Last Week in Federal Appeals (No. 63)
Appellate decisions from the weeks of January 8 and January 15, 2024
“The COVID-19 pandemic led to a tragic loss of life and had financial effects worldwide. Missouri seeks to recover from various Chinese defendants, including the government itself, for the impact the disease had on its own economy and the health and economic security of its citizens. It turns out that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act stands in the way of most of its claims. Just one survives: the allegation that China hoarded personal-protective equipment while the rest of the world was in the dark about the disease.”
Judge Stras, Missouri, ex rel. Eric S. Schmitt v. The Peoples Republic of China
Decision Summaries
First Circuit
Lawrence General Hospital v. Continental Casualty Company
The First Circuit held that the plaintiff hospital did present a proper claim for insurance reimbursement due to losses related to the Covid-19 pandemic under the disease contamination coverage provision of the policy. Specifically, panel determined that the government mandates issued during the pandemic were “decontamination orders,” as required by the policy.
United States v. Arce-Ayala
The First Circuit vacated a defendant’s guilty plea based on his claim that his plea was not knowing and voluntary. The panel agreed that the defendant’s misapprehension, based on his attorney’s representations and certain statements from the district court, that he would get credit for certain time served was sufficient to make his plea unknowing.
Third Circuit
Roberts v. Lau
The Third Circuit held that the defendant prosecutor was not entitled to absolute immunity from civil rights claims when he stepped outside of the prosecutorial role and engaged in an investigatory function by seeking out a jailhouse informant to testify against the plaintiff. However, the panel did acknowledge that the line between identifying inculpatory evidence by interviewing witnesses and engaging in an unprotected investigation is imprecise.
Barlow v. Service Employees International Union Local 668
The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims under the First Amendment protection against compelled speech. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Janus, which sets forth the right to be free from compelled speech in the form of union dues deductions, the plaintiffs here voluntarily entered the union and failed to revoke their dues within the allotted annual windows.
Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police
The Third Circuit held that 18-to-20-year-olds were among the “People” protected by the Second Amendment. The panel issued an order directing the district court to issue an injunction forbidding the State from enforcing a prohibition on 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying firearms for self defense during a state of emergency.
Fourth Circuit
United States v. Maynard
The Fourth Circuit held that witnesses’ use of protective face masks during trial does not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him at trial.
Fifth Circuit
National Press v. McCraw
The Fifth Circuit held that the Texas statutes governing the use of drones do not violate the First Amendment right to free press. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the panel denied the plaintiffs’ facial constitutional challenge against the statutes for infringing on their right to film and gather news. The panel explained that the statutes only regulate the means of recording, rather than the subjects of the recording.
Consumers’ Research v. Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Fifth Circuit rejected claims that the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s structure did not violate the Separations of Powers.
Book People, Inc. v. Wong
The Fifth Circuit held that compelling book publishers to business with Texas public schools to issue sexual content warnings for all library materials they had ever sold likely violated the First Amendment. The panel rejected the argument that this law fell within the government-operations exception to prohibition on compelled speech.
Sixth Circuit
United States v. O’Lear
In this health care fraud matter, the Sixth Circuit held that the nursing home residents whose identities and health records were improperly used by the defendant were “vulnerable victims” for the purposes of determining the defendant’s sentencing enhancement. Further, the panel held that the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury was not violated when the court excluded potential jurors based on their vaccination status, as the unvaccinated are not a “distinctive group” under the considerations of the Sixth Amendment.
Eighth Circuit
Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Reynolds
The Eighth Circuit upheld that Iowa’s trespass-surveillance statute, which penalizes anyone who, while trespassing, knowingly places or uses a device to record the trespassed property. The panel held that the trespass prerequisite made the statute sufficiently narrowly tailored enough to survive a First Amendment challenge by animal-welfare groups who admit to trespassing and recording as part of their protest and fact-gathering efforts.
Missouri, ex rel. Eric S. Schmitt v. The Peoples Republic of China
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of all but one of Missouri’s claims against the Chinese government to recover damages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The panel determined that the district court generally lacked jurisdiction over the governmental defendants under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. However, the immunity does not protect foreign states from liability for commercial activity, and the panel allowed only one of Missouri’s claims to proceed: the allegation that China hoarded personal-protective equipment.
Ninth Circuit
South Coast Specialty Surgery Center v. Blue Cross of California
The Ninth Circuit joined the First, Second, Third, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits in holding that, when an assignment of benefits agreement is in place, health care providers have the authority to sue for the payment of insurance benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Coalition on Homelessness v. San Francisco
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s preliminary injunction against the enforcement of any ordinance that punishes sleeping, lodging, or camping on public property under the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Best Carpet Values, Inc. v. Google LLC
The Ninth Circuit held that, as a matter of law, plaintiffs did not have a basis to bring their claims against Google for trespass and breach of implied contracts when Google displayed its own search result materials on the plaintiffs’ websites in the Android Search App.
Eleventh Circuit
Young Israel of Tampa, Inc. v. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding that the public transit authority defendant’s policy against advertisements that “primarily promote a religious faith” violated the First Amendment because it failed to define key terms, lacked any official guidance, and vested too much discretion in those charged with its application.
Warren v. DeSantis
The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court’s bench trial verdict, which found that Governor Ron DiSantis did not violate the First Amendment when he terminated an elected Florida state attorney. Instead, the panel determined that the plaintiff had engaged in expression protected under the First Amendment and that the district court erred in failing to properly assess whether Governor DiSantis terminated the plaintiff for engaging in those protected expressions.
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