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

Marc was arrested and taken to the Madison County Detention Center (MCDC). Marc’s wife, Dawn, told the police that her husband had lung cancer and needed immediate medical attention. Marc’s medical records also stated that he had a blood clot in his leg. Dawn alleges that medical staff removed his pain medication patch, placed him on “inappropriate” psychoactive medications, and failed to provide him with his prescriptions. The medical contractor, Correct Care, refused to honor Marc’s scheduled chemotherapy appointments. Marc was transferred to Kentucky State Reformatory (KSR). He arrived with an elevated heart rate, difficulty breathing, and swelling in his leg. Staff withheld his prescribed medication, breathing treatments, and chemotherapy. Marc died less than a month after his arrest. His family was informed two days later. The autopsy revealed fluid accumulated in his lungs. Medical staff would have discovered this fluid if they had administered his prescribed breathing treatments.Dawn’s 42 U.S.C. 1983 Eighth Amendment complaint alleged supervisory liability against Erwin, Acting Commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Corrections, claiming that Erwin “accepted” Marc’s transfer into KSR and “would have been made aware of [Marc’s] medical conditions” and had promulgated and maintained some of KSR’s allegedly unconstitutional policies. Dawn alleged that Erwin was “specifically aware that Correct Care” had a pattern of failing to provide inmates with adequate health care. The Sixth Circuit ordered the dismissal of the claims against Erwin. Dawn's complaint did not allege any “active unconstitutional behavior” by Erwin nor explain how his behavior proximately caused Marc’s injuries; Erwin is entitled to qualified immunity. View "Crawford v. Tilley" on Justia Law

Rafael, a citizen of Guatemala, applied for admission to the U.S. DHS served her with a Notice to Appear at a place and time “to be determined.” Months later, she received a Notice of Hearing, stating the time, date, and location for that hearing. Rafael appeared and applied for asylum and withholding of removal on the basis that, if returned to Guatemala, she would suffer violence because she is a woman. An IJ found Rafael credible, considered the evidence, including the 2018 State Department Report, then found that Rafael could not show that the Guatemalan government was unable or unwilling to protect women from persecution by private individuals. The IJ found that the Guatemalan government had taken measures to address the problem and that Rafael had not established a cognizable protected group, proven a nexus to a protected ground, or shown either that she had suffered past persecution or held an objectively reasonable fear of future persecution.Before the BIA, Rafael claimed that the removal proceedings were invalid for lack of jurisdiction because the initial Notice did not state the time and place. The BIA dismissed her appeal. The Sixth Circuit denied a petition for review. Rafael received the necessary notice and the IJ had jurisdiction; for purposes of her due process claim, she was not prejudiced by the omission of the place and time from the original notice. View "Rafael v. Garland" on Justia Law

Western Michigan University, a public university, requires student-athletes to be vaccinated against COVID-19 but considers individual requests for medical and religious exemptions on a discretionary basis. Sixteen student-athletes applied for religious exemptions. The University ignored or denied their requests and barred them from participating in any team activities. The student-athletes sued, alleging that University officials violated their free exercise rights.The district court preliminarily enjoined the officials from enforcing the vaccine mandate against the plaintiffs. The Sixth Circuit declined to stay the injunction and proceedings in the district court pending appeal. The court called the issue “a close call” but concluded the free exercise challenge will likely succeed on appeal. The University’s vaccine mandate does not coerce a non-athlete to get vaccinated against her faith because she, as a non-athlete, cannot play intercollegiate sports either way. The mandate does penalize a student otherwise qualified for intercollegiate sports by withholding the benefit of playing on the team should she refuse to violate her sincerely held religious beliefs. The court applied strict scrutiny and reasoned that the University did not establish a compelling interest in denying an exception to the plaintiffs or that its conduct was narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. View "Dahl v. Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University" on Justia Law

