Minnesota Lawyer
Civil Practice
Attorneys’ Fees
FLSA
Where a law firm challenged the district court’s reduction of its requested fees for a routine case brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the court did not abuse its discretion in excluding some of the firm’s work from the fee calculation and imposing a 20 percent reduction based on the firm’s overbilling and negotiation tactics that unreasonably extended the litigation.
Judgment is affirmed.
Computer Fraud And Abuse Act
Preliminary Injunction
Where defendants challenged the grant of a preliminary injunction in a dispute over computer hacking and cyber attacks, the district court erred in granting the injunction because the evidence at the hearing was insufficient to conclude that the defendants were responsible for the conduct at issue, and on remand the case must be assigned to a different district court judge because the record showed a sufficiently high degree of antagonism to the defendants to warrant reassignment.
Vacated; remanded.
Permanent Injunction
Contempt
Where plaintiff sought to initiate contempt proceedings against defendant, claiming that the defendant failed to comply with the terms of a permanent injunction, the district court did not err in denying the request because the plaintiff failed to make a prima facie showing of a violation or of a refusal to follow a court order.
Judgment is affirmed.
Civil Rights
Public Health Order
Face Masks; Mootness
Where appellant challenged a public health order requiring people to wear face masks in public outdoor areas, the district court properly concluded that the case was moot since the order had been amended.
Vacated; remanded.
21-3208 Clark v. Forte, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri.
Consumer Law
Dog Food
False Advertising; Consumer Protection
Plaintiffs appealed from the dismissal of their putative class action alleging false advertising and products liability claims. Plaintiffs argued that the marketing statements on defendants’ dog food products were false or misleading and that the products contained or had a risk of containing Bisphenol A and other heavy metals.
Where plaintiffs did not allege that the heavy metals purportedly in defendants’ products were harmful to dogs’ health or injured plaintiffs’ dogs, and where plaintiffs acknowledged that heavy metals naturally occurred in meat and fish sources for dog food, the district court properly concluded that reasonable consumers would not be misled by the marketing statements on defendants’ packaging.
Judgment is affirmed.
Criminal Law
Distribution of Drugs Resulting in Death
Conspiracy to Distribute; Sufficiency of Evidence
Defendant appealed from his conviction for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and distribution of fentanyl resulting in death. Defendant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that the trial court should have granted his motions for judgment of acquittal or a new trial.
Where the evidence showed that defendant sold fentanyl to the victim approximately 30 minutes before the victim’s first overdose, and the victim had no means of acquiring a new source of drugs upon his return from the hospital, the jury could infer that the victim’s fatal overdose was caused by the fentanyl supplied by defendant.
Judgment is affirmed, remanded for correction of judgment.
Entrapment
Jury Instruction; Mistrial
Where a defendant challenged the district court’s denial of his request for an entrapment instruction, the denial of the request was not erroneous because the defendant did not introduce any evidence of inducement, which is an element of entrapment, and the court also did not err in denying the motion for a mistrial because the court struck a question that the defendant argued violated a stipulation, and the testimony was not prejudicial.
Judgment is affirmed.
20-3362 U.S. v. John, Erickson, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of Nebraska.
Firearms Offenses
Calculation of Guidelines Range; Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence
Defendant appealed from the sentence imposed during resentencing for his conviction for firearms offenses. Defendant challenged the district court’s calculation of the Guidelines range and contended that the district court imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence.
Where defendant failed to show that he was entitled to a sentencing reduction for possessing ammunition for a lawful sporting purpose, the district court did not err in calculating defendant’s Guidelines range or abuse its discretion in varying upward after considering the relevant statutory factors.
Judgment is affirmed.
Guilty Plea
Motion To Withdraw
Where a defendant sought to withdraw his guilty plea, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion since the record from the plea hearing established that the plea was voluntary and knowing, and the defendant’s contrary subsequent assertions were not credible.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-2933 U.S. v. Cline, Colloton, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri.
Habeas Petition
Jurisdiction; Evidentiary Hearing
Where petitioner sought habeas corpus relief, the district court did not err in dismissing the petition for lack of jurisdiction, and the court did not err in denying the request for an evidentiary hearing.
Judgment is affirmed.
19-3449 Crayton v. U.S., Grasz, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota.
