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

Kohl, a certified bomb technician, participated in an experiment funded by the U.S. Department of Defense at the Tennessee State Fire Academy, which involved constructing and detonating explosives in vehicles and collecting post-blast debris for analysis. Officers of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives participated. Following detonation, after an “all-clear” was given, participants, including Kohl, entered the range to inspect the vehicles. Kohl searched the passenger’s side, while another technician attempted to search the driver’s side of the vehicle. The driver’s side door would not open. While other team members were preparing to winch the door a second time, Kohl returned to the passenger’s side door. Kohl’s negligence complaint alleged that due to the winching, the door came loose and the frame crashed into Kohl’s head. Kohl was diagnosed with “post-concussive syndrome with persistent headaches and cognitive changes” and has not been employed since the incident. Relying on the discretionary-function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b), 2671, the district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that the government’s decisions about how to extract evidence and what types of equipment to use are shielded from liability by the exception. View "Kohl v. United States" on Justia Law

In 2008, Baniel (an LLC owned by Coffman), Coffman, and her husband Bryan obtained financing from Bank of America to purchase a yacht, giving Bank of America a secured interest. Months later, the United States filed a civil forfeiture in rem complaint against several properties, owned by Coffman and Bryan, alleged to be proceeds of fraud and money laundering. Given the pending criminal investigations, the district court immediately stayed civil forfeiture proceedings. Coffman filed a verified claim to the yacht in 2009. Coffman was acquitted in 2011, but Bryan was convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. Payments to Bank of America have not been made since December 2009, and approximately $637,000 is owed on the note. In February 2011, Bank of America and the government filed a joint motion for interlocutory sale of the yacht. Baniel sought release of the yacht to Coffman’s custody. In February 2012, the district court ordered the interlocutory sale, denied release of the yacht to Baniel, and joined the civil action with the ongoing criminal action. Baniel and Coffman sought a stay of the sale pending appeal, which was denied by the district court. The Sixth Circuit affirmed all orders. View "United States v. Real Prop. & Residence" on Justia Law

Michigan adopted race-conscious admissions policies for public colleges and universities in the 1960s and 1970s, In 2003, the Supreme Court held that universities cannot establish racial quotas but could continue considering race or ethnicity as a ‘plus’ factor along with other relevant factors, On a 2006 statewide ballot, Proposal 2, to amend the Michigan Constitution “to prohibit all sex- and race-based preferences in public education, public employment, and public contracting” passed by a margin of 58 to 42 percent and eliminated consideration of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions decisions. No other admissions criterion (grades, athletic ability, geographic diversity, or family alumni connections) was eliminated. Opponents filed suit, alleging that provisions affecting public colleges and universities violated the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes. The district court issued postponed application of Proposal 2. In 2008, the district court entered summary judgment, rejecting the suit. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that the “existence of such a comparative structural burden” (making the policy constitutional in nature) undermines the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change. View "Coal. to Defend Affirmative Action v. Regents of the Univ. of MI" on Justia Law

In 1985 Moreland lived with his girlfriend Glenna and seven others. After arguing with Glenna, Moreland left, returned with a rifle, and killed Glenna and four others. An 11-year-old child and another were injured but survived. When Moreland was arrested, he told officers that it was “too late” and was uncooperative. At trial, Moreland presented expert testimony that he would have had a blood alcohol level between .30 and .36 around the time the murders were committed, suggesting that he was too intoxicated to carry out the acts as described. Other witnesses reported seeing Moreland that night and called into question his intoxication defense. A three judge panel convicted Moreland and sentenced him to death. The Ohio Court of Appeals and Ohio Supreme Court affirmed; the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. State courts denied relief in state post-conviction proceedings. The district court denied a petition for habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. 2254), rejecting claims of insufficient evidence, that the court did not conduct an adequate evidentiary hearing on a child eyewitness’s competence to testify, that the court wrongly excluded expert testimony concerning the child, and that Moreland was denied effective assistance of counsel. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "Moreland v. Bradshaw" on Justia Law

Evans pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm (18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2)) and was sentenced to 92 months’ imprisonment. When calculating his base offense level under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, the district court determined that Evans’s 2004 Ohio conviction for trafficking in cocaine was a controlled substance offense and that his 2000 Ohio conviction for knowingly assaulting a police officer was a crime of violence as defined under the Guidelines and applied a four-level enhancement to Evans’s base offense level (U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(a)(2)). The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that both of the convictions qualified as predicate offenses. View "United States v. Evan" on Justia Law

