Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Officers went to the house at 11:40 p.m. to execute a warrant on the son, who had failed to appear on drunk-driving charges. Waiting in a breezeway, they saw the father in the kitchen and yelled to drop the gun. The father, with poor sight and hearing, asked who the officers were. An officer fired four shots. The father died. Mother and son were cuffed and detained. The district court dismissed several claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983, but held that the officers were not shielded by qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit affirmed denial of qualified immunity for the officer who fired. If he shot while the man was trying to comply, as claimed by the son, he violated a clearly established Fourth Amendment right to be free from deadly force. The court reversed with respect to the officer who was not a supervisor and did not shoot. The court properly retained the mother's Fourth Amendment claims; the officers had fair notice of constitutional violations inherent in subjecting a bystander to detention, excessive in duration and manner. The district court erred in not dismissing state-law gross-negligence and intentional tort claims. Although the officers may have been objectively unreasonable, they did not act in bad faith under Michiganâs subjective standard for governmental immunity.

Each summer, plaintiff leads a group of Christians at the Arab International Festival with a goal of converting Muslims to Christianity. In 2009, Dearborn police instituted a restriction that prohibited leafleting from sidewalks directly adjacent to Festival attractions and on sidewalks and roads that surround the Festivalâs core by one to five blocks; it allowed leafleting at the Festival only from a stationary booth and not while walking. The district court denied a temporary restraining order before the 2009 Festival and granted summary judgment to the defendants in 2010. The Sixth Circuit granted an injunction pending appeal for the 2010 Festival, permitting leafleting from outer sidewalks and roads, but not on sidewalks directly adjacent to attractions, then reversed with respect to the "free speech" claim. The restriction on sidewalks adjacent to attractions does not serve a substantial government interest. The city keeps those sidewalks open for public traffic and permits sidewalk vendors, whose activity is more obstructive than leafleting; the prohibition is not narrowly tailored to the goal of isolating inner areas from vehicular traffic. The city can be held liable because the Chief of Police, who instituted the leafleting restriction, created official municipal policy.

Defendant, facing the death penalty, exhausted Ohio state review and was housed in a facility for prisoners with mental illnesses. He refused to meet with attorneys to discuss collateral appeal. They filed a habeas corpus petition and a motion for a pre-petition competency hearing, at which experts agreed that defendant suffered from schizophrenia, personality disorder, and hallucinations and could not fully communicate with counsel. Two years later, an expert informed the court that defendantâs condition was worse. The court dismissed the habeas petition without prejudice and prospectively tolled the limitations period indefinitely. The Sixth Circuit remanded, noting that the "right" to competence in habeas proceedings is not constitutional, but statutory. The district court acted within its discretion in holding a pre-petition hearing and concluding that defendant was incompetent, but erred in dismissing the petition and tolling the limitations period under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. With respect to the ineffective assistance claims, habeas proceedings should be stayed until defendant is competent according to 18 U.S.C. 4241. The court must examine other claims to determine whether defendantâs assistance is essential to full and fair adjudication. If not, the court should appoint a next friend to litigate those claims.

Plaintiffs alleged that corporate officers committed securities fraud (15 U.S.C. 78j, 78t) by making false statements about about the corporation's financial health and controlled other persons regarding false statements by the corporation and other employees. The district court dismissed; the Sixth Circuit remanded. The district court again dismissed and the Sixth Circuit reversed. The complaint adequately alleged scienter by alleging that the defendants received internal reports and information showing financial distress, yet continually made false, positive statements regarding financial health. The court noted allegations concerning temporal proximity between false statements and corrective statements, defendants' financial motivations, the retirement of one defendant, and that the SEC investigated the company's accounting practices.

The Sixth Circuit previously reversed defendant's conviction and sentence for possession of a firearm in connection with drug trafficking, 18 U.S.C. 924(c), but affirmed other convictions and the 30-year sentence he received for those counts. The government dropped the charge and the court vacated the sentence for that count by written order without allowing defendant to personally appear or re-allocute. peals arguing that the district court erred by not conducting a plenary resentencing. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that because the issue was limited to the 924 charge, which the United States declined to pursue, there was no sentencing to be done. The district court did not rely on the 924 conviction in imposing the sentence for the other counts and it was not improper to consider the actual possession of a gun.

