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

After the school districts sought termination of the Garland County School Desegregation Case Comprehensive Settlement Agreement and relief from the district court’s 1992 order enforcing it, the district court denied the school districts' Rule 60(b)(5) motion. The district court rejected the school districts' argument that the Agreement is no longer just or equitable to give the 1992 order or the Agreement prospective application in light of the repeal of the Arkansas School Choice Act of 1989 (School Choice Act), Ark. Code Ann. 6-18-206 (repealed 2013). The court concluded that the school districts have presented no evidence that they have either fully complied or that there have been changed circumstances in those other areas of the Agreement. Therefore, termination of the entire Agreement would be supported by nothing more than the notion that it is no longer convenient to live with. The court affirmed the judgment. View "W.T. Davis v. Cutter Morning Star Sch." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the USDA and others, claiming that defendants violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. 1691 et seq., because they denied his debt settlement offers on the basis of his race and in retaliation for his being a member of the Pigford class-action litigation. Plaintiff also alleged that defendants engaged in a conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. 1985(3) to interfere with his civil rights, and that they violated his rights under the Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's claims. The court held that a final agency decision by the USDA resolving a complaint under 7 C.F.R. Pt. 15d using the administrative procedures currently in effect does not result in claim preclusion. In this case, the complaint does not contain sufficient allegations to state a plausible claim that Thomas Brown and M. Terry Johnson, both of whom are employed with the USDA’s National Appeals Division, are creditors for ECOA purposes. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of the ECOA claims with respect to Thomas Brown and M. Terry Johnson, and reversed the dismissal of these claims with respect to the remaining defendants. The court also concluded that plaintiff's conspiracy claims under 42 U.S.C. 1985(3) were properly dismissed pursuant to the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine. Finally, the court reversed the dismissal of the Bivens claims because, when a remedial scheme is created entirely by regulation, it does not preclude a Bivens claim. View "Johnson v. USDA" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography and admitted that he was previously adjudicated guilty as a juvenile of a sexual offense involving a minor. On appeal, defendant appealed his sentence and a special condition of supervised release. The court concluded that, under United States v. Woodard, the district court did not err by holding that defendant's juvenile adjudication qualifies as a prior conviction under 18 U.S.C. 2252(b)(1). The court also concluded that, given the circumstances of defendant's crime, it was not plain error for the district court to prohibit defendant's internet access by banning his use of internet-connected computing devices. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gauld" on Justia Law

Defendant, originally adjudicated a juvenile delinquent for assault of a federal officer, appealed the district court's imposition of a combination of official detention and juvenile delinquent supervision following revocation of his prior supervision term. Defendant argues that the total combined term of detention and supervision exceeds the maximum possible term under the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act (FJDA), 18 U.S.C. 5031 et seq. The court agreed and held that the maximum term of supervision that a court may impose under section 5037(d)(6) is determined by the requirements in section 5037(d)(2), using the juvenile's age at the time of the revocation hearing. As a result, the maximum total period of detention and supervision that may be imposed upon revocation of a previously imposed term of supervision for a juvenile who is under age 21 at the time of revocation is (i) 3 years, (ii) the top of the Guidelines range that would have applied to a similarly situated adult defendant unless the court finds an aggravating factor to warrant an upward departure, or (iii) the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult, whichever is least, "less the term of official detention ordered." Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions. View "United States v. E.T.H." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, individually and purportedly on behalf of others similarly situated, filed suit against GameStop for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, money had and received, and violation of Minnesota’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA), Minn. Stat. 325F.68, et seq. Plaintiff alleged that GameStop's disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII) to a third party (Facebook) violated an express agreement not to do so. The district court granted GameStop's motion to dismiss based on plaintiff's lack of standing. The court concluded that plaintiff provided sufficient facts alleging that he is party to a binding contract with GameStop, and GameStop does not dispute this contractual relationship; GameStop has violated that policy; and plaintiff has suffered damages as a result of GameStop's breach. The court also concluded that plaintiff has standing to bring his breach-of-contract claim and to bring his other claims. The court concluded, however, that the privacy policy unambiguously does not include those pieces of information among the protected PII. Therefore, the protection plaintiff argues GameStop failed to provide was not among the protections for which he bargained by agreeing to the terms of service, and GameStop thus could not have breached its contract with plaintiff. Plaintiff's Minnesota CFA claims fail for similar reasons. Finally, plaintiff has not alleged a claim for unjust enrichment or the related claim of money had and received. View "Carlsen v. GameStop, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for defrauding a health-care benefits program, and of making false statements about the delivery or payment for healthcare benefits. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) regarding a prior investigation about his physician assistant and a prior settlement agreement with his pharmacy. In this case, the district court did not clearly abuse its discretion in ruling that the investigation and settlement were relevant to defendant's intent and knowledge, and were not overly prejudicial. Furthermore, the district court gave a limiting instruction that the evidence could be considered only on the issue of whether defendant acted knowingly and willfully. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the proposed testimony about other employees and defendant's patient care was irrelevant to the charged offenses. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Golding" on Justia Law

