Minnesota Lawyer
Attorneys
Legal Malpractice
Fraud; Assignment of Claims
Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of her legal malpractice and fraud claims. Plaintiff had filed a wrongful death suit against Nicholas Helgeson. Helgeson’s insurer hired defendants to defend Helgeson in the wrongful death action. However, the trial court ultimately entered default judgment after defendant was discovered not to be licensed to practice law in the state. Plaintiff later sued defendant for unauthorized practice of law and fraud. After the case was dismissed, plaintiff obtained an assignment of Helgeson’s potential claims against defendants and filed the present action.
Where the district court properly determined that applicable state law would bar the assignment of legal malpractice claims, plaintiff’s case was correctly dismissed for lack of standing.
Judgment is affirmed.
Civil Rights
§1983
Inmate Suicide; Qualified Immunity
Defendants appealed the denial of their motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s §1983 action. Plaintiff, as trustee for Richard Bild’s next of kin, filed suit after Bild committed suicide while detained on criminal charges. Defendants received information that Bild might have been attempting suicide and placed him on the strictest observation level, later reducing his observation level after Bild denied any further suicidal thoughts. However, Bild eventually committed suicide several days later.
Where there was no evidence that defendants had a more suicide-proof facility for Bild, their decision not to seek specialized mental health treatment or keep Bild on the strictest observation level did not constitute deliberate indifference to his mental health needs.
Judgment is reversed and remanded.
Detainee
Excessive Force; Qualified Immunity
Defendant appealed the denial of his motion for summary judgment. While detained following an arrest on weapons charges, plaintiff was placed in administrative segregation. Wanting access to his legal papers, plaintiff repeatedly pressed his cell’s panic button. While defendant and other officers escorted plaintiff back to his cell, plaintiff threw items at the cell wall, prompting defendant to grab plaintiff and slam him to the ground. The district court denied defendant’s claim for qualified immunity.
Where surveillance video showed that plaintiff was following the officers’ instructions and posed no threat, the district court correctly concluded that defendant may have employed excessive force against plaintiff.
Judgment is affirmed.
Excessive force
Deliberate Indifference to Medical Need; Qualified Immunity
Plaintiff appealed the denial of his motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff sued defendants, claiming that they employed excessive force and were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs by failing to administer his prescription medication and not intervening as his mental health declined in custody, culminating in plaintiff tearing out his own eye after he was pepper sprayed for failing to comply during a cell search.
Where the use of pepper spray to prevent plaintiff from escaping his cell was reasonable under the circumstances, plaintiff’s suit failed as he could not show that the law was so clearly established regarding defendants’ obligations to attend to plaintiff’s medical needs.
Judgment is affirmed.
Excessive Force
First Amendment Retaliation; Qualified Immunity
Defendants appealed the denial of their motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs’ First Amendment retaliation and excessive force claims. Plaintiffs attended a protest where some protestors began hurling objects at the police. In response, police launched tear gas. Plaintiffs claimed that officers launched tear gas canisters at them while they were away from the site of the protest. The district court concluded that all three plaintiffs had stated viable First Amendment retaliation claims.
While two of the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by qualified immunity because they could not show that it was sufficiently clear to the officers that launching tear gas at those plaintiffs violated the First Amendment, the third plaintiff stated a viable First Amendment claim by alleging that officers launched tear gas at him after he merely directed protected speech at the officers and gave no probable cause of any criminal activity.
Benton, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part: “Chestnut and Walker found it clearly established that peacefully observing a police officer did not furnish reasonable suspicion (or probable cause) of criminal activity and therefore did not justify a Fourth Amendment seizure. The panel opinion today presumes that peaceful police-observation fits the first category of legal conduct insufficient for a search or seizure—conduct that just happens to be legal. But this circuit’s precedent clearly establishes that peaceful police observation must be legal—it is constitutionally protected First Amendment activity.”
Judgment is affirmed in part, reversed and remanded in part.
Inmate
Deliberate Indifference; Motion to Compel Discovery
Plaintiff appealed the denial of his motion to set aside summary judgment entered in favor of defendants. Plaintiff filed suit alleging that defendants were deliberately indifferent in failing to protect him from another inmate. The district court denied plaintiff’s motion to set aside summary judgment and compel discovery.
Where the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff’s motion, the court affirmed given the lack of evidence of judicial bias.
Judgment is affirmed.
Inmate Action
Deliberate Indifference
Where an inmate challenged the dismissal of his complaint against medical staff at a county jail, the complaint failed to state a claim for deliberate indifference.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-2065 Roberts v. Doe, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa.
Inmate Action
Excessive Force; Video Surveillance
Where an Arkansas inmate appealed an adverse grant of summary judgment in a pro se action alleging a prison guard used excessive force against him, the district court properly relied on the facts depicted by a surveillance video, which contradicted the inmate’s statement, and the judgment is affirmed since the inmate also waived his challenged to the authenticity of the video.
Judgment is affirmed.
Inmate Action
Failure To Exhaust
Where an inmate appealed the adverse grant of summary judgment in his civil rights action, the inmate failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, so the judgment is affirmed.
Judgment is affirmed.
Consumer Law
PAC Violations
State Enforcement Action; Preemption
Where a political action committee, which was under investigation for state consumer law violations by attorneys general from several states for its use of pre-checked, recurring-donation checkboxes on campaign donation solicitation forms, sought to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of subpoenas and civil action demands, the states’ potential enforcement actions were not preempted by federal election law, and the district court did not err in denying the requested injunctions.
Judgment is affirmed.
Telephone Consumer Protection Act
Notice Of Appeal; Jurisdiction
Where plaintiff brought a putative class action against a cash advance company alleging a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a notice of appeal by a non-party to the lawsuit was insufficient to confer jurisdiction on the court, so the appeal is dismissed.