The 1954 Atomic Energy Act allowed private construction, ownership, and operation of commercial nuclear power reactors for energy production. The 1957 Price-Anderson Act created a system of private insurance, government indemnification, and limited liability for federal licensees, 42 U.S.C. 2012(i). In 1988, in response to the Three Mile Island accident, federal district courts were given original and removal jurisdiction over both “extraordinary nuclear occurrences” and any public liability action arising out of or resulting from a nuclear incident; any suit asserting public liability was deemed to arise under 42 U.S.C. 2210, with the substantive rules for decision derived from state law, unless inconsistent with section 2210.The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant enriched uranium for the nuclear weapons program and later to fuel commercial nuclear reactors. Plaintiffs lived near the plant, and claim that the plant was portrayed as safe while it discharged radioactive material that caused (and continues to cause) them harm.Plaintiffs, seeking to represent a class, filed suit in state court asserting claims under Ohio law. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the removal of the case on the grounds that the complaint, although it did not assert a federal claim, nonetheless raised a federal question under the Price-Anderson Act, and affirmed the subsequent dismissal. The Act preempted plaintiffs’ state law claims and the plaintiffs did not assert a claim under the Act but asserted that their “claims do not fall within the scope of the Price-Anderson Act.” View "Matthews v. Centrus Energy Corp." on Justia Law

Nicolescu, Miclaus, and coconspirators posted fake eBay car auctions. Operating from Romania, they concealed their IP addresses, and employed US-based “money mules,” to collect payments from unsuspecting buyers, taking in $3.5-$4.5 million. In 2014, a virus created by Nicolescu was embedded in the eBay auctions and in spam emails to collect more than 70,000 account credentials, including 25,000 stolen credit-card numbers. Their network of virus-infected computers “mined” for cryptocurrency, reaping $10,000–$40,000 per month, 2014-2016. The FBI and Romanian police executed a search warrant on members’ residences and retrieved electronic devices. Nicolescu and Miclaus were convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 12 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit service marks, five counts of aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.The district court added 18 levels to their Guidelines calculation (U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(1)(J)) for causing a loss of $3.5-$9.5 million, two levels (2B1.1(b)(4)) for being in the business of receiving and selling stolen property, two levels (2B1.1(b)(11)(B)(i)) for trafficking unauthorized access devices, four levels (2B1.1(b)(19)(A)(ii)) for being convicted under 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5)(A), and four levels (3B1.1(a)) for being an organizer or leader. They were sentenced to 216 and 240 months’ imprisonment.The Sixth Circuit affirmed the convictions, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and to jury instructions, but vacated the sentences. The court upheld the loss calculation and leadership enhancement. The court erred in applying the stolen property enhancement and in applying a 2B1.1(b)(19)(A)(ii) enhancement because the men were convicted of conspiracy, not a substantive section 1030(a)(5)(A) offense. View "United States v. Miclaus" on Justia Law

Hernandez, a citizen of Guatemala, has two minor children. Her daughter, A.L. is also a citizen of Guatemala. Her son, born in 2018, is a U.S. citizen. In 2016, Hernandez left Guatemala with her daughter and entered the U.S. without authorization. In removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(6)(A)(i), Hernandez sought asylum and withholding of removal, alleging that she was a member of the indigenous K’iche’, whom the Guatemalan government does not help. She alleged that she had suffered and feared future “persecution in the form of severe economic disadvantage or the deprivation of liberty, food, housing, employment and other essentials of life” on account of her status as an indigenous K’iche’ woman.Although the IJ found Hernandez credible, he denied her claims for relief and ordered her removed. The BIA affirmed. The Sixth Circuit denied a petition for review. Substantial evidence supports a conclusion that Hernandez had not shown “persecution” because any economic deprivation she suffered or feared was not, and would not be, “deliberately imposed by the Guatemalan government or non-government actors the government is unable or unwilling to control.” View "Hernandez-Hernandez v. Garland" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 922(g) for unlawfully possessing a firearm—one for being a convicted felon, the other for being a domestic violence misdemeanant. In this case, defendant's convictions stemmed from shooting his ex-girlfriend after an argument.The Sixth Circuit remanded with instructions to vacate defendant's sentence on one of the section 922(g) counts and to merge the two counts of conviction into one. The court concluded that this statute does not permit a court to, as the district court did here, impose multiple punishments on a defendant who commits one act of possession yet is both a felon and a domestic-violence misdemeanant. Furthermore, the district court plainly erred in doing so. The court otherwise affirmed the district court's judgment in all other respects, concluding that defendant's sentence was procedurally reasonable where the district court did not clearly err in applying the USSG 2A2.1(a)(2) cross-reference for attempted second-degree murder in calculating defendant's offense level. View "United States v. Grant" on Justia Law