African-Americans residing near a contaminated landfill claim that municipalities knew that well water was contaminated, warned Caucasian families and provided alternate sources of water, but did not warn African-Americans. In their suit under the Equal Protection Clause, 42 U.S.C. 1983, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000d, and state laws, a magistrate compelled testimony by plaintiffs' former counsel; the city asserted that, if plaintiffs consulted the attorney in 2000, the action is barred by the one-year statute of limitations. During a deposition, the attorney refused to answer some questions. The court granted a motion to compel. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Plaintiffs were not appealing a final judgment and did not qualify for interlocutory review under the Perlman exception or the collateral order doctrine. Immediate review is appropriate if an order conclusively determines a disputed issue separate from the merits that is too important to be denied review and will be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Privilege is important and the attorney is a disinterested non-party, so the contempt-citation avenue of review is practically foreclosed, but plaintiffs, asserting the privilege, ultimately can avail themselves of a post-judgment appeal that suffices to protect the rights of the litigants and preserve the vitality of attorney-client privilege.

In 2004, defendant entered a guilty plea to possession of 7.5 grams of crack cocaine, but failed to appear for sentencing and avoided arrest for several months. The original Guideline range, 60-71 months, was increased by two levels for obstruction of justice; a three-point reduction for acceptance of responsibility was denied. The final range was 97-121 months. The district court imposed a sentence of 97 months, which was affirmed. On a subsequent motion, the parties stipulated that defendant met the criteria for sentence reduction under retroactive amendments to the Guidelines for crack cocaine and that the new range was 78-97 months. A probation officer agreed with the recalculation and described defendant's adjustment to incarceration as "fair." He had received average work evaluations and had two incident reports for refusing to obey an order and one for fighting. He had not been disciplined in the past two years and had taken classes. The district court reduced the sentence to 88 months. The Sixth Circuit remanded for a statement of reasons for the change; the court did not abuse its discretion in not holding a hearing.

The credit union provides indirect lending, which allows applicants to apply for loans at automobile dealerships. A third-party administrator compiles the applications and automatically approves low-risk loans. Higher-risk applications are forwarded to the credit union for further review using an eight-factor policy. After an audit disclosed hundreds of high-risk loans issued in violation of the policy, the credit union filed a claim under a fidelity bond that provided coverage for losses caused by an employeeâs "failure to faithfully perform his/her trust." The district court awarded $5,050,000 plus $2,730,415 in interest to be offset by prejudgment interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed; there was sufficient evidence to support the juryâs finding that the lending policy was "established," "enforced," and "consciously disregarded" as described in the bond language. There was no evidence that the credit union board acquiesced in the violations. Although the court allowed an improper "golden rule" argument, the error does not require reversal; references to the insurer's ability to check the policies and to checklists were not errors.

An inmate at a maximum security facility brought a pro se action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming that he was injured by prison guards and received inadequate treatment. The district court entered a stay of discovery, based on defendants' claim that the inmate failed to exhaust administrative remedies, and later dismissed the case without lifting the stay. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of claims related to medical care, stating that the evidence was sufficient to establish, as a matter of law, that the defendants were not deliberately indifferent. The court reversed and remanded summary judgment on the excessive force claim, stating that the inmate's request for a video of the incident was not vague and goes to the essence of the claim.

Petitioner and her son are Estonian citizens who are ethnically Russian; her husband is a Russian citizen. All three came to the United States legally and sought asylum and withholding of removal, claiming past persecution on account of their Russian ethnicity and fear of future persecution. They claim that petitioner's Estonian citizenship was revoked after Estonia regained independence from the USSR; Estonia invalidated Russian medical degrees, limiting job opportunities for petitioner; petitioner's son received a delayed diagnosis of a genetic defect, PKU, and inferior health care on account of his ethnicity; and that an older son, residing in Estonia, has been subjected to mistreatment based on ethnicity. The immigration judge denied asylum and withholding of removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed. The Sixth Circuit vacated, finding that the BIA did not consider whether revocation of citizenship on account of ethnicity is persecution, and that the BIA lacked substantial evidence to support its conclusion that petitionerâs job limitations were neither persecution nor on account of ethnicity.