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

Defendant appealed her sentence and conviction for two counts of producing child pornography. The court rejected defendant's argument that the district court erred by denying her motion to suppress 47 photographs of her hands, and concluded that the manner in which the officers carried out the search here did not exceed the scope of the warrant. In this case, the warrant specified that law enforcement could search defendant's person, specifically body views and photography of her hands. Furthermore, the court concluded that the photography process did not exceed the bounds of reasonableness required by the Fourth Amendment, and her due process rights were not violated. The court also concluded that any error in failing to exclude an agent's testimony was harmless where substantial evidence other than the testimony supported the jury's verdict. The court rejected defendant's claims of error relating to the exclusion of the videotaped interview of the minor where any probative value was substantially outweighed by the videotape's potential to confuse the issues. The court further concluded that the district court did not err with respect to the jury instruction on lascivious exhibition. Finally, the district court committed no procedural sentencing error and adequately considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Merrell" on Justia Law

Debtor appealed from the bankruptcy court's order denying his motion to reinstate his dismissed Chapter 13 bankruptcy case and an order denying his motion to reconsider that order. The panel concluded that the bankruptcy court did not clearly err in concluding that debtor had no meritorious defense to the UST’s motion to dismiss. Therefore, the panel affirmed the bankruptcy court's order denying debtor's motion to reinstate the dismissed case and denying his motion to reconsider. View "Paulson v. McDermott" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and the district court sentenced him to 180 months in prison pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). On appeal, defendant argues that his prior conviction under Minn. Stat. 609.713, subd. 1 for making terroristic threats does not qualify as an ACCA predicate offense. The court concluded that the Minnesota terroristic threats statute's definition of "crime of violence" is not divisible. Minnesota's definition of "crime of violence" is broader than the ACCA requirement that a prior conviction have "as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another." Therefore, defendant's prior conviction for terroristic threats was not an ACCA predicate offense, and he does not qualify as an armed career criminal because he had only two prior ACCA predicate convictions. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. McFee" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs contend that their insurance policy from Amica covered damage caused by a fire to their house and personal property. On appeal, plaintiffs challenge the district court's grant of summary judgment for Amica. The district court concluded that no reasonable jury would be able to reconcile the difference between the value of the personal property plaintiffs reported as lost in the fire and the value of personal property they reported in their bankruptcy petition a year earlier. Therefore, the district court determined that the insurance policy was void as a matter of law, and granted summary judgment to Amica on plaintiffs' claims. The court affirmed, concluding, as a matter of law, that because plaintiffs intentionally made material misrepresentations on the Proof of Loss, their entire insurance policy is void under the Concealment of Fraud provision. View "Neidenbach v. Amica Mutual Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Debtor appealed the bankruptcy court's order denying his third motion to reconsider the order dismissing his chapter 7 case. The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) concluded that, although debtor argues in his brief that the dismissal order was erroneous, he failed to file a timely notice of appeal from that order and the panel lacked jurisdiction to review it. The BAP also concluded that the bankruptcy court did not abuse its discretion when it denied his third motion for reconsideration. Accordingly, the BAP affirmed the judgment. View "Lee v. Edwards" on Justia Law

Debtor filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and claimed a $15,000 exemption in a homestead he owned as a tenant in the entirety with his wife. The bankruptcy court granted debtor's motion to avoid CRP's judicial lien and the BAP affirmed. CRP appealed. The court vacated and remanded to the bankruptcy court for it to determine whether CRP has a judicial lien on the property that is either enforceable or unenforceable. View "CRP Holdings v. O'Sullivan" on Justia Law

After Willie Robinson, Sr. died, his son and estate administrator filed suit against Pine Hills Health and Rehabilitation nursing home. Willie had entered into an arbitration agreement when he was admitted to Pine Hills and the district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss and compel arbitration. The court concluded that, under Arkansas law, the agreement is enforceable even though the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) is unavailable to serve as the arbitrator. Even assuming that all listed arbitration fora are unavailable, the arbitration agreement still requires the parties to arbitrate this dispute. In this case, the arbitration agreement does not say that the parties must either arbitrate before one of the five fora listed in the code or else litigate. The fact that NAF has stopped performing consumer arbitration does not prove that the code has been canceled, and plaintiff has not provided additional persuasive evidence to show cancellation. Finally, under Arkansas law, these allegations are enough for a court to conclude that the parties are closely related and that arbitration is appropriate. View "Robinson v. EOR-ARK, LLC" on Justia Law

After Little Salt failed to pay its taxes, the Commissioner issued notices of transferee liability to the former shareholders. The tax court concluded that the former shareholders are liable for a portion of Little Salt's tax deficiency and the IRS appealed. The court agreed with the IRS that the Tax Court should have considered whether the stock sale should be recharacterized as a liquidating distribution to the shareholders under Nebraska law. However, the court declined to resolve the issue in the first instance. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded to the tax court to consider whether the IRS is entitled to a full recovery from the former shareholders as transferees under Nebraska law. View "Stuart, Jr. v. CIR" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the City, alleging violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. 621-634, and 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff alleged that he was terminated from his job on account of his race and age after being employed by the City for twenty-seven years. The court affirmed the district court's grant of the City's motion for summary judgment. The court concluded that the district court did not err in setting aside the entry of default judgment where the City's delay in filing its answer was excusable and there was no bad faith or intentional effort to delay on the City's part; plaintiff failed to identify no similarly situated employee outside plaintiff's protected class who was treated more favorably by the City, and thus the inference-of-discrimination element of plaintiff's prima facie case has not been established on this basis; plaintiff failed to identify any biased comments made by a decisionmaker that might establish an animus-based inference of discrimination; there has been no showing that the City failed to follow any applicable policy in making the decision to fire plaintiff and no inference of discrimination has been established on this basis; and the City consistently cited insubordination as its reason for firing plaintiff, and thus there is no record-based shifting-reasons basis for an inference of discrimination. Accordingly, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to substantiate his claims of race and age discrimination with sufficient probative evidence to permit a rational trier of fact to find in his favor. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Grant v. City of Blytheville, Arkansas" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to 80 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess fifteen or more counterfeit access devices and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, possession of fifteen or more counterfeit devices, and false statements to a federal official. The court concluded that the $500 minimum in USSG 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(F)(i) may be applied to fraudulent cards which have been merely possessed rather than used. Therefore, the district court did not err when it concluded that a loss amount of $500 may be attributed to fraudulent cards that are unused. The court concluded that the district court did not err by increasing defendant's base offense level by eight under USSG 2B1.1 after finding that the total loss amount for which he was responsible exceeded $95,000. The court also concluded that the district court did not clearly err by applying an organizer or leader enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(a); the district court did not err in finding that defendant obstructed both his investigation and prosecution and thus increasing his base offense by two for obstruction of justice; and the district court did not clearly err in assessing three criminal history points for defendant's 1999 conviction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Thomas" on Justia Law