Cintas’s SSRs drive trucks to deliver products and act as sales representatives, providing customer service, pitching sales, and collecting payments. Serrano, a female, unsuccessfully applied for a position as an SSR and filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC in 2000. In 2002, after investigating Serrano’s claims and expanding the investigation to include Cintas’s female hiring practices throughout Michigan, the EEOC issued a reasonable-cause determination and sent a proposed conciliation agreement to Cintas suggesting that relief be provided to Serrano, 111 other specified women, and an unspecified number of “other similarly situated females.” Cintas did not respond. In 2005, the EEOC notified Cintas that it was terminating conciliation efforts. In 2004, Serrano filed a Title VII class-action complaint, in which the EEOC intervened. In 2008, the district court denied nationwide class certification. By April 2010, all individual plaintiffs, save Serrano, had their cases resolved. In 2009 the EEOC filed an amended complaint, limiting its allegations to “a class of women in the State of Michigan” The district court granted Cintas’s judgment on 13 individual and “pattern or practice” claims, denying the EEOC’s discovery motions, and awarding costs and fees. The Sixth Circuit vacated and remanded View "Serrano v. Cintas Corp." on Justia Law

To help defendants resist child-pornography charges, technology expert and lawyer Boland downloaded images of children from a stock photography website and digitally imposed the children’s faces onto the bodies of adults performing sex acts. Boland’s aim was to show that the defendants may not have known they were viewing child pornography. When the parents of the children involved found out about the images, they sued Boland under 18 U.S.C. 2252A(f) and 2255. Section 2252A(f) provides a civil remedy to “[a]ny person aggrieved” by child pornography, while 2255 provides a civil remedy of at least $150,000 in damages to minor victims who suffer a “personal injury” from various sex crimes. The district court granted summary judgment to the parents and awarded $300,000 in damages. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. If Boland felt compelled to make his point with pornography, he could have used images of adults or virtual children. Instead, he chose an option Congress explicitly forbade: the choice was not protected by the First Amendment. View "Doe v. Boland" on Justia Law

Lo, a citizen of Senegal, entered the U.S. in 1997 with a non-immigrant student visa, and reunited with Dieng. Dieng had used a false passport to enter the U.S. in 2003. They married in 2005 and their daughter was born in 2006. Dieng has another daughter who remained in Gambia. The couple submitted affirmative asylum applications in 2007. USCIS denied the application and initiated removals. Dieng alleged persecution based on her race, religion, and membership in a particular social group (Fulani ethnic group), stemming from past unsuccessful attempts by relatives to circumcise her, and her fear that, if removed to Senegal, she and her daughters would be at risk of being subjected to genital mutilation. Despite acknowledgment that his people do not practice circumcision, Lo thought that their daughter was at risk at any location in Senegal. The IJ rejected the claims. The BIA and Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal. Substantial evidence supported a finding that Dieng does not harbor a well-founded fear of persecution for herself or her daughters. View "Dieng v. Holder" on Justia Law

In 2000-2001Alioto spent several hundred thousand dollars of his own money on expenses relating to a new business (BRT) involving use of “celebrity talent” to create internet advertising. Alioto became involved in BRT after being approached by the actor, John Ratzenberger, and claims that he believed he would be reimbursed by Ratzenberger for funds expended on behalf of the business, but was never fully repaid. Alioto filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, listing $341,363 outstanding loans owed to him from BRT as part of his assets. Alioto sought to deduct the unreimbursed funds as losses for tax year 2005 and to carry forward some of these losses as deductions for tax years 2006 and 2007. The IRS denied the deductions and issued notices of deficiency. The Tax Court agreed. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, upholding determinations that any business losses occurred prior to 2005, 26 U.S.C. 165(a) and that the losses did not amount to theft under section 165 (e). View "Alioto v. Comm'r of Internal Revenue" on Justia Law

White was an emergency department nurse for Baptist 2005-2007. She did not have a regularly scheduled meal break; breaks occurred as work allowed. White received a copy of Baptist’s employee handbook, which stated that an unpaid meal break would be automatically deducted from their pay checks and that if a meal break was missed or interrupted because of work, the employee would be compensated. Employees were to record time spent working during meal breaks in an “exception log.” White signed a document concerning the policy and recorded occasions where her meal break was interrupted. She claims that if her entire unit missed a break, she was compensated, but that if she individually missed breaks she was sometimes not compensated. She never told her supervisors or human resources that she was not. Eventually, White stopped using the exception log. White knew Baptist’s procedure to report and correct payroll errors, but did not utilize this procedure to correct the unreported interrupted meal break errors because she felt it would be “an uphill battle.” White filed suit, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201. The district court granted Baptist summary judgment and class decertification. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "White v. Baptist Mem'l Health Care Corp." on Justia Law