On April 4, Debra went to Kentucky’s Manchester Memorial Hospital emergency room where she presented with numbness from the waist down, pain in both legs, with the right leg being worse and cold. On April 19, Debra’s right leg was amputated below the knee at the University of Kentucky Medical Center due to serious clots that restricted blood flow. Debra sued healthcare providers for failing to consider that Debra’s symptoms were caused by vascular issues rather than musculoskeletal abnormalities. The only remaining defendant is the government which was substituted under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346, 2671–80, for its employee, Dr. Madden, who examined Debra at the federally-supported health center on April 12.The district court entered judgment in favor of the United States. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The proper framing of the causation inquiry was not whether it would have made a difference as to the ultimate outcome if Dr. Madden had properly diagnosed the condition on April 12 but whether it would have made a difference to Debra’s outcome if Madden had considered the possibility of vascular causes as the source of her symptoms on April 12. The district court declined to resolve a dispute as to whether Debra suffered from ischemia from April 4 to April 13, or whether she suffered sudden ischemia on April 13, after she being seen by Madden. View "Chesnut v. United States" on Justia Law

Sofco terminated its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with a local union. The Ohio Operating Engineers Pension Fund then assessed almost a million dollars in withdrawal liability against Sofco under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1002(41. Sofco challenged the assessment in ERISA-mandated arbitration. The arbitrator upheld the assessment. The district court affirmed in part and reversed in part.The Sixth Circuit affirmed in part. The Fund’s actuary used a 7.25% growth rate on assets for minimum funding purposes but for withdrawal-liability purposes, used the “Segal Blend,” which violated ERISA’s mandate that the interest rate for withdrawal liability calculations be based on the “anticipated experience under the plan.” The court vacated the district court’s decision upholding the Fund’s assessment of partial-withdrawal liability for 2011-2013 and remanded. A construction-industry employer is liable for a partial withdrawal when its contributions decline to an “insubstantial portion of its work in the craft and area jurisdiction of the collective bargaining agreement of the type for which contributions are required.” The CBA clearly establishes the union’s jurisdiction over forklift work and Sofco’s obligations to contribute to the fund for that work. The district court did not err by concluding that the Fund properly included forklift work in the withdrawal liability calculation. View "Sofco Erectors, Inc. v. Trustees of the Ohio Operating Engineers Pension Fund" on Justia Law

Golf Village owns, maintains, and administers a 900-acre planned community in Powell, including one of 11 separate lots in a commercial development. A 2003 “Declaration of Private Roads” refers to the use of private roads by each commercial lot owner, its employees, customers, and invitees. In 2010, one lot was transferred to the city for a municipal park. In 2018, the City began using three streets without Golf Village’s permission, removed a curb, and built a construction entrance. Golf Village sued (42 U.S.C. 1983), claiming that Powell has taken its property without just compensation or due process.The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Golf Village did not establish the loss of its right to exclude; it could terminate the alleged taking by building a gate at the private street's entrance to ensure that everyone who drives on those streets is an invited guest. Under Golf Village’s analysis, any time the government took an action that made a property owner’s property more popular, regardless of what actions the property owner could take, there would be a taking. Any increased traffic, which may lead to additional maintenance costs, is merely a government action outside the owner’s property that causes consequential damages within. There are no material allegations that Golf Village cannot use and enjoy the private roads to the extent that it did before the City’s actions. View "Golf Village North, LLC v. City of Powell" on Justia Law