, Plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief to stop ongoing physician disciplinary proceedings in which the Iowa Board of Medicine (“the Board”), represented by the Attorney General of Iowa, charges Wassef with violating Iowa law by inappropriately accessing patient records during his residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (“UIHC”). The Board is responsible for regulating the practice of medicine in Iowa and is authorized to discipline doctors who do not meet minimum practice standards established by the Board and by the Iowa Legislature. Plaintiff alleged the ongoing proceedings violate federal law -- the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”). The district court dismissed the action, concluding that it must abstain pursuant to Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). The court also dismissed the due process claim because Plaintiff failed to exhaust state remedies and failed to plausibly allege a claim.   The Eighth Circuit modified the dismissal to be without prejudice, vacated the district court’s due process ruling, and granted Plaintiff’s unopposed Motion To Substitute Parties. The court concluded the district court properly abstained under Younger. However, as the state disciplinary proceedings are ongoing, the court should have declined to reach the merits of the due process claim, which Plaintiff can litigate in the state proceedings. Accordingly, the court modified the dismissal to be without prejudice, which is usually the proper disposition when a court abstains under Younger. View "Shafik Wassef v. Dennis Tibben" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, then a conductor and now an engineer for Union Pacific Railroad (“Union Pacific”), brought this action under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) when Union Pacific refused Plaintiff’s requests that he be allowed to bring his Rottweiler service dog on board moving Union Pacific freight trains as a reasonable accommodation to ameliorate the effects of Plaintiff’s undisputed disabilities, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and migraine headaches resulting from his prior service in the military. At the end of a week-long trial, the district court denied Union Pacific’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. The jury then returned a verdict for Plaintiff, awarding compensatory but not punitive damages. The district court granted Union Pacific’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, concluding there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for the jury’s verdict.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court agreed that “benefits and privileges of employment” (1) refer only to employer-provided services; (2) must be offered to non-disabled individuals in addition to disabled ones; and (3) does not include freedom from mental or psychological pain. Further, the court noted that mitigating pain is not an employer-sponsored program or service. As such, providing a service dog at work so that an employee with a disability has the same assistance the service dog provides away from work is not a cognizable benefit or privilege of employment. View "Perry Hopman v. Union Pacific Railroad" on Justia Law

Defendant is a landlord, who allegedly terminated a lease based on Tenants' family status. The United States brought a claim against Defendant under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). A jury awarded Tenants $14,400 in compensatory damages and $60,000 in punitive damages. Defendant landlord filed post-trial motions, which were denied.Defendant appealed, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that there was sufficient evidence that Defendant landlord acted with at least reckless indifference and the district court did not err in submitting the punitive damages issue to the jury. The Eighth Circuit also held that the award was not unconstitutionally excessive View "United States v. Louis Rupp, II" on Justia Law

A jury found Defendant guilty of sexual exploitation of a child and receiving images depicting the sexual exploitation of a child. The district court sentenced him to 540 months imprisonment. Defendant appealed, asking that the Eighth Circuit vacate his convictions and remand for a new trial because the district court failed to suppress evidence obtained from a search of his cellphone, excluded other evidence that he sought to admit at trial, and gave an incorrect jury instruction.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court first held that the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s suppression motion nor abuse its discretion in rejecting his request for a Franks hearing. The court wrote that it agreed with the court that it had no more than a marginal relationship to the issue of Defendant’s guilt while presenting a considerable risk of unfair prejudice. Defendant claimed that the aiding-and-abetting instruction is erroneous because it omits an additional, fourth element included in the Eighth Circuit’s Model Jury Instructions: that the defendant “have [Intended] [known] (insert mental state required by principal offense).” The court concluded that the district court did not plainly err by omitting the fourth aiding-and-abetting element from the model jury instructions. The court explained that it is aware of no case in which the court specifically discussed this element, much less declared it mandatory. View "United States v. Derrick Walker" on Justia Law

Defendants injected their patients with Orthovisc, which was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, while falsely representing it as FDA-approved. A jury convicted them of healthcare fraud and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States. Defendants appealed, alleging that the district court erred by denying motions for judgment of acquittal on both counts and committing several reversible errors that warrant a new trial. Moreover, Defendants believe a new trial is needed as a result of four other errors by the district court that denied: FDCA-device evidence; their theory-of-defense jury instruction; their FDCA-device argument; and their advice-of-counsel instruction   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Defendants failed to identify any probative value in communicating to the jury their misunderstanding of the Notice. Further, the court wrote that,  if, as the Defendants argued, the jury instructions and indictment required the government to prove that the non-approved Orthovisc is a device, then this sentence from the theory-of-defense instruction duplicates other instructions submitted to the jury. Defendants cannot identify any prejudice in excluding this misleading, duplicative sentence. Moreover, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by prohibiting further argument that misrepresents the Notice. Finally, the court held that the district court properly denied the advice-of-counsel instruction. View "United States v. Abdul Naushad" on Justia Law

Defendant received a 262-month prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of selling methamphetamine. The Second Circuit appointed counsel, who has attempted to file an Anders brief and asked to withdraw.   The Second Circuit determined that it cannot decide the appeal until counsel files a brief that satisfies Anders’s requirements. The Supreme Court has been clear that an “attorney must be zealous and must resolve all doubts and ambiguous legal questions in favor of his or her client.” Here, the brief appears to make inferences against Defendant. For example, it argues that “he waived his right to make a sufficiency of the evidence argument on appeal” by failing to make a motion when prompted. It turns out, however, that trial counsel agreed that he did not “want to waive any appeal” when questioned by the district court. Accordingly, the court held that the motion to withdraw is held in abeyance pending the filing of a compliant brief. View "United States v. Ramien Collins" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted and convicted of abusive sexual contact. Defendant moved for a new trial, arguing that the district court constructively amended his indictment in violation of his right to a grand jury. Defendant argued that the district court constructively amended the indictment by providing a definition of groin that included genitalia. According to Defendant, his Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury was violated because the jury could have convicted him of a different offense (touching the genitalia) than the one he was indicted for (touching the groin). The district court denied the motion.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the district court’s definition indicated that the groin “often” includes the genitalia, which is different than the groin always including the genitalia. These terms naturally overlap as a function of human anatomy.   Moreover, Defendant argued that the six locations outlined in Section 2246(3) are discrete, so referencing one location (genitalia) in the definition of another (groin) constructively amends the indictment. The court disagreed. If this were true, then a separate part of the court’s definition would have the same problem because it references the “inner thigh,” one of the six locations defined in Section 2246(3). Defendant points to United States v. Burch, where the court conformed the jury instructions to the indictment by limiting the definition of “sexual contact” to what was alleged in the indictment (“touching of the genitalia”). But Burch only supports that each Section 2246(3) location is narrower than “sexual contact,” not that each location is independent of each others. View "United States v. Neeraj Chopra" on Justia Law