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

Great Lakes filed suit against ESML for breach of contract. ESML later filed a motion to dismiss based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction, but the district court denied the motion. The case proceeded to trial and judgment was entered for Great Lakes. The court agreed with the district court that the Natural Gas Act (NGA), 15 U.S.C. 717u, does not create an express cause of action under which Great Lakes may sue for breach of contract; the NGA also does not create an implied cause of action where there is no indication of legislative intent to create a federal cause of action displacing traditional state law breach of contract causes of action; and assuming that the district court correctly held that federal issues were “necessarily raised” and “actually disputed,” the court concluded that the federal issues in this case are not “substantial,” and the federal courts cannot exercise federal question jurisdiction “without disturbing any congressionally approved balance of federal and state judicial responsibilities.” Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. View "Great Lakes Gas Transmission v. Essar Steel Minnesota LLC" on Justia Law

Torres are the parents of M. and G. who were born and resided in Peru until Torres removed them to the United States. Custodio seeks return of the children to Peru under the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention), Oct. 25, 1980, T.I.A.S. No. 11,670, 1343 U.N.T.S. 89, and its implementing statute, the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), 22 U.S.C. 9001–11. The district court denied Custodio's petition. Because M. turned 16 during the pendency of these proceedings, the court concluded that the Hague Convention no longer applies to him and dismissed as moot the appeal as to M. The court also concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that G.’s statements constituted an objection within the meaning of the mature child defense. Finally, the court concluded that the district court’s decision to respect 15-year-old G.’s opposition to returning to Peru and desire to remain in the United States was not an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment as to G. View "Custodio v. Torres Samillan" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 324 months in prison. Defendant and Shalonda Clark lived together on the White Earth Indian Reservation. Clark died after their house burned down while they were both intoxicated. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the fire investigator's proposed testimony about deficiencies in the government expert's investigation and his cognitive bias; nor did the district court abuse its discretion by excluding the fire investigator's proposed testimony about other possible causes of the fire; the district court did not err in admitting defendant's statements where most of them were admissible under the public safety exception to the Miranda rule; defendant's statements, even though he had been intoxicated, were voluntary; an officer's request for clarification of a spontaneous statement does not amount to an interrogation; and one of defendant's statements was spontaneous and unprovoked. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by applying a vulnerable victim sentencing enhancement under USSG 3A1.1(b)(1). Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

After defendant plead guilty to one count of production of child pornography and one count of attempted production, he appealed the denial of his motion to suppress and his sentence. Defendant argues that the information in the search warrant was stale, and thus the warrant lacked probable cause, because police did not apply for the warrant until 75 days after identifying his IP address and 51 days after associating it with him. The court concluded, however that periods much longer than 75 or 51 days have not rendered information stale in computer-based child-pornography cases. Here, the affidavit established a fair probability of finding evidence on defendant's computers. The court also concluded that defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone screen once he made it visible to the public by displaying it in the presence of a detective. The court also concluded that defendant consented to the photographs of his tattoo and thus the district court correctly denied the motion to suppress the photographs of the tattoos. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by applying a four-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 2G2.1(b)(4) for an offense involving materials displaying sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence. Finally, the district court did not err by imposing a five-level enhancement under USSG 4B1.5(b) for prohibited sexual conduct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Morgan" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of firearms. The court concluded that, although the district court erred in concluding that defendant's second-degree robbery conviction qualifies as a crime of violence, the error was harmless. In this case, given the district court's thorough discussion of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors underlying its decision to vary upward, and its explanation for the sentence imposed even had the district court sustained defendant's objection to the Guidelines calculation, the district court’s procedural error was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Dace" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud arising from a scheme in which he overpaid for commodities to the benefit of certain customers while managing a grain elevator for Bunge. The district court ordered defendant to pay $1,561,516.25 in restitution to Bunge, which included $87,536.65 in attorney's fees and expenses Bunge paid to an outside counsel during the investigation of defendant's fraudulent scheme and his prosecution. The court affirmed the portion of the district court's restitution award which does not include attorney's fees; vacated the portion awarding attorney's fees and expenses; and remanded to the district court to specifically address whether the attorney's fees incurred after the government initiated its own investigation were "necessary" under 18 U.S.C. 3663A(b)(4). View "United States v. Carpenter" on Justia Law