Movant pleaded guilty to, and was sentenced for, a crime that the stipulated facts in the plea agreement did not support. After the district court corrected the statute of conviction but left movant's sentence intact, he appealed. It is undisputed that movant was convicted and sentenced under the wrong statutory subsection. Therefore, the district court correctly held that movant's guilty plea was involuntary and unknowing. The court agreed with the district court that the government has carried its burden in showing that the error was harmless. Had movant gone to trial on the original indictment, he would have been exposed to a minimum of 15 years' imprisonment. Movant acknowledged that his decision to plead guilty was because the information presented a better deal than the original indictment. Although the district court correctly determined that movant's conviction for a more severe crime than the information supported was a prejudicial constitutional error, the district court incorrectly concluded that the harm did not entitle movant to resentencing. A resentencing hearing will enable the district court to fully and accurately address all relevant sentencing factors. Accordingly, movant is entitled to be resentenced under the correct statute. View "Gray v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to one count of failure to register as a sex offender and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. Even assuming that the categorical approach does apply, the court concluded that the district court committed no plain error by not applying that approach to defendant's prior convictions to determine his appropriate tier classification. In this case, during his change-of-plea hearing, defendant agreed with the government's recitation of the facts that although he was required to register as a sex offender, he had failed to do so as of January 29, 2015. Defendant's admission constitutes a sufficient factual basis for the guilty plea. Even if the court were to consider defendant's duty to register as a sex offender between June 19, 2014, and January 30, 2015, as a purely legal question, the district court committed no plain error in not applying a categorical approach to defendant's California convictions where the court lacked controlling precedent on the question of whether a circumstance-specific approach or categorical approach is applicable to the three tier classifications set forth in 42 U.S.C. 16911(2), (3), and (4); the court's United States v. Hill decision indicates that such an approach does not apply in other subsections of the same statute; and (3) the court's sister circuits have had difficulty in determining whether the circumstance-specific or categorical approach applies to section 16911(2), (3), and (4). Finally, the court found that the district court plainly erred in calculating defendant's total offense level as 23 and thus defendant is entitled to resentencing. View "United States v. Mulverhill" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the denial of her social security disability benefits. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that neither the doctrine of collateral estoppel nor law of the case applies to plaintiff's claim. On the merits, the court concluded that there was substantial evidence in the record to support the current ALJ's decision where he considered and evaluated her treating physician's opinion (Dr. Kinney). The ALJ did discount some of the physician's opinion about plaintiff's marked limits on performing work at a consistent pace because it found the record did not support such conclusions. The court also concluded that the ALJ thoroughly considered the opinions of other treating sources (Dr. Heims and Dr. Stubblefield). Finally, substantial evidence supports the ALJ's adverse credibility finding where the ALJ discounted plaintiff's subjective complaints of pain. In this case, plaintiff had not sought treatment for some of the complained limitations, the objective medical evidence was inconsistent with several of her allegations, there was a general lack of consistent medical treatment, and she seemed to return to the doctors only when she needed disability forms filled out. Furthermore, plaintiff was noncompliant with suggestions by her own treating physician. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Aguiniga v. Colvin" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Missouri inmate, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Missouri Department of Correction officials violated his constitutional rights when they censored his Chinese-language mail and denied him the ability to place telephone calls to China. The district court granted summary judgment to the officials. The court concluded that the restrictions were reasonably related to legitimate penological interests - specifically, security. The court also concluded that both the mail and telephone regulations were neutral and plaintiff had alternative means of communicating with outsiders. Furthermore, he also retained the ability to make domestic calls, send correspondence in English, and receive visitors; the Constitution does not require the State to bear the burden of paying for translation in any event; plaintiff has not demonstrated that there is a readily available alternative that would have eased the restriction on his ability to communicate without imposing financial burdens on the State; and thus the district court correctly rejected plaintiff's First Amendment claim based on the periods where he could neither correspond in Chinese nor international phone calls. The officials, a fortiori, did not violate Yang’s rights during periods when he could correspond in Chinese, but was prohibited from placing international telephone calls. Finally, there is no evidence that differential treatment of foreign-language mail was motivated by race or national origin or that the treatment of Chinese-language mail was a pretext for discrimination. Plaintiff's due process claim was rejected. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Yang v. MO Dep't of Corr." on Justia Law