Miranda
Custody
Where a defendant moved to suppress statements made to law enforcement during an in-home interrogation, the denial of the motion is affirmed because the defendant was not in custody when he made the statements, the statements were voluntary, and the officers did not need to advise him of his Miranda rights.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-1511 U.S. v. Sandell, Grasz, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa.
Revocation of Supervised Release
Tapia Objection; Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence
Defendant appealed from the sentence imposed following the district court’s revocation of defendant’s supervised release. Defendant argued that his sentence violated Tapia v. U.S., 564 U.S. 319 and was substantively unreasonable.
Where the district court merely addressed the potential for rehabilitation programs for defendant while incarcerated, no Taipa violation occurred, and his below-Guidelines sentence was substantively reasonable.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-3441 U.S. v. Steward, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa.
Second-Degree Murder
Obstruction of Justice Enhancement; Career Offender Designation
Defendant appealed from the judgment of sentence entered following his guilty plea to second-degree murder. Defendant contended that the district court erred in applying an obstruction of justice enhancement and increasing his criminal history category for being a career offender. Defendant also argued that the district court made a factual error regarding defendant’s location during the offense.
Where the district court could rely on hearsay evidence during sentencing, the officers’ testimony was sufficient to support the district court’s imposition of an obstruction of justice sentencing enhancement.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-1916 U.S. v. Bagola, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of South Dakota.
Seizure
Expectation Of Privacy; Hospital Room
Where a defendant sought to suppress evidence after an officer entered his hospital room and seized his bloody clothing from the floor, the clothes were in plain view and the defendant did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in his hospital room, so the officer did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights, and the judgment is affirmed since the defendant’s statements to the police were voluntary and admissible as the totality of the circumstances established that the officers did not overbear the defendant’s will, and the evidence was sufficient to show that the handgun had been in or affected interstate commerce.
Judgment is affirmed.
20-3065 U.S. v. Mattox, Gruender, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota.
Sentencing
ACCA; Predicate Offenses
Where a defendant challenged his enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act, the defendant’s three burglary convictions from Texas qualified as violent felony predicate offenses, so the district court did not err in imposing an enhanced sentence.
Realistic probability analysis
Dissenting opinion by Kelly, J. “In my view, the plain language of the Texas burglary statute shows that it is categorically broader than generic burglary under the ACCA. Because the statute is unambiguous, there is no role for the realistic probability analysis to play. I would therefore vacate Hutchinson’s sentence and remand for resentencing.”
Judgment is affirmed.
Sentencing
Drug Quantity Calculation
Where a defendant challenged his sentence after pleading guilty to distributing heroin, the district court’s drug quantity calculation was not clearly erroneous, and the court sufficiently considered the relevant statutory sentencing factors, so the judgment is affirmed.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-3124 U.S. v. Okolie, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa.
Sentencing
Supervised Release; Polygraph Testing
Where a defendant challenged a special condition of supervised release that required him to submit to periodic polygraph testing, the requirement was not an abuse of discretion given the nature of the offense and the defendant’s history of lying.
Judgment is affirmed.
20-3688 U.S. v. Butler, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Western District of Arkansas.
Supervised Release
Special Conditions
Where a defendant challenged special conditions of supervised release as unrelated to his criminal contempt judgment, the mandatory condition ordering him to comply with sex-offender registry requirements was proper in light of his past sex offenses and the nature of his violations of supervision.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-2508 U.S. v. Davis, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Northern District of Iowa.
Warrant Application
Garbage Search
Where a defendant argued that the district court erred in denying his motion for a Franks hearing, the defendant’s trash was readily accessible to the public in a location where the officer found and searched the garbage, and a more complete description of the defendant’s property in the search warrant application would not have been clearly critical to the probable cause determination, so the court did not err in denying the request.
Judgment is affirmed.
21-1403 U.S. v. Hansen, Erickson, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of Nebraska.
Immigration
Asylum
Future Persecution; Removal
Where petitioner sought review of the denial of her requests for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture, the petitioner did not prove that her fear of future persecution was objectively reasonable, and she failed to meet the burden of proof to obtain asylum, so the petition for review is denied since she would not be able to meet the higher burden for the withholding of removal.
Petition denied.