Century appeals the district court's final judgment determining that Hipner does have coverage under an umbrella policy entered between the parties. Because Wyoming law had not definitively addressed whether an insurer must be prejudiced before being entitled to deny coverage when the insured has failed to give notice “as soon as practicable,” the court certified the question to the Supreme Court of Wyoming. On certification, the Supreme Court of Wyoming adopted the notice-prejudice rule, holding that “prejudice to the insurer [is required] before coverage may be denied based upon a violation of a notice provision contained in the policy.” Additionally, that court held that “an insurance clause is [not] enforceable where it excludes coverage unless the insured notifies the insurer ‘as soon as practicable . . . whether [the insurer] [is] prejudiced or not.’” In this case, although Hipner did not provide timely notice to Century, the court concluded that Century failed to show how the four-month delay in receiving notice actually prevented it from taking any meaningful investigatory steps that it would have done had there been no delay. Because Century suffered no prejudice from the delay in notice, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Century Surety Co. v. Jim Hipner LLC" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of possession of a firearm and ammunition by an unlawful drug user in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3) and 924(a)(2). On appeal, defendant challenged the denial of his motion to dismiss because 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3) was unconstitutionally vague as applied to the facts of his case. The court concluded that a trial on the merits was needed to decide defendant's pretrial motion to dismiss where the parties dispute what evidence the district court could consider in its ruling. In this case, the district court could not rule on defendant's as applied constitutional challenge without resolving factual issues related to his alleged offense, such as the extent of his drug use, and therefore the district court should have deferred ruling until trial. The court concluded that this premature ruling prejudiced defendant's ability to obtain appellate review of his constitutional challenge, for he conditionally pled guilty under his mistaken assumption that he could "have an appellate court review an adverse determination" of his motion to dismiss. The court explained that had the district court informed defendant that it would have to defer a final ruling on his motion, defendant could have moved to vacate his guilty plea and proceeded to trial on the original charges. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Turner" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 120 months in prison. The court concluded that the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion to suppress the firearm where there was no Fourth Amendment seizure here until the officers removed defendant from the idling car. The court also noted that the wig wag lights activated by the officers are different from the full light bar which is used to notify motorists in moving vehicles that they are required to stop. Here, officers activated the wig wag lights in order to identify themselves as police for the safety of all parties involved. A reasonable person seeing the wig wag lights under these circumstances would have thought that he was still "at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business." Because defendant was not unlawfully seized, the district court did not err in denying his motion to suppress. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by admitting circumstantial evidence that connected defendant to a shooting death involving the gun because it was highly probative of defendant's possession of the weapon. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Cook" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against Vermillion Police Department (VPD) officers, alleging violations of their First and Fourth Amendment rights. Given the totality of the circumstances, the relatively low .02 BAC limit under the minor DUI statute, and the absence of judicial decisions interpreting that statute, the court found that the officers had at least arguable probable cause to believe that Plaintiff Callissa Schaffer had violated SDCL 32-23-21. Therefore, the court concluded that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to plaintiffs' claim that officers violated Callissa's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. Likewise, the officers are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to plaintiffs' claim that the officers deprived Callissa of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches when she was frisked before being placed in the patrol car. The court also concluded that Officer Foley is entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiffs' claim that he deprived Callissa of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches because he purposefully misrepresented facts in his affidavit for a search warrant. In this case, plaintiffs failed to show that any of the omissions at issue were intentional or reckless. Finally, the court concluded that the officers are also entitled to qualified immunity on Jill Schaffer's claim that the officers retaliated against her for engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment, and Chief Betzen is entitled to summary judgment on both the official capacity and individual capacity claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Schaffer v. Beringer" on Justia Law