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

Zundel entered the U.S. in 2000 under the Visa Waiver Program, 8 U.S.C. 1187. He married a citizen, and applied for permanent residency (8 U.S.C. 1255). He did not attend his INS interview; the INS denied the application. In 2003 he was presented with a Warrant of Deportation. He filed a “Writ of Habeas Corpus, Petition for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction, Complaint for Constitutional Violations, Petition to Set Bond.” The district court and Sixth Circuit denied relief. Zundel was removed with notice that he was prohibited from returning for 20 years, 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9). Zundel filed amended petitions for habeas corpus, mandamus, and injunctive relief, and a Bivens claim for damages. The district court dismissed habeas claims. The Sixth Circuit converted to a petition for review under the REAL ID Act of 2005, 119 Stat. 231 and denied review. The district court dismissed remaining claims and denied amendment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Challenge to a determination that Zundel entered under the VWP (thereby waiving appeals) is barred by res judicata. The court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over a challenge to the bar of inadmissibility. A claim for loss of consortium fails to state a claim and a Bivens claim is time-barred.

In Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the airline extracted concessions that resulted in an approximate 40 percent wage cut for pilots in return for an $888 million claim in bankruptcy to be disbursed as stock shares. The union first suggested that a pilot's share should reflect time that the pilot worked during the 85-month concessionary period, but ultimately adopted a cutoff date for determining which pilots would receive full shares. The cutoff assumed that any pilot employed on the effective date of the Restructuring Agreement would remain employed through its termination four years later. Any pilot who left before the date would receive a share based the number of months that the pilot worked during the concessionary period. All participants in the Early Retirement Program retired after the cutoff date. Plaintiffs, retirees who reached mandatory retirement age and left before the cutoff, received shares at least $100,000 less than expected. The union rejected appeals. The district court granted summary judgment to the union. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting claims that the union breached its duty of fair representation, Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C. 15, and discriminated based on age, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 623(c)(1), and Mich. Comp. Laws 37.2204(a).

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners helps to coordinate the state-based regulations of insurance, creating model statutes and regulations and releasing actuarial guidelines. Actuarial Guideline 33 (1995), describing how insurance companies should handle accounting questions connected to annuities sold after 1980. The new guidance prompted plaintiff to change the way it calculated financial reserves for roughly 200,000 annuity contracts it had issued over the prior 15 years, increasing its reserves by approximately $59 million—about 1.2 percent. The company’s parent claimed a deduction for part of that increase on its federal taxes for the following year and sought to do the same for the next nine years, 26 U.S.C. 807(f) The IRS concluded that insurers could not use Guideline 33 in calculating reserves for annuity contracts issued before its effective date. The company paid the disputed taxes under protest and sought to recover $11 million in overpayments and several million more in interest. The district court concluded that Guideline 33 clarified the pre-1995 requirements rather than changing them, granting the company summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed.

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g); possession of a firearm altered to have a barrel of less than 18 inches in length, 26 U.S.C. 5822, 5861(c), 5871; and possession of an unregistered firearm, 26 U.S.C. 5822, 5861(d), 5871 and was sentenced to concurrent terms of 180 and 120 months under the Armed Career Criminal Act, U.S.S.G. 4B1.4(a), based on his prior conviction for Class E felony evading arrest under Tennessee state law. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in 2010, but the Supreme Court remanded the case for further consideration in light of its 2011 decision, Sykes v. United States. The Sixth Circuit again held that Class E felony evading arrest under Tennessee law is a violent felony, reasoning that vehicular flight inherently presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.

The named plaintiffs are Ohio residents who purchased front-loading washing machines manufactured by defendant. Within months after their purchases, the plaintiffs noticed the smell of mold or mildew emanating from the machines and from laundry washed in the machines. One plaintiff found mold growing on the sides of the detergent dispenser, another saw mold growing on the rubber door seal, despite allowing the machine doors to stand open. They filed suit, alleging tortious breach of warranty, negligent design, and negligent failure to warn. The district court certified a class comprised of Ohio residents who purchased one of the specified machines in Ohio primarily for personal, family, or household purposes and not for resale (Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and (b)(3)). The Sixth Circuit affirmed class certification, with proof of damages reserved for individual determination. Plaintiffs’ proof established numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequate representation. Common questions predominate over individual ones and class action is a superior method to adjudicate the claims.

A class of retirees who had worked under a collective bargaining agreement and their survivors and dependents obtained monetary damages and declaratory and injunctive relief requiring that defendants provide vested lifetime healthcare benefits to the class members depending on the relevant date of retirement (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. 1132(a)(1)(B); Labor-Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 185). The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that defendant Newell Window is bound as a successor liable under earlier collective bargaining agreements to which it was not a party; that members of the plaintiff class had vested rights to company-paid health insurance and/or Medicare Part B premium reimbursements; and that the claims were not barred by the applicable six-year statute of limitations.

Petitioner met a U.S. citizen, 28 years her senior, when he visited St. Petersburg, Russia in 1991. The two married in 1998, and petitioner moved to the U.S. and became a lawful permanent resident on a conditional basis, 8 U.S.C. 1186a(a)(1). To allow her to stay in the country permanently, husband and wife were required to submit a joint petition two years after her initial entry, swearing that their marriage was legal, that it had not been annulled or terminated, and that they had not married each other for immigration purposes. They submitted the required joint petition, but divorced before it could be processed. Petitioner sought a hardship waiver, for unconditional permanent residency as an alien whose marriage to a citizen has ended if the alien demonstrates that the marriage was entered into in good faith. After a hearing, an immigration judge found that petitioner had not married in good faith but had done so only to enter the U.S. and ordered her removed to Russia. The BIA affirmed. The Sixth Circuit denied review, stating that it lacked jurisdiction to consider most of petitioner's claims.

Defendants, two of three lawyers who represented several hundred Kentucky clients in a mass-tort action against the manufacturer of the defective diet drug "fen-phen," settled the case for $200 million, which entitled them under their retainer agreements to approximately $22 million each in attorney fees. By visiting clients and obtaining their signatures on "confidential settlements," for lesser amounts, the two actually disbursed slightly more than $45 million, less than 23 percent of the total settlement. The lawyers kept the remainder for themselves and associated counsel, transferring much of it from the escrow account to various other accounts, including out-of-state accounts. The scheme was discovered; the lawyers were disbarred and convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343, 1349. One was sentenced to 240 months, the other to 300 months. They were ordered to pay more than $127 million in restitution. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting a variety of challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and trial procedures.