Appeal is dismissed.
Contracts
Mortgage-Backed Securities
Liquidating Trust; Recovery of Funds
Defendant appealed the judgment entered in favor of plaintiff. Plaintiff sued defendant for breach of contract and indemnification to recover a portion of allowed bankruptcy claims in plaintiff’s liquidating trust, alleging that defendant had sold defective or unrecoverable mortgage-backed securities. The district court granted summary judgment for plaintiff, ruling that it could use statistical loan sampling to prove liability and damages.
Where the parties’ contract gave plaintiff sole discretion to determine an event of default, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment for plaintiff where plaintiff was not required to prove breaches on a loan-to-loan basis and plaintiff’s evidence was consistent with applicable contractual indemnity law for multiple defendants. However, the district court erred in not applying the federal interest statute.
Judgment is affirmed in part, vacated and remanded in part.
Criminal Law
Civil Commitment
Mental Disease or Defect; Sufficiency of Evidence
Defendant appealed the district court’s order committing him to the custody of the Attorney General for medical care and treatment. The district court found that defendant was suffering from a mental disease or defect that would make him a substantial risk of injuring another person. The district court noted that while serving a federal sentence for committing assault while on supervised release from a prior assault, defendant failed to comply with his medication regimen for schizophrenia and assaulted staff members.
Where medical experts opined that defendant’s history of random and unpredictable violence indicated his propensity for future violence, the district court did not err in concluding that commitment was necessary to ensure defendant’s compliance with his treatment regimen to ensure he gained insight into his mental illness.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-1031 U.S. v. Gray, Colloton, J. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri.
Sentencing
Substantive Reasonableness
Where a defendant challenged the sentence imposed after he pled guilty to a firearm offense, the sentence was not substantively unreasonable, and the district court adequately considered the relevant sentencing factors.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-3307 U.S. v. Castile, per curiam Appealed from U.S. District Court, Northern District of Iowa.
Sentencing
Substantive Reasonableness
Where a defendant challenged the sentence imposed after he pled guilty to escaping from custody, the sentence was not substantively unreasonable, and the district court adequately considered the relevant sentencing factors.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-3042 U.S. v. Donaby, per curiam Appealed from U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri.
Sentencing
Substantive Reasonableness
Where a defendant challenged the sentence imposed after he pled guilty to a firearm offense, the sentence was not substantively unreasonable, and the district court adequately considered the relevant sentencing factors.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-2861 U.S. v. Moore, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa.
Sentencing
Supervised Release; Jurisdiction
Where a defendant admitted to violating the terms of his supervised release, and the district court revoked the supervised release and sentenced him, the district court had jurisdiction over the supervised release notwithstanding the pending appeal from the denial of his motion to vacate, and the sentence was not substantively unreasonable.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-2182 U.S. v. Harris, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, District of North Dakota.
Sentencing
Upward Variance; Mitigating Factors
Where a defendant challenged his sentence after he failed to register as a sex offender, the district court did not give excessive weight to a pending sex offense charge or insufficient weight to mitigating factors, and the sentence was not substantively unreasonable.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-1672 U.S. v. Bruzek, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Western District of Arkansas.
Supervised Release
Revocation
Where a defendant challenged the revocation of his supervised release, the district court did not clearly err in finding that a violation had occurred, and the sentence was not unreasonable.
Judgment is affirmed.
22-3263 U.S. v. Sims, per curiam. Appealed from U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa.
Unlawful Possession of a Firearm
Upward Sentencing Variance; Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence
Defendant appealed the judgment of sentence imposed following his guilty plea to unlawful possession of a firearm. The district court, at the government’s recommendation, varied upward from defendant’s Guidelines range. Defendant argued that the district court failed to explain the sentence and that the sentence was substantively unreasonable.
Where the district court considered the relevant sentencing factors for variance from the Guidelines range, it imposed a reasonable sentence as defendant’s challenge constituted mere disagreement with the district court’s exercise of discretion.
Judgment is affirmed.
Employer-Employee
Discrimination
Motion to Dismiss; Failure to State a Claim
Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of her employment discrimination claim.
Where there was no basis to overturn the district court’s determination that plaintiff had failed to state a claim, the court affirmed the dismissal of the action.
Judgment is affirmed.
Immigration
Removal
Administrative Closure
Where a petitioner sought review of an order denying his motion to reconsider the denial of an administrative closure of his removal proceedings, the Board of Immigration Appeals did not abuse its broad discretion to deny the motion since the board considered the appropriate legal factors and did not clearly err in weighing the factors.
Petitions denied.
Insurance
Professional Liability Insurance
Medicare Reimbursements; Duty To Defend
Where insurer issued professional liability policies to a doctor and healthcare entity, and the parties disputed whether the policy covers a third party claim for Medicare reimbursements that it had to pay based on the entity’s deficient documentation of the professional services that it provided, the reimbursed payments were not based on any professional services that were or should have been rendered by the provider, and insurer had no duty to defend or indemnify provider from the Medicare recoupment claim under the policy’s professional services liability coverage provision.
Judgment is affirmed.
Intellectual Property
Trade Secrets
Misappropriation; ‘Information And Belief’
Where appellant construction equipment rental company claimed that two competitors misappropriated its trade secrets to gain an unfair advantage in the construction equipment rental industry, arguing that the competitors were hiring away their employees and convincing them to share trade secrets, the district court erred by dismissing the claims against the managed cooperative platform because they were based on “information and belief” where the proof supporting the allegations was within defendants’ sole possession and control, and plaintiff pled sufficient facts to state a plausible trade secret misappropriation claim under Missouri law.
Judgment is reversed.
